I was hired for dedicated route, Brooklyn Park to Winnipeg. Dispatcher would never have border paperwork done at 8 am. I would sit there until 11:00 or 12:00 before he would get it done. I started showing up later 9:30-or 10:00 because there's no sense in sitting there for hours waiting for paperwork. He complained to others in the office that I didn't come in to work at 8am, never said a thing to me though.
I would ask dispatch to get me three trips a week, never could manage more than 2 though. I would sit at home all day on friday, checking in every few hours seeing if he found anything. He would try to call and leave a voicemail on my phone, I pick up and hear him saying, "Oh he's not even answering now". I did answer and he says he's calling me at 2pm to tell me he hasn't found anything yet, and will call back again. He clearly was trying to get my voicemail, so he wouldn't even have to try to fake finding me a load.
They have such a poor driving score (91) that I got a message saying that their drivers will be stopped at every weigh station, for inspection, because of the score. They don't have pre-pass, their trailers were built in 1995, almost none of the axles will slide. They often have drivers pick up a load in Canada, and drop at their Minnesota yard and continue on somewhere else because they pay less for domestic loads than international, so driver loses 4 cents a mile.
Recently the owner of Siemens decided to get rid of the safety officer because he was around 70 years old. Then the dispatcher who had been there a few months moved to safety because he couldn't do his job anyway. Then they hired a new dispatcher, with very little or no experience. She couldn't or wouldn't get me loads on my dedicated route.
She would get me stupid loads that were 200 miles a day, or reefer loads when I have a dry van. I even called a shipper and asked if I needed a reefer for bananas, it was 10 degrees out and there was no way I would get to the consignee before closing. The new dispatcher wanted me to take it and somehow get to the consignee, and get them to wait after hours to unload me.
The main reason I'm posting this is because I quit 2 months ago, yesterday Katie the new dispatcher calls me accidentally and leaves a voicemail ripping some guy because he called her for a load after delivering one. She says he should know exactly where to go because he talked to another driver, who was going to the same place. Then she tells him she's sick of his "bullshit" and he should quit. I wish I could post the voicemail here.
I've read it costs a company $5000 every time they hire a new driver, I really can't understand why the transportation industry values the idiots in the offices rather than the drivers who do the real work. I suppose it's simple economics, most drivers can do their own thing, so one dispatcher can handle 40 drivers because all they really need to do is go to a load board and find a driver a load every day or two.
Justanumber
Burnsville, Minnesota
U.S.A.
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