When The Dispatcher Asks You For a Favour....
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- When The Dispatcher Asks You For a Favour..... There are times in a truck driving career when a driver is asked for a 'favour' by their dispatcher. Dave warns of the dangers of doing 'favours' for the dispatcher!
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Hey there Big Strappers. How about you? Do you have a good relationship with your dispatcher? Love to hear from you.
Nope never did, dispatchers are obnoxious for Fleet drivers 🤠
well I haul flatbed for a company in Southern Ontario, make $30 an hr and $35 when I do oversize....my dispatcher is the best. he's been in the business over 30 yrs and never and I mean never tells you what you are doing if you like it or not. always asks what is best for you, I run hard for him without question. he gives me great loads and in return I give er....there are great dispatchers out there and I'm happier then hell to have one of the best...oh and I drive a 2015 working show truck with a 2021 4 axle flat....not mine...company owned...just like my dispatcher I work for an awesome company, the owner is from ground up..driver/mechanic/dispatcher and now has 170 trucks and 300 trailers...there are still great companies out there, they are just few and far between...
I remember when I was at Schneider Bulk and I fell for the "Houston Hustle" favor. One afternoon I was sitting at the Houston Bulk terminal and night dispatch called me for a favor. They wanted me to run a empty trailer to a plant of Tidal Road in Deer Park, Texas. Since I didn't have a load on me, I figured why not. Plus, the dispatcher promished trailer shuttle pay.
I woke up the next morning and grabbed my empty trailer from the tank wash next door. I had to seal up the dome lid, external valve, and vapor recovery. After an hour, i drove down to the plant and dropped the trailer. It took another hour to do that and drive back to the terminal. I logged into Compass to check my pay for the shuttle. I kid you not that for three hours of work only got paid $7.35 based on milage rate. I called my regular manager to tell him about the error (missing my trailer shuttle pay which was $20 bucks at the time). He then went on to say, "With you being OTR, we only can pay you mileage rate because you're OTR." I replied, "Don't ever ask me for a favor again. Including night dispatch." This is why I'm personally 100-percent behing truckers getting hourly pay plus overtime. These trucking companies been screwing over drivers for a long time.
I don't whine or cry about what needs to be done. Therefore I usually get offered the better choices.
I don't have a dispatcher anymore.
I work for Forward Air and they have several dispatchers that are extremely great.
Forward Air doesn't have driver managers.
They have call centers that are broken up into regions.
All I do is call in and talk to whoever's in charge of that region. They always have something set up for me and ready to go.
A lot of times I get to choose where I want to go.
As a company driver, this is why more drivers need to get paid by the hour especially OTR.
That s a Fairy tale...Don t even think about that idea...it ll serve u no good.
I get paid percentage pay. Hourly would hurt me quite a bit.
Amen. I’ll never go back to anything that doesn’t pay hourly
And get rid of the 14 hour clock. I just want to drive, don’t wanna deal with a damn 70 hr clock. I know when I need to pull over!
Sounds good until..... the carrier starts controlling your hours like a 9-5 job. If they control the amount of miles u get they surely can dictate how many hrs u get.
Unless you guaranteed 40hrs no matter what. Starting at $30.00 is reasonable
When I was hauling tank containers I usually rejected those favors.
Dispatch: "Can you pick up a tank at the cleaning station and get it to Gate 6? That would be great. I'll send you the Authorization code so you can...."
Me: "Nope, I will not. I'm on break at Port Entry and I plan on being that for the next 35 minutes, as well."
Got fired after 6 months because they didn't like that I "never answered the phone". It's quite hard to answer the phone when you're in an EX-marked area when loading a tank, since there's a risk for explosion and you're not allowed to carry a phone with you outside the truck cabin. That or the fact that I was on break and when I'm on break, I'm off-duty. I'm not obligated to pick up the phone, so I shut it off, ate lunch, breakfast or whatever and/or got some shut-eye.
They fired you for not answering the phone? Ridiculous.
