How to start at a dispatcher?

Ride with a truck driver minimum of 3 weeks otr

You'll be the favorite and best dispatcher @ your company.

 

otr stands for Over The Road

 

Anybody that would want to be a dispacher or driver manager must be out of their mind. Infact, most dispatchers/DM's are former drivers that are no longer qualified to drive a CMV for one reason or another. Its a real boiler room job and probably just as bad as telemarketing. I've been in our head office many times and seen it first hand and would not trade my driving job for that if it was the last job left on the planet. What you really need is a compass for direction.

 

Well, that's the mentality you need to have for that job. I did it for 2 years, and it was by far the most stressful job I've ever had. It wasn't even the drivers who bothered me so much, it was the rest of the people in the office. I'd clock out and go home, but still be thinking about work, and wouldn't be able to sleep. Even when I did sleep, I'd have nightmares about work. So, I decided that dispatching was for the birds, and sought other employment, and have been much happier since.

 

This.

If you still want to do it though, you should at a minimum ride with the drivers in the type of trucking you want to dispatch for. To be a good dispatcher, you must understand the transportation side of it. That comes from first hand experience, not starting in an office, forming your own perspective / interpretation of the operation based on telephone calls. Ideally, go get your CDL, and go driving for a few months to learn the business. That way you will not only have a decent understanding of the important aspects of it, you'll also have a CDL and some wheel-time for when you drop-kick the office phone one day and get fired, you can go get a driving job.

Good luck on your adventure.

 

How true. I've had many dispatchers flip out on me over the phone.

 

Why is that ?