Ok I quit, but I’ll be back…. Maybe

This post is for all the lurkers and newbies. A rookie is having problems in the industry on how he is being treated by the desk jockeys. OP gets walked on doormat style by desk jockeys. Experienced drivers are telling him how they handle desk jockeys. What does OP do? Get into his feelings. “I feel, I feel, I feel.” Does that help?

We teach people how to treat us. No one signs up to get walked on. If you got walked on by a desk jock, quit and go to another company, guess what’s going to happen at the new company?

In the book, “Dispatching Dumies”, by JJ Keller, it says in the prologue, “TRUCK DRIVERS are Stupid. The only thing stupider than a truck driver is 2 truck drivers having an intelligent conversation.” Basically, if you have an issue/problem/challenge, your travel agent is paid to pretend like he cares about your venting and get you off the phone asap. Are you cool with that?I’m not. I sure as hell not going to get into my feelings.

This is business. If there’s a problem, desk jockey is going to hear about it. Desk jockey is trying to hurry to get you off the phone to go back to watching stupid TikTok videos.

“Sorry Six. That’s above my pay grade. Don’t know what to tell you.”
Tell me the name and phone extension of your superior.
“Well, she’s on vacation.”
When she’s on vacation, who makes decisions?
“I don’t know.”
If you have a problem, who do you call?
“Mr John Smith.”

Point is, if you’re having issues, make some noise. You will stand out from the crowd. Desk jockeys will try to avoid you, but if you are a solid, A Game driver, they will hate you but cater to you at the same time. Stick with the fact, hide your feelings. This is business, remember?

Luck in battle, noobs and lurkers.

 

Woo well that’s a doozy of a post. While I agree in principle with what you’re suggesting, there’s also the practicality of a situation.

Look I wish I had a war story for you guys about how I fought the man, and came out victorious. But the man cheats lies and steals. He’s using every advantage he has, and he knows more than you. He sits at a computer all day long, moving chess pieces and telling drivers that the game is checkers. It’s an unfair fight from the beginning.

Now I’m going to pushback slightly and disagree about the man ever catering to a rookie. It’s just not gonna happen very often. Remember, the man thinks all truck drivers are stupid. And is paid to tell you what you want to hear. Sometimes the best decision is to walk away.

I didn’t lose anything by walking away. They lost a driver. Who 10 months ago had nothing but now has a reasonable resume, and no CSA points for them.

My license was at risk. It was an unsafe job that paid just above minimum wage. It was easy to walk away.

While I agree that some issues would be best resolved with conversations, I also stand on not all issues.

Plus the man had already gotten one over on me and I didn’t realize it until later. Unfair advantage. Ok fool me once, fool me twice.

It was easy to walk away.

And I leave with 6 months of flatbed experience. A month of OTR training with a trainer. Flatbed training from two of the largest companies. 2 months of reefer experience. A month of dry van experience. A clean record. More doors open than closed. And I didn’t have to burn a bridge to do it. I could still get hired back at the same company, even the same exact job.

 

So refresh my memory , are you taking the fed x gig or the dollar store gig ?

 

Home Depot (aka flatbed dollar general)

oh miss read that, most likely fed ex. But Schneider still wants me to drive for them. I’m not sure yet.

 

You read to respond, not understand. Common flaw. Therefore, I reached out to the noobs to show them a common problem in trucking and how to avoid it.

You get walked on by every desk jockey. The company is irrelevant. Your quitting is irrelevant. Since you are the common denominator, you have to be doing something wrong. f you don’t change your approach, you will just repeat it wherever you go. Quitting is easier, but changes nothing in your situation.

quoted 3 different posts from 3 different drivers, telling you how to fix your problem. You got into your feelings. Embarrassing. Now, you’re talking about the man. The desk jockey isn’t the man, the man is the person that can make decisions. Desk jockeys believe you are stupid. They are terrified by drivers who aren’t. You get walked on by desk jockeys. Not all drivers, you. Drivers try to help you and you flop around like a fish out of water. That’s playing the Damsel in Distress Card. Are you helpless? Cue the old Bonnie Tyler “I Need a Hero” song.