I never answer the phone.
I straight up tell them, "it's my phone! I pay for it! And I am not obligated to pick it up."
At the better companies that's not as much of a problem Like GP transco and the one I'm currently working for
That’s why a dispatcher will never say his or her last name
If you work for a Landstar, you won't get even real first name😂
I worked for Landstar and i had a code name..
Probably some of them have code names too
If you don’t OWN and OPERATE under your OWN AUTHORITY you’re not an owner operator,your an independent contractor which is basically a glorified company driver (with all the expense) at the mercy of the company your leased to.
Depends which company, some pay 4Cad$ per mile plus many exp paid, great insurance discounts....
@@evguenimertodjan9783 I think you proved his point the whole idea of being an owner operator is being responsible for all expenses and negotiating your own rates when you take all the goodies the carrier offers your not independent
Well I’m leased to a company, my truck was paid off many years ago, and my settlements are consistently OVER 4K a week. Do I qualify as an owner-operator in your eyes? (PS I don’t really give a shit what you think, genius.)
I get 87% of gross. Dispatch myself and do what I want.. it’s a small company but a good one with great people..
@@SoCal780 Apparently smarter than you and most of the post eighties people on this comment. I know the definition of an owner operator. The recruiters started using that term to recruit. Words and phrases have definitions whether u like them or not. What’s funny is I didn’t insult contractors one bit but too many of your generation are professional entitlement minded Karen’s who love to be offended.🖕🏻There you got your participation trophy.
It always helps them and never seems to help us 😂
Usualy yeah, but how ever its part of the job, both are shitty on some ways..
I have submitted my 2 weeks noticed and was held on to until my 3rd week, As we made our way from Washington to California I was told from my dispatcher if I could do him/her a favor and in return they would allow my co-driver to drop me off personally to my home town, long story short I accepted it and when we arrived to the location, I told my dispatcher that my co-driver was well rested and ready to go, my dispatcher replied “our truck is not personal taxis” and I was put on a gray hound.
When I was a company driver, some small favors gave me great loads. So Crete is good after nearly seven years so far.
oh yeah. i have one of the best dispatchers in the business. nothing he can't sweet-talk/fix/arrange. favours for shane? SURE. coming home twice/thrice a year is the sweetheart bottle of scotch + beer from duty-free. I'm not the only guy that does that - shows how capable he is! Have yet to see a situation he couldn't make work and he makes a point of never forcing despatches on drivers.
He's worth every cent the guy is paid.
Holy hell lmfao I couldn't stop laughing, went to a truck show in the middle of a trip delivering freight lol
Drivers, no matter if they're company, lease or owner op, need to constantly remind dispatch that THEY work for US, not the other way around. WE do THEM a favor every time we accept a load, no matter how crappy it is. If that load doesn't move, NOBODY gets paid!
This definitely hit home with me lol. I just do it sometimes so the black mailing won’t start.
I am happy that I have purchased, paid off my own truck with Crete Carrier and the first to comment. I do not get any of those messed up questions for favors. That was more of the company side.
I remember two different companies that had dispatchers ask me to do a favor and haul a load and then not get payed. Both times a call to the labor bureau did get the companies to pay.
Really, why didn't you quit?
That is pure using, our drivers allways get payed on time, if you need real trucking company ask me, i'll tell you one ..
If I'm moving that eld is tracking my hours. I need to be paid for using my time.
I learned my craft as a "union" company driver. Oliver Trucking Winchester KY. 23% of the truck first in first out
Loaded em like a box car race em like NASCAR. KY to the Carolinas back to Michigan Ohio 500 mile radius of Lexington KY home weekends. Flat step van reefer UPS doubles pole trailer. Co. Tow truck.
E-logs showed up. They closed shop.
Great company. They paid for my Steel leg. We were Tobacco haulers by trade.
I Don t do favors..it ll COST U..IN THE END....I DON T SAY THAT WORD..EVER!!!
