Dealing With Your Trucking Company - Dispatch Is The Backbone       

No matter what the size of the company you work for you must learn to deal with the people in the offices and you must try to understand as much as you possibly can about the systems they use to find freight, distribute the freight amongst the company's drivers, and how they handle  issues like breakdowns, home time, logbooks, tractor assignments, and a whole slew of other items.

I can't possibly stress this to you enough....the vast majority of the time you find a driver that is unhappy or unsuccessful with a company it's because they don't understand the office structure, procedures, and key people within their own company. 

I've seen this a million times and it's a shame for both the driver and the company because often times both the company and the driver are top notch but they simply don't understand one another's systems and expectations. I'm gonna help you discover how your company is structured, who has the authority over different types of decisions, and how to get in touch with the right people at the right times.

Most of all this section will help you to understand “the rules of the game” within your own company and how to make the system work for you, not against you. Read on....you're gonna love this.

When it comes to a driver's success throughout his or her career there will always be one factor  that will stand out time and time again above all else...more important than the equipment you drive, more important than the freight you haul, and even more important than the company you were working for. The biggest factor in the level of success and happiness a driver will find will without a doubt be your dispatcher. Everything begins and ends right here....with dispatch.

Depending on who you ask, dispatchers can go by many names. If you ask someone in middle management in a large company they may call them fleet managers, distribution specialists, driver managers, and other wonderful titles. They'll smile and say how these people are the backbone of the company and their knowledge, dedication, expertise, and heartfelt appreciation for the hard work their drivers put in has made their company grow into the industry leader it is today.

If you ask experienced drivers about their dispatchers they may agree wholeheartedly with the middle manager's view. Or they may describe them more along the lines of being the most, “idiotic son of a @&%(# I ever knew. That $&^@ is so %*#& $&^@ stupid I'd like to shove his $&$*@ in a $&@*# volcano!”

I can't tell you how many times I've met up with drivers on the road that had the same dispatcher that I had and we had completely opposite opinions of that person. Maybe I was getting 3200 miles per week and home every weekend while the other person was getting 1800 miles per week and only allowed to go home every other weekend.

Nobody will have more of an influence on your success as a driver than your dispatcher. He or she can be your best friend, worst enemy, or anything in between, sometimes all in the same DAY!!! Of course I can be that way too and without a doubt there have been a number of times I've brought that upon myself. But hey, I'm not on trial here so get off my back!! No, seriously though you will find out that you control your own destiny to a very large extent. Pretty soon I'll show you how.