Does it do any good to tell the DM or Load planner what you want?

Fleet managers are not dispatchers much any more. All they do is manage the general operation of the truck. Things like schedule home time add fuel solutions etc etc. Most drivers have no contact with the ones that actually dispatch you. Like I said in an earlier post once you empty release in an area you belong to the load planner that runs that area. This is the way most of the mega carriers operate as well as the mid size ones too. Some carriers will let fleet managers put you under a load based on a load board. However it is the load planners that operate the load boards. If your fleet manager likes you they might shoot that load planner an email or call and ask if you can be put on a load. Load planners can have long memories too. I remember a load planner make a hell freezing over comment about a driver getting good loads. Once you get on a load planners (self censored) list sometimes even your Fleet Manager can't help you.

 

That says it all right there.

 

K&B in my opinion does way too many relay loads. There were many times when I would get a good paying load just to be relayed off it. Often the guy that I was relaying the load with would have no idea why? I had a good relationship with the person who was my dispatcher. He knew the run I preferred was the Tyson Dakota City to Tyson Goodlettsville run as that took me by my house to see the wife yet allowed me to overnight at the girlfriends house. Perfect run. 2 days. No one else would give me that run and so it was hit or miss when ever someone else was dispatching me. It seems the company put Profit ahead of my Love life. Which is why I will no longer recommend those ########.

 

Eh, Im pernamently off the road due to medical defects accumulated by wear and tear.

Least I can do is impart my knowledge. Stories, Experience if any left after the bull before it's my time to go from this world.

I would average a hundred per day if I could keep up with all of the Forum Friends here. I must be doing something right. Eh?

Super trrucker? Ha. Been there done that too. Not anymore thank God.

 

Maybe he prefers to drive his truck instead of sitting on his website all day long

 

And at some companies they will just keep giving you the crap loads because you do not complain!

If communication with dispatch and load planners is ever a bad thing, then you are at a bad company.

Mikeeee

 

I was called away to do some bank business and did not finish on my above posting. Here is the rest of it.

One day I was in the K & B office in South Sioux City, Nebraska. There is a dispatcher who is trying to do a relay. The driver who he is talking to on the phone has informed the dispatcher that he does not have the hours to do the requested relay. So the dispatcher gets angry and hangs up on the driver. Then the dispatcher, a red headed male whom I do not know, gets up and loudly pronounces to the entire group of 25 or so dispatchers, that when that driver needs a relay to get him home, that one will not be available to him. He said that he would make sure of that and had entered a note on his computer to make sure of it.

So what I am tell you is that some companies have power hungry dispatcher who are way more proud of themselves then they have any right to be. The only one who makes money for a trucking company is the driver. All the other people are seemly driver support. Every once in awhile they need to be reminded of that fact.

 

That's true, being a company yes-man can very easily backfire on you. They will simply run you into the ground because you can't say no.

That's the second or third time I read on here that K&B has nasty dispatchers. I thought they cleaned up their act somewhat after the whole RunHardGetPaid-forced-to-run-tired fiasco?

 

I hate to bad mouth a company that fired me because I come off as a whiner. The dispatching and micro managing done by K&B is what makes it a company that I could not get along with. I went in to quit because I was furious with the system. They gave me a raise and talked me out of quitting. 3 months later they fired me because of something I said. It was funny but I can understand someone who was not there at the time thinking it was so very wrong.

What really got me was with all the micro managing they never seemed to have a preplan ready for you when you got done with a load. Hirschbach was very good at having your next loads planned out.

 

And this is why I don't sit often. I do exactly what you describe. And surprise surprise, my utilization is maxed out almost every week, and my wishes are pretty much always granted.