D.B.L problems

Were you supposed to bobatil in? We're there remarks saying "no bobtails" in the load information?

Why curse at your dbl for being turned down for IC? How was it your dbl's fault?

 

To be honest, It sounds like he's a problem driver.

 

A. Why would you curse your dbl for getting turned down for ic? Why do drivers feel it is ok to curse out their boss? Try that in another job and see what happens. You are a vet...did you curse out your superiors in the army like that?

B. If you went to a customer bt and weren't supposed to, you deserved a good butt chewing. It's called a service failure, and service is all a trucking company has to sell.

 

Well..just by reading your responses...i can see why they turned you down...

 

Wow.

When you disagreed with your commanding officer you settled it like men? I don't think so.

Bingo.

 

So instead of giving a knee jerk response this morning I decided to wait and re-read the thread. That being done:

I'm not sure where any0ne was "nit picking". We asked some questions and gave honest opinions. Nit picking would be along the lines of asking if you were wearing HI-VIS and safety footwear, or twirled the landing gear handle, or thumped your tires with a claw hammer instead of a 3lb. rubber coated sledge.

I would honestly like to know why you were turned down for I/C? Was is it financial status, driving record (either official or internal), service levels, or something else? It's hard to "read beyond the context" when you've given us very little context to begin with. You've been a member since January with 8 posts. The first bashing Schneider, then this thread. We're more than willing to help solve problems and give advice but it needs to be asked for. I sent you a PM offering to help escalate your original post but you never responded.

Drivers like to complain about the idiots in the dispatch office, the shop, or upper management. Very rarely do they take a step back and look at their own role in problems.

The second highest reason driver's at Schneider lose their bonus is ETA accuracy. For those not at SNI - once loaded and ready to depart the shipper (pre trip, paperwork, etc all done only thing left is to release the brakes) the driver tell Schneider when they will make delivery. They then get a window of time - 3 hours before and 30 minutes after - to be considered accurate. So if I tell SNI I'll deliver at 15:45 I can deliver anywhere between 12:45 and 16:15 and still be considered accurate. Considering our average length of haul is under 500 miles hitting a 3:30 window shouldn't be hard yet we've got guys getting routed in for "retraining" with eta accuracy of less than 50%, rough guess is that fleet wide we sit about 80% accurate. Life happens, but not that much.

The problem gets worse when you look at the last eta/next available time accuracy. Some of it is drivers being too dumb to count past 10 without taking off their shoes and socks, some of it is the driver not communicating. Couple of weeks ago my DBL spend the morning trying to get in touch with one of his drivers. Let's say it was Wednesday morning, load didn't have to deliver until midnight Thursday. Driver had his eta/availability set for a Wednesday early afternoon delivery but was still sitting in the truck stop late morning and was tracking late for the eta that the DRIVER inputted. My dbl initially just pushed out the availability and sent a message saying "what's up?", then tried following up with a phone call. After a couple more tries he gets the T/S to walk out and check on the driver. The Driver was taking a 34 hour restart, just had never informed Schneider, but thought everything was fine because he was still going to meet the customer's delivery expectations. Driver is PISSED at the dbl for all the messages, phone calls and getting the T/S involved, yet it's all the drivers fault for not communicating. And I'll bet you $1,000 to a three day old doughnut that had something happened to the driver (heart attack, etc) and Schneider didn't get proactive the driver's family would be suing for negligence.

All of this is a long winded was of saying "how did things get to how they are?", "what decisions did I make/not make that contributed to this situation?", "how can I make things better for myself?". Every time I end up in the manure I ask myself these questions. Then start working to make my life better. Outside circumstances may limit my options, force my hand, or otherwise constrain me, but at the end ultimately it's up to me to make the life I want.