Phrases dispatchers hate.

"Well, I'm sicker than a dog and starting to fall asleep at the wheel, so you got 2 choices. Put it in writing that I'm indemnified if this truck ends up in the ditch, or get off my ### and let me kick this bug so that I can get back to full health and be productive for you again."

And my personal favorite, after having had a dispatcher hang up on me:
"Tell you what; you don't waste my time, I won't waste yours. Truck number: ######"

 

Sick calls I make to home ground, either wife or parents before wife. Dispatch usually "Lose me" somewhere in the USA, call my folks and find out I am sick and am working my way home on instinct. I could be pretty sick but to get home is pretty irrevocable loaded or not, out of route or not, fuel card or not etc. For their credit they have accommodated me very well in those troubled times and not bothered me too much. It will come out one of two ways, fever breaks and I re-hydrate for half a day and sleep the other half or I end up in hospital to get a operation to fix the problem as happened several times. We will get going soon enough.

 

Funny enough, I didn't say anything other than my truck number. I was calling in because my loaded call didn't go through, and apparently that particular dispatcher on the weekend team decided they didn't want to deal with me for whatever reason. Only reason I was able to make that comment about wasting time was because, against astronomical odds, the exact same person answered the phone when I immediately redialed. Bad first impressions aside, she was honestly a pretty great individual to work with once I set a no-nonsense tone with her; if there was something I needed from the company on the weekend, she'd get it taken care of in short order, and there was never any drama with her if I said I couldn't safely/legally do something. Just a game of keep the truck moving, with everyone ending up happy. People rag on Swift, and for the most part it IS well justified, but the folks up in the Troutdale terminal were an absolute pleasure to work with. All my problems with the company came from Phoenix, Memphis or Greer

 

I disagree. As a company driver you have no say in where the truck goes but you decide if you want to move it. Might lose your job but no ones forcing you to drive when you know you shouldn’t.

 

I ran out of hrs. the sound of breath in my ear after waiting 7.5 hrs to get loaded and kicked out of property. with no hrs pricelesss

 

Back in the day, I worked for a company that git sued and closed due to an idiot driver of theirs who made a U turn on the interstate because he missed his exit and got hit by a greyhound full of people..
Anyways, They slipseated trucks, old cabovers, got into one and forgot to check the sleeve over sunvisor and the previous driver took the fuel card.
So I left home drove to Amarillo, no card, called and told the lady in dispatch, she used to take a company phone home for breakdowns/problems and told her I needed $1000 to make my round on to Cali snd the only place they let us fuel out there was Needles.
I had to unload, reload and bring it back to yard so the next guy could take it on to Orlando.
She said, “I don’t know if I can give that much money at once.”
My reply was, “Well, I dont care if you give $50 at a time, I will just be calling you every couple of hours, and I don’t know what your husbands going to think when he hears this phone ringing all night, and if he answers, I’m just going to hang up.”
I got my money and made the trip with $75 left.

 

Ours hate this one but 90% of calls are "need to swap units, my assigned is oos".

 

This one is one of the forgotten problems of money in trucking.

We used to have tolls in richmond VA which was either a quarter, a dime or a nickel and a hell of bag ful every day. A round trip down and back after loading was simple back then,. but when they started sending me for two or even three ball bearing loads for the port well.. they needed to cut me money for that tolls etc.

My version was a little different but essentially the same. Here is reciepts from last tolls pack, it will be about another 30 dollars cash please for tolls today.

WTF we gave you money this morning, yes for that round trip. Here is another trip down there money please.

WTF and they give it. It gets worse when one considers 95 going north and east. In those days you could run route one and get into Jersey near Trenton and then through the woods to bypass all tolls. But sure the cost balanced out in fuel burnt going around.

Finally but not least back in the mid 90's I had dispatch refuse cash advances even though there is payroll on it and due to me in a few days. And frankly that turned into a big problem. No more employed driver, a bobtail to recover plus a trailer of car parts needing repowered before a major assembly in Detriot area would have to shut down for lack of those parts. (Tires from NC)

Are they still sure they would still say no about that stupidly small amount of advance on the comdata? Sheesh. It cost them way more than that to clean that mess up. I was off road for 6 months because of that but was back on soon enough anyway.

Ultimatey having thousands in savings meant the company owed me for everything related to the truck. Pay us. Shoes on the other foot. If you stayed with a company long enough they learn how to work their systems so you arent having to go upstairs and bother someone for "Pay me" for the stack of expenses and so on backed by documented trip number and so on to the nth degree. They were not used to that. In the past they ask a question, prove it. uhhhh.. sorry. beat it you waste our time. But when they asked us to prove it, out came the reciepts and then the legal sized journal opened to the exact loads involved. Takes a hour to walk them through all that.

OMG here is your numbers get your money, beat it already. Bye.