Dispatched loads wasting entire day

If they don't have a load for you that picks up near your PTA time, they will send you the next available load.
And it would be based on your PTA and how many drivers were in line for a load before you.
If you are in a low freight area, there could be a wait.

I'm not sure how good you are with delivering a load in the morning and then being expected to pick up a load that night.
Personally, I turn them down because I would have been up all day and would not have gotten any real sleep.
I don't consider it safe to push my hours like that.

They have pulled the same thing on me and sometimes are not happy with me for turning down the load, especially since I had 10 hours between.
But I'm not going to adjust my sleep cycle like that. It's unhealthy and dangerous.

I also work at Swift, by the way.

 

Chinatown would tell you that running reefer means you never sit, but it isn't true. This time of year is low on freight, so everyone sits sometimes.

You are not crazy to turn down loads like that. The crazy ones are those that take those loads.
Not enough sleep to be safe, changing hours of operation to satisfy the planners wishes is a recipe for accidents.
It will always be the drivers fault if something bad happens. After all, you are the captain of your ship and have total control over what you do.

And it really is that you can't physically do it.
Getting up at 0500 to be at a delivery at 0700, then they want you to pick up that same day at 2200.
You can not make yourself go to sleep for 8 hours when you are not ready for sleep, and then drive all night on top of that.

Some would say it is part of the trucker life. I say nay, nay!
My trucker life is doing the job safely to the best of my ability. But I won't compromise my ability or safety.

The planners only look at the numbers on the screen. They take no account of your actual well being or the hours involved between loads.
That is up to you.

In all my time at Swift (13 years), I have not been penalized for turning down loads like that.
I send the mac 9 with the reason, and I get sent a different load. Often a much better load. Sometimes there is a wait time if loads are scarce.

 

Welcome to trucking. Your time isn't worth much if anything at all and this is pretty normal every day how it is at just about any company.

 

It pretty much is trucking in general in my view. I've delivered in the am and had to wait til dark to reload. It happens. A short run, no big deal. I'll run it and take a nap at the customer. If it picks up at 10 pm, you could head to the shipper and check in. You may get loaded early. That happens fairly often, unless it's a meat plant. A cold storage place, you can get lucky sometimes. In the reefer world, there are times where you flip flop your clock. If you know you're incapable of doing that, you may need to do dry van or better yet, flatbed. In flatbed, you're almost assured of a "normal schedule."

 

You complain when you get a load later in the day with ample time to take a seven hour break then you complain that when you tell them, you don’t wanna do it, that you sit. Unless I misunderstanding something…. Reefer has crazy hours and schedules. It’s not for everybody. If you’re looking for something more stable, I suggest open deck. More stable and a bit of exercise to keep you young.

 

FYI -- I did dry van & intermodal (both drop & hook) for Schneider -- & I did not encounter the above-described insanity.

-- L