I don't really like the planners and salespeople at May. It seems they neglect the driver's time and wellbeing when planning on the trips. My impression is that they are thinking "okay you have X amount of hours and you are nearby so here is a load for you! Now get going and deliver it tomorrow. Oh and here's a new preplan for you after you deliver this load. Adios!" They don't seem to take into consideration road conditions and whether or not I had a long day. All the DMs can do is be a mouthpiece for them.
So what's the best way to tell my DM that I don't want to take on a preplan because I need more time to rest? Everytime I say I don't feel confident I can make it or that I am too tired, they will just find indirect ways to persuade me to take on their loads. So the following day I will just feel too tired to drive on, have to stop, and fail to deliver it on time.
Unhappy working at May Trucking
Discussion in 'Questions From New Drivers' started by Burrito Warrior, Oct 30, 2016.
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Theres a difference between not wanting to run, and not being physically able to. If your constantly pushing back on loads, or not making your times, they may be working you out the door because your not stepping up. While im a huge supporter of stand your ground, dont drive stupid ect.. i also understand that if your not moving.... well.... you aint making nothin. Take the preplans, tell them over qc, (and take a pic) that you cant make that appointment, but you dont have a problem taking the load as long as they wont hold it against you in pay or future loads. Then get rolling. Do you honest best. You already told them.
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Rusty Trawler, REO6205 and x1Heavy Thank this.
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You have 90 days before spring semester starts. Go back to school. You're still in the best part of life. (LIFE BEFORE BILLS)
Go to school, drink beer everyday, and hang out with college girls. Easy decision.
You gave trucking the college try you don't like it. Move on. You could be in Cancun this spring during spring break with all your new friends or sitting at a Walmart DC waiting to get unloaded.Fuelinmyveins, dunchues, TB John and 2 others Thank this. -
See the problem is that the customer is the one who is in charge of all it. They are the ones who set your schedule and they are the one who pays you, if they say move this to X at this time, then you do it.
You have by law 10 hours of rest. You need to learn how to use that 10 hours and manage the other amount of time you have doing the job.
All the stuff you mentioned is in your hands, you are not a slave and you figure out how to get the job done safely and efficiently.
Fun?
No it is not fun and anyone says it can be is not all there. -
Pre Plans are not for you to worry about. Dispatch has to wrestle with that. Why? You are worried about the load already on your 5th wheel and also worry about the next load too? No no no. No trucker can serve two masters. Unless you have a B train. Savvy?
Dispatch gets told X hours on your recap. If you follow your logs each working day until Midnight, you generate a recap for the next day with whatever hours there is. If you are proactive you can forecast forward the following any number of days on recap and generate a pretty good idea which day in the future you must stop and take your 34.
Tell dispatch when you cannot execute a load plan. BEFORE you say yes sir baa baa baa three bags full I will deliver it. BS!!! Why? You aint got the hours.
DO offer Dispatch a WAY OUT by saying you will take the load, power it half way or however far you can (*Name the city you must stop due to out of hours target) then tell dispatch someone will have to do one of two things.
1- repower your load, take it away from you.. WRITE that trip down so that you WILL get paid from A to wherever your load is taken off your 5th wheel.
2- Make a new appointment time and date. For when you can legally deliver.
REMEMBER the Federal Law says YOU CANNOT be forced to running when tired, out of hours etc. By threats, implied threats or bribery or promises. You document everything also by name of the dispatcher stupid enough to attempt such talk.
You seem to be in a cycle of overnight deliveries. It's a money maker for trucking companies. If I picked up a load of Heinz Tomato Ketchup in Toledo at 10 am loading to 2 pm and expect to be in Gettysburg the next morning it's worth almost a thousand dollars to the company. The problem is the actual driving. It takes just about all the hours availible today to run it to G'Burg by morning delivery. There is no problem making it. Remember a full ten hour run (You have 11 now...) in my day is G'Burg all the way to Indianpolis IN. about 550 miles.
That last paragraph describes a way of thinking in terms of range. How far you can go with the hours you have. You should care enough about trucking to begin to develop a map of the United States divided into 10 hour blocks of time. Example. Little Rock west on 40 to say Armarillo. That is just about 500 miles. Or Little Rock to Knoxville then Knoxville to roughly Harpers Ferry WvA to make the crossing into MD third day delivery in the morning. That's 20 plus hours driving time.
