Forced Dispatch

FORCED DISPATCH = It is a TRUCKING COMPANY not a TRAVEL AGENCY

 

Congrats on the hard work, discipline, and recovery from surgery! You guys rock!

There's another side of forced dispatch, the business side.

By the time a driver is asked/told to take a load, that load has been entered into a carrier's books. That means there's a shipper-carrier or consignee-carrier agreement to pull that load (and maybe others from the same shipper or to the same consignee). Maybe it's a spot-market load (dispatched the day it's tendered to the carrier), maybe it's part of a long-term contract, maybe it's an expedited load. At the engineering office I mention here sometimes, we got a lot of business that became repeat business because we took rush jobs. That meant we often worked nights and weekends (which is to say, when we didn't want to). Once, on a landslide repair, I was called at home on Thanksgiving. I dropped the carving knife and drove 200 miles to consult with a contractor who became a bread and butter client. I could have said no (= I could have turned down the load).

In any case, it's a load the carrier has agreed to haul and there's no calling the customer after the fact and saying, "None of our guys want to pull your stuff." "No one wants to go to FIB." (fill in the blank) "None of our drivers has hours." Do that a few times and someone else will be pulling that customer's loads. So the dispatches are forced the same way clerks wait on every customer who walks into a store and for the same reasons: money and the hope for--need for--repeat business.

Yes, HOS, weather, promised hometime, breakdowns, whatever come into play.

Again, great job on the weight loss! Cheers!

 

I'm not worried about you two -- you're grown ups. Seriously. I think you'll do fine out there. Sometimes, you'll both know when, 'no' will be the only thing you can say. Not to worry.

Now batten down the hatches 'cause an Alaska storm is comin'. Gonna be a soaker, they say. We're just up the hill from ya so we'll be getting it too.

 

Hey, now. I'm old enough to remember Gene Kelly!

 

i'm old enough to remember "Grog" the caveman...