what are common dirty tricks from the dispatcher/administration?

A main driving force for me to consider trucker as my career choice is that I hope to have a simpler politics in trucking. I admit that sounds naive and as long as a work involves human interactions, there are always dirty tricks, especially for newbies to bear. But, then what are the common dirty tricks a newbie has to face?

 

i dont know about trucking dispatchers but EMS dispatchers are evil got dispatched not too long ago and part of it included turn off the paved road and watch out for the goat we turned and 500 feet down we got hit on the driver side by a very large goat funniest shi* ive ever experienced

 

when i was a newbie, no dispatcher played any "dirty tricks". i don't know where you get that from. and neither will the "administration".

get the load, do your job.......

 

Being a newbie in trucking, combined with being a company driver trained by a lease-operator, Jack didn't know about such things as short haul pay, stop pay, etc. He drove solo probably six months before someone told him he was getting short-changed by not receiving these little extras.

Now when given a short haul, hazmat load, etc., he knows to confirm with his dispatcher that he's to get extra pay. While the dispatcher or administration didn't specifically play a "dirty trick" on him, he was never given a driver manual or anything telling him about these little pay extras... and because he didn't know to ASK for them when accepting a load, they weren't included in his paycheck.

 

Yep ... that's pretty much common practice when you have a driver with a rather short training period and is followed afterward by solo driving. We only train our drivers for a few weeks and then turn them loose ... not too much emphasis is placed on the extra pay items ... usually find out later that you could have been paid for an extra hose charge, if you had known that it was even available.

 

Will such things as nortorious routes denied by senoir drivers are more often sent to newbies happen?

BTW, for the stop pay, etc, if you find it out later, can't you request to get those reimburesed or repaid, since there should be records clearly showing some some trip is a short haul or has more stops than usual?

 

If done in a timely manner it is possible to get re-embursement ... but I wouldn't want it to be much more than a few days in the past ... you can't come up with something like I ran a load last Christmas where I should have got a pick up split and a drop split ... and if you do it would be a good idea to have the paperwork there to prove your point!!!

 

You'll get more 'pranks' pulled on you by other drivers than the company.

Things like telling you to check your blinker fluid, etc.

 

Everything you need to know about pay and how a company operates should be covered during orientation. I have NEVER had a dispatcher play a prank on me nor have I heard of a dispatcher playing pranks on their drivers, especially when it involves pay.

 

Well by jingo (quaint little saying) I have ... in fact I had a paycheck stolen up by a dispatcher (wasn't using direct deposit because I was going through a divorce) ... and this reptilian dispatcher said that the checks hadn't come in when they were supposed to. Next day I checked with corporate and the checks had been issued. Confronted the dispatcher and said they had been misplaced and he was looking for them. Seeing as I was working nights there wasn't anybody else in the office I could talk to to confirm or deny what he was telling me. The next day I called the office while everyone was in there and talked to Dee Dooley ... it just happened that the son of the CEO was at our terminal and Dee put my call on speaker phone so everyone could hear what had happened ... there was alot of silence ... and then I heard Proctor say "Get him da hell outta here ... NOW!" Just happens that the dispatcher in question was still in the office that morning and admitted to cashing my check. He was escourted to his desk where he picked up all his personal belongings and then escourted to his car and told never to return ... my check was cut that afternoon and sent "next day delivery" and Proctor personally appologized to me in behalf of the company. Unfortunately that company went out of business and sold all it's rolling stock to Eagle Transport where I am working now ... but things will happen ... just because people are people ... the good ... the bad ... and the ugly.