Medical Emergency, ahead of schedule, they repowered my load.

I think this topic has been discussed and anything further is only ---



With this said however I want to shift a gear and delve into a better way to explain most of my posts on this board as well as others as it deals with YOU the driver A developing a good working relationship with your Fleet Manager. B being totally honest with your company in ALL contacts with them. If you are ever caught in a lie and become a driver who can not be believed your Fleet manager is now not in a position to help you get out of a tight place AND never will be. The days of drivers leaving a terminal and the company losing all tracking of you is over and this will never happen again. Most carriers can and do track you and your movements. You can't no longer use creative logging because of GPS tracking. Fuel stops are tracked. An experienced Fleet manager knows the area's where casino's are. Most have had to deal with that one driver that thinks they are an idiot and try to con them out of advance money. I think I told this story recently in another thread. A while before I retired I was making a delivery in a South Florida Walmart DC and did not get out of there until well after midnight. ANY of you that have been in South Florida know that parking is almost impossible there during the day and it is worse at night. I did not consult my company because I knew the on duty dispatch would not take the chance authorizing me to drive to the port of Manatee where I knew I could park. I made the decision to go anyway. Later on that same day when my 10 was up I was dispatched on a load and the dispatch was based on my being at the Walmart DC NOT where I actually was. This messed up my fuel solution and I had to contact my company. My Fleet manager told me OK I understand why you did this no worries and he adjusted my dispatch and reset my fuel solutions. NOW if I was in an accident my Fleet manager would have been in a position to help me with safety about not being where I was supposed to be. Try this after not being honest and see how far you get! HONESTY is NOT the best policy IT IS THE ONLY POLICY when it comes to dealing with your company. Again this is not a slam against the OP. It is just a hijack about honesty.

 

Safety hit me with a preventable while stationary in traffic because, among other things, I was line 5 on the way to visit family and had left the terminal after I was out of time on both my 11 and 14.

My honesty meant dick. I told them where I was deadheading to and why, so they could dispatch me from that location.

 

Hold it, you have just mixed apples with oranges and then built a bridge around it all. First of all if Safety hit you with a preventable it was because YOU had an accident they determined to be preventable. it had NOTHING WHAT SO EVER to do with your logs. On the other does your company allow you to use THEIR equipment as a personal conveyance? My last company did not do this. It does not matter if your logs has this line 5 or not. If you were not following established company policy in this area it may not matter what you told your company. Just saying.

Also assuming your post is the total unvarnished truth. It is true that sometimes drivers get screwed. I get this. However I stand by my honesty statement and will always believe it to be the best way to handle problems.

 

He's a Swiftie with his own truck leased to Swift. So technically he does get to PC however much he wants. Swift has weird ideas about things though.

 

I guess I'll hop on the hi-jack train.

Things to remember:

1) Neither the company, the industry nor the world cares about you. To the extent that any of them help you it is because it is in their best interests or what they think are their best interests. It's nothing personal.

2) The biggest thing you can do to improve your treatment is to do your job as quietly as possible. If they don't have to think about your assignments once they are issued and can't remember what job you are on until they need to assign you another one you are doing it right.

3) Establish pleasant relationships with everyone you have to deal with, from the kid that sweeps the shop to the owner of the company to the pissed-off-at-the-world shipping clerk at that godfersaken hellhole nobody likes to pick-up/deliver at. That goodwill comes in handy when you have a problem that is more than routine. That also means you have to keep at it and do it with the "new guy" every time there is a "new guy". That means you have to be understanding of their problems and challenges when they cause you pain: It's part of the investment you make in order to get help in return some day.

4) That means you have to act like an adult when you get shafted. Just because you got done doesn't mean that it was aimed at you, odds are you just happened to be in blast range. Very few people have the energy and motivation to go out of their way to make life hard for you. Don't provide them with the motivation. But, lots of people are lazy and inconsiderate enough to screw you by default if you let them. Be on the lookout and fix things early. Remember that it is not personal. Don't let it become personal for you. You will just make it worse.

 

NOOOOOO !!!! too many truths ... it will cause exploding heads .... oh the humanity ....

 

I didn't get my truck through Swift. It's their base plates and operating authority though. They did it to cover their own ###, plain and simple.

 

Yes.

You do not own the company. They are responsible for all cargoes accepted for haul.

Your wife's medical emergency due to baby and problems with that left the ability to deliver in doubt. So the company sent a repower to fetch your load and run it in.

We did that quite a bit, in our time. Grab loads off others so that they can focus on whatever is preventing them from being on time.

There is no point in talking about reasons why it would have been better for your wife to not be on the road with you while pregnant. Or anything else really.

They took the load, and run it in. You did not get the whole earnings for that run and probably stand to lose even more once all the medical bills hit. And that would be that.

Shake it off and keep on trucking. That's the best way you can do right now. Otherwise if you cannot focus on running freight, then go home a while and don't come out of there until everything is in order and you are free to focus on completing loads.