When Dispatchers Mess Up…

27 Feb

CDL |  February 27th,2012 | Trucking Professionalism |  Comments Off

We got our new truck and the first load “delivers tomorrow morning”.  It was such a short run I never questioned the delivery time.

I guess that was my first mistake: never assume that dispatcher knows more than you do.  I should have double checked the time/date for delivery on the qualcom before accepting the load.

When I got to the receiver they told me they didn’t want it until tomorrow.

Tomorrow!?!

You know I don’t get paid for sitting around their dock, or at the truck stop either.  It doesn’t matter if you are a lease operator or a company driver at that point, you simply are not going to be making any money.

The first temptation is to get upset and start screaming at people.  It’s 5am or so, and the dispatcher that did this is not even around to scream at.  I’ve seen plenty of drivers take it out on the receiver instead.

It’s not their fault. 

As it turned out I did get unloaded, although not for a few hours.  It’s because I was patient.  It’s because I stayed around in their face asking how it was going.  And it’s probably more than a little because I kept a good humor on the situation.

Sure, I was upset, but I didn’t take it out on these guys.  Instead I joked my dispatcher owed us dinner – possibly dinner in Hawaii.  Once they stared laughing they suddenly found a door for us and got to work on getting my trailer empty… giving us a chance at another load today and a bigger paycheck next week.

 

BMI and Sleep Apnea

24 Feb

CDL |  February 24th,2012 | Driver Health, Job Requirements, Trucking Safety |  Comments Off

About 3/4 of our orientation class ended up getting referred for the sleep study test.  What can I say, a lot of truck drivers are big guys.  Or in my case – big girls.  They say that being big puts us at greater risk for sleep apena.  I’m not sure if I buy that.  It seems like most of the people I know who have sleep apnea are actually pretty thin.

Sleep Apnea as a Safety Hazard?

Sure, falling asleep at the wheel is not a good thing.  I can understand the need to get people who have sleep apnea set up with one of thes CPAP machines so that they can sleep better and be more alert when they aren’t sleeping.  I can even see the need to test drivers to see if they have it.

I do have to ask if BMI is really the best way to screen for it though.  If a lot of skinny folks have it too, then shouldn’t everyone be tested?

And who should do the testing?  The sleep study costs somewhere around $5000.  You want to see what a real driver shortage is like, let’s make drivers pay for that study!

What a Sleep Study is Like:

While I may disagree with the screening methods that landed me in the “needs to be tested” group – at least Prime pays for the sleep study if you turn out to be apnea-free.  Here I am all ready to sleep…

At least I should have been.  I didn’t sleep much the night before, and I’d been having trouble staying awake in the orientation classes.  If I was ever going to be able to sleep all wired up like this, this was the night.

The first thing they ask you to do is sleep on your back.  I don’t.  Really, I don’t ever.  I tried it for a while when I was in high school and thought I could get better posture or something by sleeping on my back.  And I quit because I DID stop breathing when I fell asleep.  When they told me I had to sleep on my back I figured it was a great trick to get someone to flunk this test and pay for one of their fancy breathing machines.

After 2 hours I was still lying on my back – wide awake.  They gave me permission to roll over on my side.

The first thing I noticed when I did that is those tubes are kind of tight around your neck.  And I knocked the nose-piece out too.

Long night.  Not much sleep.  Happily, I came out “normal” for the instances of apnea.  They need 30 or more an hour to set you up with a CPAP and I had less than 5.  Not that they were happy with the test.  I never got fully asleep.  And the total time even in the early stages of sleep was pretty low.  Well, that’s the best I could do, even dead tired as I was after riding the greyhound and all that.  I’m just a light sleeper – and that causes enough trouble without breathing problems on top of it.

Benefits of a CPAP

I’m a little disappointed I failed the test.  While I don’t really want to have some strange disease or have people spying on my sleep habits*,  I can’t help but envy the guys who have one.  They talk about how they have so much more energy, often from the night they start using it.  I’ve heard that it lowers blood pressure and helps you lose weight.  I’ve even heard it’s better than viagra – but that one doesn’t really seem relevant in my situation.