Everything has a cost.
If they give me a load that I don't want to move, I won't move it.
Screw what my dispatcher thinks, I cuss them out daily, it's kinda fun.. lol. I love my company, IMCG out of Memphis, they KNOW as soon as I hear the word favor I just hang up.. Send it on my peoplenet, I won't reply. I do my dispatch, go home, end of discussion.. Im a local driver. Remember, if you have a clean dac, current DOT card, CDL and years of safe driving, YOUR THE BOSS!! You make THEM money, YOU are the reason they get a check, and I damm well let them know that, frankly most of us local drivers know that. I love being able to cuss them out when I feel like, oh, and if there's not a available truck to drive once I arrive, I'll wait about 30 minutes then I'm heading home.. try it tomorrow. I love/hate being a driver. Lol
And this is why autonomous driving. Is killing two birds with one stone. A.I. is not your friend. 😉👍🏽
As an O/O, it's not a favor any more. It's just outright lies and deception.
Friend of mine said that his dispatcher asked him to collect 1 rock from each state he stopped in and lable them. He did thinking it was weird but not that bad and when he brought it back to the dispatcher and asked why turned out his kids summer science project was about geology so he wanted to show the geological difference between the States
To the new guys, you need to become very comfortable with saying no. You don't wanna start resenting things because you were too much of a coward to say no .you'll only end up hating your career and quitting. You may lose a little bit of money in the short term but you'll make it back in the long term. To the old heads, remember you don't have to be an ass hat when you say no 😆
My company want me to drive to truck wash and than wait there 2 to 3 hours to get done for free,,, of course i refused
Now im load brokering im offered alot of favors like cartons of smokes. And the new term is dispatcher for hire. Yeah.
One guy keeps offering money. Nope
I get the "do me a favor thing" once in a while which is normally followed up by a "we'll make it up to you" rarely as the favor ever ended up being anything but a headache. It wasn't so bad in CFI I had the same dispatcher the whole time I was there and he was good at doing me favors too, but at Crete while I feel they're a better company, it seems like I have a new dispatcher ever couple of months so there's no time to get any kind of relationship with them.
I worked for a company based in Montreal terminal in usa always asked me to run loads in Canada i did well with them all long haul tankers still have friends in Ontario
Whats that pay, and sure for double
😁😁😂😂
Good companies will pay you to do favors.
I need help on this, it's gotta be at the port or we have crane scheduled for it. Etcetera Etcetera. Load is only 13W just tad bit overweight maybe like 110K oh it might need tarping.
They want you doing favors and not pay. What is this, happy hour?
O/O or independant.... both subcontractors. O/O lease to a company, independent lease to a company. However you look upon any of it.... you're all subcontracting, including company driver. The difference is how much the income is.....and how much you pay out in the end.
Turn the favor down and then deal with the consequences
Heard that 1st in 1st out dispatch n don't play favorites
That's a laugh
What happened to the weekly show? I got another hellacious car accident was out of work for three weeks. So I just caught up with all of my old on scene videos. I hope everybody is OK. Did Nick get a real job?
Hand stamping pallet load to small wood at food warehouse. It's on slip sheets,use a slip sheet machine and reload it with UNION labor. I make more unloading truck than driving,if I knew it was a hand unload to small wood,I would bid accordingly.
I run local delivery loads now for a wood shop but I ran story haul I hated that now I am paid by the hour and if I need to be out early I just say so and it happens I remember busting my butt to get back at 2 on Friday and then can you do me a favor and run a local delivery it takes 4 hours and now I’m running illegal
As a general rule I don't do favors.
However they won't offend me with cash. 🤑
Good companies will pay you to do favors.
Canadian dispatchers sometimes asks esp new drivers who dont know any better to do inside loads in us. What is the penalty for that if driver gets caught and does thier company shut down as well? What if its mega carrier do they shut down?
The dispatcher’s problem is not necessarily my emergency.
