Unemployment and trucking...

i dunno. not getting home time, may not be as valid a reason as say, you were being harassed or found another job, and that job fell thru and your former employer will not take you back.

as an OTR driver, the freight has to move. if a driver that was supposed to get that load, got hung up someplace, and you were near the area, that load is yours to take where ever.

what you really need to do is constantly REMIND your company that you have a scheduled home time coming up,

but they will still send you to the far end of the country all the same.

 

Home time?



Tell them you’re going home, if they have to fly you back.
Or park and fly yourself.

 

I have, on a few occassions, told a company that they had 4 hours to find me a load home, I was taking a nap and when I wake up I'm driving home, their choice whether I pick up a load en route or not. In each case, they had over 2 weeks notice and a daily remind the last week and claimed there was nothing going that way. Magically, when I'd wake up from my nap I'd be dispatched on a load to get me home every time. I didnt like forcing them like that, but sometimes you have to.

 

I told a company once, I’d stay out for 3.5 months, but I wanted to be home for a week during thanksgiving, also my birthday falls that week.
They said no problem.
I ran hard.
Sat my week off at Gary, IN the only tanker at Schneider terminal, all others were in and out.
After my “week off” they loaded me to Houston.
I went via west Memphis terminal, cleaned my truck out and had a job the following week.

 

I had success in this venture.

I was getting the maximum from .... Missouri unfortunately.... It is based on the state of the company NOT where you live.

I went on approved hometime for so long (I had some 100 days banked up off at Conway) the FM had already filled out the paper work as terminated. So I went well see ya guys later I was gonna be back. Laughed at them and clicked the phone.

Note that I was in vacation for about a good month when I got the call the repo guy was there and had to pay someone $50 to clean the #### out my truck for me.

So I collected unemployment off their ##### for the maximum length then went and drove for UPS.

 

Dude, you are working for the wrong company.

I always get my hometime on time. I don't even have to jump through hoops to get it.

One time a few years ago I was in Minnesota, almost to Fargo on a Friday and I expected to be getting a load headed back east to deliver on Monday or something because I always took hometime for Tuesday to Thursday and I live in VA.

Instead they sent me a load going to Texas or something like that so I sent a message about my hometime starting on Tuesday and how that might be difficult if I'm delivering in Texas on Monday. I didn't even complain because I didn't really need to be home.

They cancelled my load. A couple minutes later I got a message about a deadhead from Minnesota to Virginia.

Oh, and yes, I got paid for those deadhead miles. It was about 58cpm at the time.

 

In today's day of the internet.

Finding another job shouldn't be that hard. Unless you want to be local.