Anyway, with all these benefits, they might be able to sell these machines without the doctor’s getting involved. Just put them out at the truck stops with the coffee and diet pills!

(*The CPAP reports the usage back to the company and you can be put out of service if you forget to use it.)

 

Deciding Who to Drive For…

08 Feb

CDL |  February 8th,2012 | Driver Recruiting |  Comments Off

tough delivery for Southwest Motor Freight

Okay, not every dry load is a piece of cake, this one took at least 30 minutes just to back down the dirt road to the construction site.


One thing I love about trucking is that unlike any other type of job I’ve applied for – they are knocking on my door asking me to come to work for them.  But how to choose?

Two of my top choices called back right away and I actually scheduled orientation for both of them for the same day.  But now I have to decide which one to show up for.  It’s really apples and oranges too – it’s hard to decide between a lease deal and a company driver position.

Well, for me, it’s not that hard to decide.  I’m going with the lease option – because it’s a lease option.  What I mean is that comparing a percentage of the loads to cents per mile is difficult.

In the long run though, I’m going to drive because I want to make money, and save money.  With the company driver position I’d be getting paid per mile and that’s pretty much set in stone.  It takes a year to get that first penny raise and I’d be starting out at almost 10-cents less than I made a few years ago.

I think they might get me home more often.

And they also haul dry freight.  The shippers/receivers are usually more reasonable with dry freight than refrigerated.  Detention was never a big issue when I was hauling dry freight – most places I was in and out in about 30 minutes.  Refrigerated freight on the other hand… I’ve been stuck for days waiting for a load and that’s insane.

But in the end – I’m going to be out on the road A LOT.  If I get home once a month or once every three months, does it really matter? When I get there I’m usually so tired anyway, and you can’t afford to stay home very long. So how much is that extra visit to the house worth in dollars and cents?

I don’t think there is a right answer to that.  It probably depends a lot on who is waiting for you at home.  For me, it’s the idea that this is what it is and if I have a choice of driving 2 years and reaching my financial goals (without going home every month) and driving 4-6 years for the same result (but getting home twice as often).  The long-term pain seems more significant right now.

Of course, at the moment I am home… and desperately hating being poor.  I’ve been through this enough to know that once I’m out on the road my priorities could shift back the other direction.

Still.  Money is the top priority and I know I can make more (take home more) in a lease than I can as a company driver.  Just based on past experience.  Not every driver who has leased can say the same thing.  It depends on how you drive your truck.

Another big factor for me is that the lease deal is with a company I drove for (leased from) before.  So I know almost exactly what I’m in for.  Sure, a few things may have changed in the year or so since I was there, but knowing what to expect is a plus for me.  It’s not all good, so it was a reason to consider the other guys too.  It looks like the other company gives drivers a little more choice about what lanes they are running and does a better job of getting them home.

I do like the idea of “choice”.  We had that at one of my former (company driver) jobs.  They would send us two or three possible loads and let us choose.  It does make you feel like you have a little more control over your life.  I don’t know why lease drivers don’t get that kind of choice when it’s supposed to be YOUR business…

And I really pushed for that when I was leaving this company before – as a suggestion and a way to keep a good driver like me around longer.  But the response was very negative along the lines of “drivers are too dumb to use self-dispatch”.

Well, fine.  I don’t care. Maybe if your dumb drivers could opt to just use a forced dispatch system if they want to then you could let the rest of us (who at least  THINK we are smart) try choosing our own loads.  Hey, if I can’t make money dispatching myself then I’ll go back to your forced dispatch.  But I resent someone else saying that they are “protecting me” from running my business the way I want to.

Still, I have not been able to get on with anyone better (yet).  I do have a couple companies on the radar that give their lease operators the benefit of the doubt when it comes to having enough brains to actually control their own business.  I’m not saying I’ll stay with this former employer forever.  But I need to get on the road and see some income ASAP – so they will do until I find something better.

 

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