Getting time off ?

I had a job once where I gave notice of time off I would be taking in 4 months when they hired me. Weekly reminders in the month leading up to it, and then daily reminders that I needed to be heading towards the house during the last week. The morning I was supposed to be home, they wanted me to "head to Laredo to see about getting a load home". When I asked if there was a load there waiting for me to hook up to, they said "no, but if you head that way we'll try to find something for you". Then they acted surprised when I asked 'em where they wanted their truck. Yup. I quit, had Enterprise pick me up @ their terminal, cleaned out the truck, and I went home. Sorry, but when I can make 1 or 2 phone calls and have another job lined up, why on earth would I continue working for a company that obviously doesn't respect me enough to get me home for something that is important to me?

 

Did you "remind" whoever needed reminding a week or so ahead? When you run 48 or otherwise "far and wide" you should be able to get a sense of when a dispatch 4-5 days ahead of time off may be putting you into a potential hometime failure. You have to be pro-active as a driver and remind them or at least let them know when you sense you are going to maybe have issues on your current trajectory.

You have to find a diplomatic way of telling them to get their crap together and soon. You did your part, they have to do theirs.

 

My company will offer me a great run right before I'm due home, and I know I can't make it back home on time. If I need home, I tell dispatch about it and they find a different load.
if I don't need home on time, I take the load and let them find me load back to home.
You'll catch on.

 

alot of places are getting better at this. GOOD drivers are hard to find now more then ever, and they want to keep them. companies are starting to relize this.

for instance i had some time off comming up last month real important thing going on. problems with my load ment that i would be waiting the weekend to reload. my dispatch BENT BACKWARDS on getting me lined up to make the plane out, infact got me back early. i even made the city delivery.

its a give and take. now with the driver mills, i know with the company i started with i had the suitcase in the car waiting for me when i got back and good thing, i drove all night and just made it. some people just dont care when it comes to what a driver wants on their board.

these are all things booked well in advance, short notice your on your own!

 

Hometime is simple for me. I explained it to dispatch when we started out together.

There is 2 types of hometime
-R&R-Just going home to hang out for a couple days. Don't much care when i get there. Take the most profitable runs we can find and we'll get there when we get there.

-Scheduled Events-I will be home that day. If it looks like they will be unable to succeed in that due to their incompetence i will deadhead home if practical or get a plane ticket home. I will send him the bill for that plane ticket and resume my duties when I'm finished.

I've never missed a scheduled event hometime. If you let them walk all over you they will. Their is no excuse for being late on hometime where important events are scheduled.

 

Even if you are working for a forced dispatch company when you get a load that puts you 2000 miles away from home 2 days before your scheduled time off you need to let dispatch know before you accept the load.

If they tell you they don't care then you know it's time to start putting job applications in.

 

+1 on Rambling Man's comment. Swift has been good at getting me home for the appointments. Yes, they do like to drop that 1500 mile preplan on me the day before, and if home time is for R&R, I'll generally take the run. If, however, I need to be home, they get me there.

One time, they got me ~350 miles from home, then told me that they didn't have anything going toward home. I told them that I was just starting to take my 10, and if there was nothing available when my 10 was done, I was going to deadhead home. 9h35m later, a preplan showed up that dropped off 30 miles from home.

I give hometime notice ~3 weeks out, then every 5-7 days after that. I'm generally out 4-5 weeks, by choice, when OTR... you don't make money sitting at home!