What to do when a dispatcher tries to force a load on you?

Sylvester Stallone got the idea for Rocky from a Muhammed Ali fight. Ali almost lost the fight to a tomato can but inthe end came back and won it.


Talking about the 50 mile per average, yes I use it too but my GPS has me tracked at 35 miles per hour over the last couple years since I last zeroed it out.

 

Ali didn't almost lose. Wepner stepped on his foot while throwing a punch. It was ruled a knock down. Even with the knockdown Wepner was getting blown out of the water. Wepner had some stones on him though.

 

"Wepner! Wepner! Wepner!"

What COULD have been.

(Sounds like Werner, though...)

 

A gaming at its finest, Mr Lepton

I pull open deck. Different world, different hustle. Most of our customers work banker hours. So I would try to get withinn striking distance of the receiver by Saturday afternoon. By showtime monday, you have a restart and can run balls to the wall all week. Run like hell during the week and relax on weekends.

When i was a company guy, my last dispatcher ran me between Seattle and Savannah once a week. Had to play that one differently. Load Friday am, deliver monday. Take a couple local runs to Vancouver, get a restart in the middle of the week and run cross country. 65 mph truck. That was 2800 miles.

 

Each job presents different challenges and opportunities. I ran a couple of years with Swift and did well on e-logs and 62 mph trucks. Now I run flatbed on paper logs with an unknown expedited schedule to the oil patch, and I am doing well.

The principles of maximizing your income are the same. Be willing to run any load, anywhere, at any time. TCB (Take Care of Business). If you wake up in the morning after a good night's sleep without a dispatch, then TCB and get some more sleep to be able to run tonight. Right now I am #1 on our load board, getting ready to catch some Z's to cover a possible load of mud motors to a rig tonight. Doesn't matter what time of day or what the weather, I run the load.

 

Chuck Werner, the Bayonne Bleeder!

 

That's how I feel about it... As I don't yet have my CDL. I guess I will know when the time comes, which guy I will be. I am normally about the grind and hustling to make money all hours of the day and night, so should be fine. I don't sleep much anyway.

 

"But driver, the computer says you can do it."

No matter what the person sitting at the desk tells you, YOU are the captain of your ship and if you don't think you can safely and legally complete a load, tell them that. If they try in any way to punish you, cite the coercion law that came into effect recently.

 

All of what you said is absolutely true. However, I believe coercion by definition is asking you to do something unsafe or illegal.

In the OP's situation I believe he misunderstood the fact that he could legally and safely deliver the load on time, but we are waiting to hear back from him regarding my prior post to clarify the matter. If I were a new driver I would hesitate to pull the coercion card unless I clearly understood that what I was being asked to do was illegal.

Unsafe is a term that can be defined as the skirt slackers hide behind. I am certainly NOT judging the OP nor any other member with that statement. Remember about a year ago there was a YouTube queen that posted the "ugly truth" about trucking, how he woke up in the morning and waited all day and then didn't get a dispatch until evening for a reefer load that had to be delivered in the morning? He recorded phone calls with dispatch and cried big tears and even got two minutes of fame on a morning TV show.

Bottom line for that slacker is if he simply did his ####ing job, took care of business, and got BACK to sleep during the day while waiting for a dispatch, then he would have been ready and able to deliver that load.

The OP asked for advice and opinions about his situation. I highly doubt that Swift planners would put a load offer on any driver unless they had the legal hours. Their system sees your current status, including hours coming back. New drivers that haven't had the benefit of a good trainer to REALLY show them how to run and make money and how to trip plan are often a bit timid and confused whether to accept a load or not.

My advice is when in doubt call your driver manager to review the actual windows of time for pickup and delivery, then accept the load and get it done legally. Any issues along the way then COMMUNICATE as soon as possible if you think the load needs to be repowered. You will never get a service failure if you communicate early to give the customer service representative and planner plenty of time to ensure the customer is happy.

 

I forget who it was, but somewhere on this forum I read like a 400 page thread about someone's year at Crete. What a great read that was for me, who learned it was even possible to put in a transfer call. That dude pretty #### regularly accepted loads that he knew that he either couldn't deliver on time, or could deliver but would have him sitting for 3 days after a 1500 mile trip, because he knew that there was an extremely high likelihood he could tcall that load at or near the terminal closest to the consignee, then get a new load. I swear he had an average of like 3400 miles per week. Crete doesn't have nearly the freight that Swift has.

I guarantee that once your dm and dispatcher realize you are willing to run, know how to run, and can get that freight there or close to there with a couple days to spare, you won't be getting calls for the 800 mile one day delivery. You'll be getting the 6 days, 2500 miles delivery. And you'll get it there in like 4 days, do another 800 mile delivery and take your reset in a decent city if you're lucky. Every week.