Story Time:

Was in a daycab, home every day. 500 miles a day. Truck would shut off after 5 minutes of idling. Had a mixup at a shipper, spent 6 hours in a dock, then got a motel for a 10 hour break. Middle of summer. Called safety. Got every story about fuel costs to the company lawyer. “Sorry driver, there’s nothing I can do…don’t know what to tell you.” Give me the name of the person who can tell me. Got the Man on the phone. Started the same spill, about costs and the economy…but THIS is a safety issue.

What happens when a driver gets caught in foul weather and they shut the roads down and he can’t idle the truck?
“We don’t send our drivers out in bad weather.” (which is BS, but that’s the card he’s playing. How do you know when someone thinks you’re stupid? He says something stupid to you. BSing me is definitely confirmation)
Okay, what happens if your driver is on a stretch of controlled access highway, on a 20 mile section, hazmat spill blocks the road for 12-14 hours in the middle of summer…driver can’t even began to rest and relax because the truck won’t idle?
“I don’t have an answer…”
You’re not supposed to have an answer. Any answer that you can come up with, I can come up with a scenario that you can’t answer.
(Silence…the man realizes that I am not stupid, I am correct, and this IS a safety issue. Whenever someone thinks you’re stupid, and they realize that you’re not, they have to reset. Silence is wonderful…)
“Driver, I will call you back. I promise!”

He called back the following week. They got rid of their idling policy company wide. Yes, quitting is easier, but easy never changes anything. If you want to change the way you look, you work out. If it wasn’t tough and grueling, it wouldn’t be called a work out, but an easy out.

Anyway, my post was for all the noobs and lurkers who want to avoid the doormat treatment. You do you.

Six back quiet.

 

No other realistic choice for many of us.
What, have to pee and need to get dressed and put the shoes on and walk or run into the truck stop to do it?

But PLEASE!!! Do not just throw them out on the ground!? !!! Or be even more rude by tossing them under the truck next to you.
Or stepping out and peeing on the truck next to you.

 

I pour it out in the grass far from where any one would need to walk. I’m sure the dogs find it sometimes but I do what I can. I reuse the bottle too. 1 gallon Arizona bottle is perfect for me. I learned the hard way part of the pre trip is to make sure the bottle is empty.

 

https://g.co/kgs/iCdNcxJ

I might just head up here. I already know where I can go get some.

 

Just a little FYI, CSA scores are for the Carrier. PSP is for the Drivers.

 

The problem is you weren't dealing with "The Man". You were dealing with a peon that you didn't work for. Heck, you don't even really work for the peon that is/was your DBL - they work for you as much as you work for them, it's a bio feed back loop.

The ops manager that oversees your DBL is a Glorified Peon, as is the Safety Critter Manager. The division manager that oversees them is an Exalted Peon. It's not until you get to the Regional VP above them that you start dealing with "The Man". I'll grant you they all have more knowledge and skills than you do, but that's a function of experience - not power or ability. Experience that you could have gained.

You had a pay issue, I'm not really clear on the details but accept that you got screwed with no lube. It happened to me too - I was out for my first two weeks, came home a picked up my pay stub for my first week and almost had an aneurysm. First thing on Monday I'm on the horn to my DBL with a WTF! He explained how I was misreading my paystub, what per diem was and how that was screwing me, then got me off it. OVer my first year I missed out on a lot of pay because of things I was not doing. Little things like asking for routing points and letting my DBL know when I went on trailer searches after hours/weekends. He can't make sure I'm getting all the accessory pay if he doesn't know I did the work.

On one memorable occasion I was delivering into the Oconomowoc Roundys DC with an O'Dark-Thirty appointment. The night before I made it to the Mendota Road Ranger. At the time it was a Pilot dealer, but without showers - which I didn't know until I got there. In the morning I elected to move up to the Beloit Pilot 70 miles closer to delivery. That would let the batteries charge without incurring idle time, let me shower and still allow a 10 before I had to leave to deliver. Had I stayed in Mendota, I would have been automatically paid layover. If I'd talked to my DBL ahead of time, I could have made the move and still gotten layover. I took it on the chin and moved on a little smarter.

