My new adventure with Gordon Trucking

awesome...lol

 

Wow. My small regional carrier and the big national carrier have things in common. LIKE ALL CAPS. Geez, I hate that! And what's up with those delivery times, anyway? 0000-0000, when what the receiver REALLY wants is 0000 sharp. Or 1400-1400, when what the shipper really wants is "Whenever..."

But, like our dispatchers are fond of saying, "We're not here to think for you. Deal with it, driver."

Bums.

 

Another thing our dispatchers are fond of saying is, "We expect you to run completely legal. But do what you have to do to deliver <insert one of several customers here> on time; and by 'on time' we mean 0400, not 0401."

Run completely legal? Well...MOSTLY legal.

 

We always run completely legal.. elogs assures that. As for the time thing if we have a time that is a hard appointment it will have say 1400-1400 and will also tell you it is a live load/unload so you know you need to be there at that time. Most of the time my concern is not being there ontime but will they take me early or can I relay the load and move on to the next one. Guys who whine about delivery appointments are what I call "tourists" who are more concerned about hanging out in truck stops than moving on down the road... that being said I am going in for some breakfast at the petro in monee, il.

 

Yes, Gordon considers one (1) minute late on a Service Watch load a service failure. Service failures at Gordon are NOT taken lightly and can result in disciplinary action right up to termination. I never had a service failure, but once when I met with my Fleet Manager, she claimed I had three. That wasn't true and by the end of the conversation she had reversed all three.

I was completely unaware. You aren't notified that someone at Gordon has hung a service failure on you. Then, hopefully you can remember your loads well enough to defend yourself when it comes up unexpectedly face-to-face with your Fleet Manager, who can correct your slate or write it in stone.

I was lucky. It took a minute, but I remembered each load well enough to defend myself. I had not expected to need defend against anything. At one point she claimed I had been "giving operations a hard time." (I wanted to know the delivery window on my loads--and I was pretty insistent.)

She inadvertently left the screen open to the same DM extolling my virtues. "Victor is one helluva driver... " I smiled, and she quickly changed the screen.

Ha-ha! Typical Gordon.

 

That doesn't sound like a company I would like to drive for. Trucking is stressful enough without management antagonizing you for being one minute late.

 

Now granted Im not a Gordon driver but I have read and did a lot of research on this company. The way I understand it is that if you accept a PP saying that you can make the appt. you are expected to do so. Just as any other company barring any issues breakdown, weather, ect.

 

Yes..this is very true and nothing out of the ordinary about it as I stated earlier, if for some reason you get a ppl you don't think you can run ontime then communicate with your dm so problems can be avoided. I go through this all the time. A load planner will send you a ppl and then your dm will follow with a message asking you to confirm the ppl if you can do it ontime.. pretty simple. The problem is when guys don't do proper trip planning and halfway into it they realize they don't have the hours or enough time to do it after it is too late to fix it.

Nice to see you out here greyhound.. I still haven't gotten back home yet. Got stuck on west coast..mostly my fault for taking a run out there and not being able to get back home. Going home this week after 6 weeks out.. road rage setting in bad..lol..almost 17k in miles though since leaving house with 3 more days to go but I got to get a service so will lose a day there...cya

 

Hope you enjoy your time off Driver, After 6 weeks out you do deserve it.