The Good, The Bad, The Honest Truth of a New Roehl Lease Operator

Me too. I'm on my 3rd dispatcher since last June and I've liked them all. My first ran me like crazy, but I kept up and got great miles consistently. My 2nd was a new guy but was easy to get along with and didn't send me to the poor house. My third is because I started training so I have a trainer dispatcher. He's good also. The one thing they all had in common was they didn't micromanage. Just dispatched the runs and left me alone. I like as little contact with FM as possible.

 

HUH??? I love contacting my FM. I tell him, here is the fax number for you to send my OD permits to.

 

The problem I'm running into is that they want to run me like a company truck. Then when I turn down a load they get mad. Sorry, but I can't afford two 100 mile loads back to back. If you want me to take a load with less than 400 miles there needs to be something on the other end that makes it worthwhile. I don't want to hear, "We'll see what turns up."

 

I get that alot to preacher, they take personal if you turn down a short one, or even ask if there is a good one on the back end.

 

I think the problem is that dispatch can't make the mental shift from dispatcher to broker. With a company driver you just keep the truck moving, your first responsibility is to make money for the company. With an o/o you have to work harder and communicate with a business owner. You are looking for the best available load for the company and the contractor. This means you have to actually find out what the contractor is looking for. If his goal is 2300-2500 miles a week, why waste your time offering him a 200 mile load that is spread out over a day and a half? This is why a Qualcomm dispatch system is very poor for owner ops. You also don't want to get snotty or condescending with the business owner since he's going to give it back to you in spades.

 

Preacher I agree, that is one reason I would never lease to a company with company drivers. I have tried it both ways, and if there are company trucks in the equation, then they are going to cover their postion first, then worry about you after they have all of their equipment covered. Now with that said, I never ran as and O/O or L/O at Roehl, so I don't know how that side of the bizz is run there. I just know what I encountered at other companies.

 

Couldn't agree with you more, defiantly a lesson learned on my end.

On other note, Im about to (kinda) become the enemy LOL.. I just took a Driver Coordinator position with the Gas Company I haul for now. While its alot different then the drone dispatching, I will do alot of that and then some. But for $44,500 a year, increased insurance and 2 weeks vacation the first year of working in the office, Ill take it.. Just sucks cause I have to Move to Spartanburg,SC from Augusta.. I get soooo tired of moving LOL

 

Congratulations Rebel. If you are actually talking to the drivers it should go a lot better than computer systems. The relationship between driver and dispatcher tends to be better since you still have to talk to each other after a knock down drag out argument. That means you have to kiss (or shake) and make up at some point, especially with good drivers.

 

Mine had the 60 series and a 13 I had it set at 515hp. Yea someone else got her. I talked to him in Kentucky last week.

 

Update- Once again Roehl makes a fairly major change and isn't upfront about it. It seems that I am now on hometime 4D with Kristin and JT. So why is this a big secret? Suddenly one Friday out of the blue my old dispatcher tells me that he's going elsewhere in the company and that I am getting a new dispatcher named Kristin, but that until they have her replacement trained JT will be helping out on her board. Next thing I know they are staying until 6:30 at night and one of the two is on weekends. Hummm- is this just the board I'm on, all the owner ops or company wide? I didn't even know that I am on the 4D hometime board until today which has been almost a month. Then I get a message that my logs look really good except I'm missing dispatch numbers on them. So I get out my log book and sure enough if I'm under dispatch I have the number on my log. So I call for clarification and in the course of the conversation JT is shocked to find that I'm on paper logs and not e-logs. Here's my question- Did they not notice that none of the e-logs they pulled up has ever been sent by me and none of them has ever been certified? For a company that likes to tell everyone what to do and wants everything done their way, they sure do seem to be pretty out of touch.

As for the truck, Appleton just did the 90 day inspection and I ended up with new brakes on 3 wheels, and 2 new steer tires. I wasn't happy that I only got 180,000 out of my steers until they told me Roehl is happy with 125,000. I still think I should get at least 200,000+. They also found a crack in the bellows pipe, fortunately Freightliner fixed that under warranty. If I had to pay for it out of pocket it would have been over $400.00 for the pipe alone, in fact the bill would have been almost $680.00. If you are thinking of getting your own truck be aware that all of these are normal expenses. Total for all the work if not done by Roehl would be close to $2500.00. If Freightliner had caught all of this when I had the truck in less than a week before for a PM that is what I would have paid. By the way, the bunk rooms at Appleton are fairly nice, but I still don't care for them. I feel to much like I'm back in a dorm room with none of the amenities.