Doing favors is crap they don't pay what they say or promise n except you to do them all the especially if you say "this is a 1 time only favor"
I'll never do 'just a favor'. Because if you give a mouse a cookie, they want more. I don't work for any less than $1 per mile. Period. These big companies don't understand that, so I stay away from them. I'll never forget TMC dumping garbage loads on me for weeks after I got my first truck. I never made anymore than $700. I'll never go through that again. The piece of crap dispatcher they paired me with never got me home for more than 34 hours, gave me the worst loads on the board, refused to give me a helping hand when I needed it from the office side, and consistently talked down to me as if I was a child. And I don't take too kindly to that type of behavior.
I shit canned that company as fast as I could, and signed on with my current company. I've never been asked to do some bs 'favor' for them, because its just 6 trucks with our own trailers. And if I do have to do them a favor, its usually resending paperwork, signing a log for inspections, or calling shippers and receivers to straighten things out. I have NEVER been asked to do the kinda crap tmc forced on me, and I have learned my lesson. If I ever leave here, I'm going to start my own trucking company. But, ive been here for over a year now, and I don't see that happening for a very long time.
So so called "no forced dispatch " when they give you a load you would never do n try to tell you that is the only load available bs
Wow, i didn't know that other companies work like this, my company is waaaay diffrent, we don't ask for any favors or anything, only favor is if one driver gets his truck broken down, we call the closest empty driver, would you like to do it for him, he will give you that and that much of it, do you wan't to do it for your college, and yeah why not, othervise if he doesen't help, that one broken guy still needs to deliver that load when fixed.. and it takes a lot of time
In my company is good, i offer a driver load, if he wants to do it, we do it, if not, we are searching for something else..
Not too complicated, isn't it?
Don't complain
I no did favors period I always told the it's 300 dollars a hour
I’d say I’ve done tons of favours for my company by paying thousands of dollars out of pocket (get reimbursed to the exact penny of course) when I’ve completely broken down multiple times due to DPF issues and when it was time to pay nobody at the company would answer the phone or their cards wouldn’t work. I get the best paying loads down into the USA that my company can get now, if I ever stop and start getting the shitty loads to garbage receivers they can kick it lol
Lmao
😂
Couldn't agree more. You're not running a charity as an owner operator.
I remember when I was at Schneider Bulk and I fell for the "Houston Hustle" favor. One afternoon I was sitting at the Houston Bulk terminal and night dispatch called me for a favor. They wanted me to run a empty trailer to a plant of Tidal Road in Deer Park, Texas. Since I didn't have a load on me, I figured why not. Plus, the dispatcher promished trailer shuttle pay.
I woke up the next morning and grabbed my empty trailer from the tank wash next door. I had to seal up the dome lid, external valve, and vapor recovery. After an hour, i drove down to the plant and dropped the trailer. It took another hour to do that and drive back to the terminal. I logged into Compass to check my pay for the shuttle. I kid you not that for three hours of work only got paid $7.35 based on milage rate. I called my regular manager to tell him about the error (missing my trailer shuttle pay which was $20 bucks at the time). He then went on to say, "With you being OTR, we only can pay you mileage rate because you're OTR." I replied, "Don't ever ask me for a favor again. Including night dispatch." This is why I'm personally 100-percent behing truckers getting hourly pay plus overtime. These trucking companies been screwing over drivers for a long time.
dam
@@momentofclarity4262 I know but I learned how the trucking industry operates from that incident.
Funny. I’ve only gotten 1 favor call from my dispatcher so far, and it was from my regular dispatcher’s boss. They thought I was taking Christmas Eve off, but I had requested Christmas to new years off. But he called me around 10am and told me he had an overnight grocery delivery like 200 miles away, and wanted to know if I wanted it. Before I said anything other than hello on the call, he told me it’s gonna be $1200 extra on top of my regular company pay. I told him sure, and ran my first reefer load that night. Not a bad deal, and it made my weekly pay feel more like a normal one, instead of the 400 or whatever I would have gotten for the 2 days work I had done. Don’t think I would run one like that again though, until I’m trained on how to actually run a reefer, instead of just keeping it floored hoping it stayed on until delivery.