A couple of weeks after that I was sent into Bay Valley foods in Rochelle, IL. I arrived at 1600 for what I thought was a 1700 appointment. Bay Valley told me it was a 1900 appointment, my 14 ended at 2000. And they were running behind. Bay Valley said I couldn't sleep on the property, so I called Support Shift to let them know I needed to leave. They put me on hold and 'called the customer', then told me they had secured permission to overnight on the property. I pushed back and was told "tough noogies, you aren't allowed to leave until you deliver". My clock expired in the dock, I snuck into a dock. A couple hours later, security wakes me up and tells me to leave the property. I say I'm out of hours and "XXX" told me I could stay on the property. Security said "XXX" doesn't have the authority to say that and the other drivers are going up the road to the Petro. I say I have an AOBR, he says I need to leave "OR ELSE". I comply like a little #####, so tired, stressed by the AOBR squawking like an aggrieved mother-in-law and petrified about going to jail for being rear ended outside the HOS I began driving the 10 miles to the Petro. A mile down the road I spotted a truck repair yard, sneak in and restart my ten. In the morning, I call in stressed about being fired for the HOS violation, but I didn't driver far enough, fast enough to trigger drive time so my DBL said "no worries" and "sorry for your troubles". I'm all


A month or so later I have another O-Dark-Thirty appointment on Saturday at the DG in Moorehead, KY that I could be at by 11:00. I send in messages asking for an earlier appointment or to set up a drop, my DBL talks to CS and tells me to call back in the morning, but he would pay out layover if I can't deliver early. I get up early and power into the truck stop that is down the road, park and call in. DBL Robbie condescendingly says "you might as well head in and try since you started your clock and we're screwed". I tell him I have time to take a full 10 and still make OTD, so that becomes the plan. As we end the call I tell Robbie that I'm going to need to know which direction to head in because there won't be parking when I'm done at 0300 and if I don't have a pre I'm going to move to the Pilot 75 miles west. 0300 comes and I don't have a pre-assignment, so I take a swing through the truck stop down the road and
- no parking. I mean who would have thought that all 30 spots at the only truck stop within 75 miles of a Dollar General DC would be full at 0300. So I drive the 75 miles west to the pilot, turn up the volume of the QC to max and lay down. 0600 I get a pre-assignment telling me to move 30 miles down the road for a 0700 appointment. The problem is it's 30 miles EAST of DG, aka 105 miles from where I'm at and I need to pee before I can leave. Send in the MAC 18, pee and get coffee, and am just about to release the breaks when Schneider calls asking "WTF, you were available at 0300, why aren't you going to make on time pick up?". I calmly explained the scenario and told them that if they had assigned the load at 0300 I would have made different decisions. They responded "you need to call in before running more than 5 miles OOR". I tell them to check the tapes and ask if they still want me to roll on the load. Monday morning my DBL gets MF'd by weekend Ops, digs into things then calls me that afternoon and tells me "Atta boy, I'm adding the routing point for the extra miles and tossing in a trailer search for your trouble". Then asked what a 'trailer search' was (more on that later).

I got screwed on the Roundy's load because I didn't know any better.

I got screwed on the Bay Valley load because I allowed myself to be screwed. I should have stood my ground. First with Support Shift and the Recieving Clerk - either getting written permission overriding the "no overnight parking" or leaving with the load. Secondly with the security guard. My response to him should have been "XXX gave me permission to overnight here, I'm out of hours so I'll need a tow. Before my company will authorize a tow you'll either need to contact them or call in LEOs to trespass me. Which route do you want to take?" Odds are, the security guard is going to back down.

On the DG load I was proactive, and got paid.

A year later the bonus metrics changed. It was problematic on many levels. I had a conversation with my DBL who basically said


Then I sent an email to my Division Manager and started perusing other jobs. Nuno brought me in for a conversation (paying out layover that I wasn't technically entitled to), then put me in touch with Office Orifices which resulted in Enterprise wide changes and put me on the Driver Advisory Council, which led to me being a member of the Technology Test Group, which led to other opportunities.

TLDR - As you're starting you're going to take a few on the chin. You either learn to keep your gloves up and effectively counter punch or you're going to be a punching bag.