OR... Little Rock to LA. That's 4 days for a single, about 40 hours straight through for a team. A team can reach Jersey overnight from here in Little Rock, Ive done it. 1500 miles a day. That's a full 24 hour day.
Also divide the Nation into 500 mile blocks. Then work within these blocks mentally and look ahead.
If the company did G'Burg back to Toledo and return shuttle loads I can probably give three deliveries weekly in both cities for a total of 6 loads paid as a single before the 70 hours burn up on me.
Your long day yesterday is done. Irrevelant. Water under the bridge. It's over. Rest up buddy, that is why Uncle Sam tells you to take your sleeper time. Get in there and sleep well. Dispatch does not want or will not hear your whining about how tired you are. Save it for when you are genuinely sick and hunting a ER to evaluate you.
Every driver has been tired as if in war over time, a week, two weeks 4 weeks several months of battle. I can tell when Im tired when it's pay day friday night near a dance hall with wimmen and I go to sleep it off instead of having fun or spending money. It's something that has to be done. Get used to it. It's a personal cost of trucking that the United States requires of us.
DM's have one job. Keep a file with your name on it. In that file it's empty. Then you do something bad, like being late somewhere. It's carefully documented and placed into that folder. There to sit and stew a few months. If you consistently do bad things or are told something is your fault, that file folder is getting thicker. When it gets thick enough, the DM determines you are a liability and you WILL be fired. Gone.
If you are truly tired after a week on the road, you are having something wrong with your body. Food? Lack of meat? Junk food? Mountain sick? Too hot in the deep south? Infected? Bad water? (Get a case or two of water under your bunk and learn to drink good bottled water rather than local water which contains parasites that can hurt your gut to where you get somewhat sick.)
As far as the dispatcher implying you need to go or otherwise keep moving... make sure that you tell that person yes. I can deliver. or... NO I Cannot deliver (And insert why... usually not enough recap hours on logs.)
Sometimes they throw a load onto you just to gain it, worry about the appt and repower later.
Your dispatch, your company is not the problem. Its the SHIPPER who controls your life. The CUSTOMER the reciever also especially controls your life. YOU SERVE them.
If you are told to load artillery munitions and get it to the port of Baltimore in two days to load it onto the ship because it's a unmarked container going overseas to war, you gotta go. Very important. And you will go. Lives depend on those rounds being on the gun line ready to shoot on demand. Don't be late.
Toilet paper? Potato chips? Or a load of something routine and boring? You pay the same attention to this load. It's possible a city might not have toilet paper to wipe themselves when they empty the DC and local stores on 3 inches of snow forecast next week because you were late.
It's NOT about you. Think about those 4 words. NOT. ABOUT. YOU. You serve the Nation in trucking and must evolve to strength and courage to lawfully deliver your loads.
If I had a pair of trucks say yourself and ... Gunner75 ready to roll right now for delivery into Armarillo and I hear about you whining, moaning and possibly worried about being tired, not motivated etc... I will give that load to Gunner75. You can wait a while and rest up before I give you a shorter less profitable load. Actually a less important load. It's not about you.
I wrote a great deal tonight. Consider these words carefully. If you cannot make adjustments and evolve and rest to stop being tired, rebellious or full of conspiracy that somehow Dispatch is plotting against your life or whatever then Trucking is not for you. -
Just wanted to say best of luck!
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I agree with the others. This is not a career for you.
This is very different than your 9-5 daily routine kind of job. Very different, with different frustrations and different objectives, different ways of measuring success and different ways of measuring failure.
It's not for everybody, hell it's even not for most, and when it comes to OTR it's not even for all drivers. There is no shame in realizing it's time to move on. As others have said, you gave it a try. You have seen some things and been some places you likely never would have. Take that with you as you go.
Good Luck in whatever you pursue. -
May was once a good company
Now they're all pretty much the same
You're 40 years too late
My career choices were mountain man/fur trapper or pirate
Even a gold miner
I'm two hundred years too late
Go back to college
Things here are only gonna get worse.x1Heavy Thanks this. -
I enjoyed learning the Sea, the old windjammer trade for the heavy freighting 90 days to Singapore etc and back round the Cape Horn in storm. That was a hundred some odd years too late for me.
Rusty Trawler Thanks this.
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