As a company driver I do not get asked to do favors. The loads just show up on my company supplied computer in my company supplied truck with my company supplied fuel. I have turned down some weekend dispatches because those dispatchers don't pay attention to my clock, which they have access to.
Exactly. My rate of payment is 100 per hour . I don't work for free. Consequently, very rarely do I get asked
As a dedicated driver, I very seldom even speak to a dispatcher unless something unusual comes up. Before I was dedicated, they would call me and ask if I could “rescue” loads that were being pulled by drivers who ran out of hours for one reason or another. I would do that and they would sometimes kick a little extra money my way in addition to the mileage pay. They would also pay off in other ways because I would get better loads to better areas, etc. I did say no to certain things like taking loads to Boston or to JFK in NYC. No way to that!
When I started out in the business as a driver, one of the first places I cut my teeth was as a P&D driver doing runs into Boston during The Big Dig. It was a special level of hell. The upside was that and some of the other torturous experiences I survived really did help me become a better driver.
I still hate it. I still avoid it. But, I learned how to use it to make my skills sharper. 😁👍
Where I am now I am treated very fairly, yes I have delt with certain folks that want favors and I got pooped on but it was way early in my career which I admit on alot of situations I have learned the hard way but thats what gave me my experience to make good decisions on the job
When I was with Prime, once they asked me to get a load finished before my 10 hr break (or 8 split). It was my first year, I asked them to simply request it via Qualcomm. Of course they wouldn't do that. Oh he got upset. So, I drove 5 miles to the delivery and asked if I could've delivered it 3 hours later. "oh yeah that would've been fine!" I notified dispatch and started looking for another company.
The camel put his nose in the tent. The next thing you know is the camel's in the tent and you're out in the sand. I found once the asking starts, and you did the first "favour"?...and then the next favour....you pretty much have to (on good terms) leave that company.
Standard favors start at 100 bucks
Okay good relationship with four of my dispatchers it is some of those small place but we got bought out 3 years ago but I've had to run oversized loads without a permit a short little distance done that didn't get caught but then again if I would have got caught it would have been hefty fine but they generally tell me you can refuse it if you want to I'm only refuse one load out of almost 4 years of being here
I gave mine a tv cable so he could watch foot ball, in return he gave me a load with a 3 day layover so i could spend time visiting my mom, it was priceless
My request is, does it make me money….if not no thanks
We are not all that bad :), especially dispatchers being behind the wheel themselves that know the drill. As an owner operator you need to look for the one that respects and values both Professional driver job and dignity in Dispatcher role. Team work, respect and communication works best.
Just quit go to the next one
Oh yes, as a first year rookie driver out of Philly in 95, the dispatcher at a small company asked to do them a favor. Another driver coming out of the same area I was; which was only about a 5 hour drive back to the yard, needed to swap trailers for whatever reason. Being the nice guy I was, I did it. When I was driving back, I was like what gives. I couldn't barely get to 55mph on a straight away. Took me longer than 5 hours to get back to the yard. I weighed it there and it was a whopping 91k lbs. The next Monday, this same driver was cussing me out because when he parked the trailer he got from me tipped over, thinking it was my fault because apparently I did not supervise the loading. After investigation, that huge overweight (5'9 400lb) lazy slob bum was fired for parking it on a slanted hill, thus the load bars breaking loose from all the weight on on side shifted and overturned the trailer. Plus the company truck was unhooked so he could use it on his own time. The moral of the story, don't ever swap trailers or trucks for that matter with any driver and keep good written records to cover your but. Taking pictures wouldn't hurt either.
