Need advice from some more experienced sand guys out there

Here's the situation. I'm on a prefill order for Pioneer right now. (Background) I got to location and hooked up to the silo. I pressured up, opened the jet line valve and immediately blew a coupler. A few hours later, the coupler was fixed and I'm back out on location. We were supposed to blow off in a certain silo, but there were 2 trucks that had just hooked up to it. I was going to run out of hours, so I call dispatch to inform them of what was transpiring. The dispatcher tells me to just hook up to the silo next to it and blow off so I don't run out of hours. I do what he says and all is well. I get back to the yard and go off duty at 230am this morning.

At 8am, I get woken up by our ####### dispatcher (who is supposed to be off for the next 5 days) chewing my ### out about blowing off in the wrong silo. Even after I explained that night dispatch told me to, he continued to yell at me. He told me that Pioneer was really pissed about it and that we might lose our contract with them now. I get off the phone with him quite pissed off (been asleep for about 3 hours at that point) After not being able to go back to sleep, I go down to the yard to talk to the on duty dispatcher (who is much more calm.) He tells me that Pioneer didn't even know about it, but still wants me to write a statement about what happened...basically throwing the night dispatcher under the bus after he helped me out. After questioning the logic of making a mountain out of a mole hill (since Pioneer doesn't even know) by involving the terminal manager and possibly corporate, I find out that they don't like the night dispatcher and are trying to get him fired.
I just started hauling sand about a month ago, but I can tell that things are being very poorly handled in several areas. I do not want to be a party to the dispatch pissing match by writing a statement, but they are saying I could get into big trouble over this. I don't want to get into trouble, but I'm not going to wrongly throw somebody under the bus...especially when they were helping me. Thoughts?

 

Maybe there is an ongoing problem with night dispatch? I would write a statement giving only the facts IF my supervisor told me they needed it. I would not do it just because the day dispatcher told me to. Also, me personally, I would let my supervisor know about the incredibly unprofessional phone call that woke me up. I would have hung up on them. If there is a problem, you can call and we can discuss it, but no one is going to get away with yelling at me over doing what I was told.

 

pissing contest between dispatcher, I agree with the fact that I d hang up on his nose after the first yelling part !
For blowing in the silo or which one i d refer to the pusher on location rather than dispatch next time.
that way when your dispatch B#$tch you ll tell them , well the customer wanted it there so i put it there !
Also if you are just waiting on location can't you go into Off Duty at well site ? that would save on your HOS

 

No pusher as it's a pre fill. Just off duty would have done nothing as my 15 was almost dead. I was told that we weren't allowed to use off duty waiting which was the only thing that would have stopped my clock completely. I'm not going to write a statement until I talk to the terminal manager on Monday.. This is really ridiculous.

 

Oil

Oilfield exemption only applies to drivers of equipment that is used exclusively in oil field operations and for no other purpose. Said equipment must require extensive specialized training. Water, sand, and oil haulers need not apply. Basically frac and coiled tubing operators are the only ones who can legally use the oilfield exemption.

 

Talked to the terminal manager today. He said a bunch of "He shouldn't have done that!" and "He needs to do a better job of communicating!" But not once did he state that he would talk to the dispatcher or put a stop to it. In the morning, I'm gonna make a couple of phone calls about it.

 

yep that's the rule book says... now i'm betting if you look at the log books or elogs of 99% of those hauling sand out there you may see something different. what about the possibility of them running under the Texas intrastate rules? to be honest, started reading through the statutes and i definitly need more coffee before attempting that.
https://www.dps.texas.gov/internetforms/Forms/MCS-9.pdf

 

Texas Intrastate allows you a 15 hour day after 8 hours of rest. Anyone can use it as long as they only run in Texas. Once you cross state lines you are required to follow federal HOS for the next 7 days. We ran into this issue when we had drivers from Midland hauling frack tanks into New Mexico. Those drivers lost one hour per day for the next week.

I've worked at some yards that allow drivers to follow the intrastate exemption and some that choose not to.

 

yeah, that's what i'm thinking most are running THINKING they are running or they are being TOLD they are running Oilfield HOS. dunno.

 

well first of all u do call dispatch and let them no what's going about the load. If they don't have a layout of the silos of what goes where they are not suppose to tell u to put it anywhere. Any good dispatcher would call pioneer sand coordinator and find out where to put that sand. I saw in your statement that you said u was unloading into a silo. Each pioneer silo have a place on it telling you what's belongs where. All though u getting ready to run out of hours it's best to run out of hours than contaminate a silo. By doing that u will lose your job and plus it will b hard to get another job hauling sand. The other companies will think if u did it there u will do it here. Good luck out there