I love Dave's knowledge, Greetings from the greatest snow on earth state.❤️❤️
Apropos of favours. I do shipping and receiving and always try to treat the drivers like gold. Last Friday I had to come in (my day off - company does a four day work week) to load 22 skids into a 53 footer for transport to the States from Canada. Driver, a young Indo-Canadian fellow, immediately starts bitching about how long it will take him to get loaded. I ask if, since he's in so much of a hurry, he's welcome to get into the trailer and move skids as I load them with the forklift, "I'm not allowed to be in the trailer." he says, but promises to call his dispatcher after getting directions to the washroom. Clearly he wasn't allowed into the trailer as i had to spend a while sweeping all the debris out of it so I could use the pallet jack. Then is was just me, coming up on 62 years of age, stuffing four skids in at a time, clambering into the trailer and making sure everything was tight. My boss came out when I was about a third done and told me he'd gotten an offer we could refuse from the dispatcher - it would cost us $150 for "Mr. I'm in a hurry" to give us a hand. Fuck that - I stayed in the trailer and my 75 year old boss ran the forklift. Doofus didn't have anything to secure the load (we took photos), he filled out the paperwork incorrectly and took another 20 minute bathroom break - so much for being in a hurry. I WAS in a hurry as I had to get some medical tests done. After spending 20 minutes in the can giving birth idiot sits in the yard doing whatever and I had to go up to the cab and tell him since he was in such a rush he could leave the premises, as I'd be locking the gates in a couple of minutes and opening them would cost a lot more than $150.00. Guy made a face resembling a cat's arsehole but left. So moron driver repeatedly bitched and complained about having to hurry, refused to do himself a favour by expedite loading (unless he got some cash) and ended up not being in such a hurry after all. I'm glad I loaded the trailer because I wouldn't want a slackard like that doing the job.
Dispatchers like that are the biggest curse on us truckers
Had JB Hunt ask me to do a favor and run through the x-mas Holliday. I did it and my Dispatcher remembered months after. Always had better miles cause he new I was willing to help when needed.
Is it possible to make friends with your dispatch folks and have a strong collaborative relationship? Working together to solve problems seems like a good idea.
Dispatchers are in charge of scheduling right so why does it become the drivers responsibility to make up for their errors in planning drivers don't ask office staff to back up their trucks so if a dispatcher has a scheduling conflict time to talk to the broker not the driver
I am a non compliant driver. Whenever I am asked to do extra work I tell them not enough hours or I need money to compensate for my time. I have been fired from a few jobs for not doing shit work for free. I am a point in my career where I do not need to work everyday. So just a part timer now.
*Mikey missed the boat MAYBE but he did a big favor for a lot of drivers who came after him!*
I get paid by the hour, union rates time and a half after eight, double time after ten. I’ll gladly stay as long as they need me.
I remind the dispatcher he agreed to be salary. I was hired by the hour.
Thats one of the reasons i like hourly pay so they have to pay me for i do
What happened to the live chat?
You are right ✅️
Asking for extra work is also a dangerous idea. It reminds me of the beginning of Apocalypse Now! where the Captain says, 'I wanted a mission and for my sins they gave me one.' 🤣
I work for a great company that for the most part is fair and cares about there drivers. Unfortunately the same can not be said for a few of the dispatchers. I've gotten myself weaseled into a few "favors" here and there and I've learned to always say no. Last year I did a "favor" while I was waiting on a reload in Waterloo and next thing I know I'm in downtown Toronto stuck in traffic for nearly 3 hours on streets that really arent built for trucks. That was the last favor I did lol.
I rarely get asked for favors where I work, but when I do, it's usually the planner that calls me and offers way more to do the favor than the favor is worth. I always do it for them because they always take care of me. If it matters, i'm a company driver.
Yeah, no doubt on this video! The "F" word, not so bad if it goes both ways sometimes eh! Cheers everyone, have an awesome weekend if you have one!
Dave
Have a great weekend
Thank You
I’m doing a favor right now. That’s why I’m not at home and still in the truck watching your video. Have a great day Dave and everyone else and enjoy your weekend
They got me like that too not long ago