I Shut Down And Ruined My Service Record Due To Fatigue!

If you hadn't said "screw this load" you probably wouldn't be getting so much flack.

He said a whole lot of things that revealed his true nature. It was a lot more than just that one remark. How about the "eight hours of sleep" or the disparaging remarks toward everyone or the fact that he doesn't seem to care if he loses his job over it. Put it all together and you'll see the lack of character he has and what his agenda is.

Wow Werner N, 3 pages of posts in 3 hours. Hey Brett that's got to be a record. Sounds like this Dude has no idea how to manage his HOS , may be Burnt Out, Depressed-probably, possibly lazy but definitely came to the wrong site with this post. I completely understand hitting that Brick Wall, I had a bad habit of working 10 to 12 hours days 7 days a week for weeks on end, my Wife would finally stepped in and say STOP! So I did for like a few days and then I would grind out another 4 to 6 week run until I looked and felt like road kill. It took a while to learn Time Management, I could do it with our employees and my Wife but I was a Workaholic, still am and that's why I am considering a career in Trucking. DOT has rules and it's all about following rules.

I would much rather be late for an appointment than kill someone because I'm driving well past my hours.

Sounds to me like a good decision on your part, I'm sure you can find an employer that understands.

Huh? Past what hours? He slept for 8, not drove...

Ugh, this is what the "everybody deserves a trophy" mindset has done to the newer generations.

This is also why rules such as the no retaliation for safety complaints rule were such a fight to get in place. Stories just like this guy, 'drivers are going to use safety as a way to be lazy.' I've shut down a couple times for safety reasons other than weather, but if I've gotten 8 hours of sleep that would mean that I haven't gotten a load. Between getting the mind to quiet down and getting things like shower and meals done, if I get six hours that's a GREAT night.

The one big time I shut down was when I was driving and felt extremely dizzy. Dizzy enough I wouldn't have been able to walk. Ended up going to the hospital only to find out it was dehydration, so totally my own fault. I think the something that's kind of being passed over is that it's less about failing the load like you did, Werner, it's about your reaction to doing so. If you'd, for instance, come in here using the same story but from the approach of wanting to know how you can avoid it again, or do damage control with your dispatcher , something along those lines while admitting it was YOU that messed things up, not some mysterious 'I slept for 8 hours and am still fatigued' crap, the reaction here would be a lot different. Every single driver in here has messed up and would much rather help you avoid those kinds of problems or give suggestions on how to rectify the situation than waste their time trying to show you what the problem actually is.

Matthew, there is no way an employer would ever understand someone who claims they got plenty of rest but then says "screw it I'm not driving" and deliberately doesn't make delivery on time. That's not how trucking works. You take your break and expected to roll as soon as your break is complete and make your delivery on time.

The ONE TIME I could have made delivery on time and did not, I had a car who hit me and a brand new officer who bungled the whole thing and erroneously ticketed me. I was so upset and shaken up I went to the nearest truck stop and shut down until I could pull my **** together, hire a lawyer to fight it, and stop crying.

I had the blessing of both safety and dispatch as they both knew what a basket case I was that afternoon. I knew I was in no condition mentally to drive and placed myself out of service. They told me to take as long as I needed to pull myself together and rescheduled my delivery appointment.

That said, barring extreme and unusual circumstances, there is no legitimate reason to deliberately not make an on time delivery because you just don't feel like driving.. especially after you've slept (by your own admission) for a good 8 hours.

Sounds like Werner is just plain lazy and cooking up excuses that no reasonable person would believe.

I'm pretty sure we're being trolled here, but I'll jump in anyway, because why not.

I have two spirit animals: Garfield and Slappy Squirrel. I'm fat, lazy, cynical, sarcastic, and cranky. There is nothing I like better than to eat my weight in lasagna and curl up for a 14 hour nap, unless it's stuffing dynamite down someone's pants and yelling at them to get off my lawn.

I am also a grown-ass adult that recognizes the importance of personal responsibility and the need to do the things the need did, even when my Don't Wanna levels are at critical mass.

There have been plenty of times where I've decided to call it a day early...when I have the extra time to do so. I don't just pack it in whenever I feel like it and let someone else take the heat.

This little diatribe has actually made me extra cranky, because it just happens to coincide with something that just happened to me on Tuesday. I was supposed to get a nice 1200 mile load from Anaheim up to Puyallup. But another driver on another load from that same customer dinked off so much that he couldn't make the delivery appointment...ON THE THIRD TRY. They had rescheduled it 3 times, and Sluggish still couldn't do it on time, and ****ed the shipper off so bad they cancelled *my* load. So instead of running, I ended up sitting all damn day, and had to take a stupid flat-rate local into the Walmart in Riverside, and then pick up a stupid 600 mile run to Utah. All because some prima donna like the OP can't do their damn job.

Suck it up, junior. Grab a 5 Hour Energy, put on some loud music, and do your damn job. Either that, or get a different job where you can slack off all you want. But stop screwing up everybody else's universe and then making the lamest excuses imaginable.

Hmmm...."screw this load I'm not driving !" is a bit harsh, I would have grabbed the load and headed toward the destination, now, I would try to focus for on-time delivery, but situations such as being a "ROOKIE" because of road construction, wrong turns or traffic and weather delays the load might be late getting to destination. However, I wouldn't say "screw this load I'm not driving !" in my past years of conducting business in some different business industries, which focused on customer service and satisfaction I never said screw the customer.

You got 8 hours then got coffee and ate. Did you do that during the remainder of your 10hr break, or after? If you did it before, you could have used those last 2 hours to sleep. If you did it after...then you could have cut out the coffee and food to get moving faster while you were still "rested".

There was ONE time I needed sleep and let's just say it was due to 1) running the NE for 9 weeks without home time or a 34. 2) really weird appt times which had me doing 8/2 splits for extended period 3) I genuinely was sick and requested an additional six hours of break to recoup and get back on my 10 hr breaks. but the messages got crossed and I was assigned the load. At that point I messaged dispatch " did you not see my messages earlier? I just drove 50 miles but I'm too sick to drive.sorry". That gave them 15 hours notice to get another driver assigned to that load.

Allowing a load to be late for ANY reason is BS and bad customer service. Allow dispatch to make arrangements.

This reminds me of that "runhard" YouTube guy who whined he was off for 20 hours then couldn't drive. He tried to make dispatch look like the bad guy. In the two hours he complained with them he could have napped. I just don't understand this behavior.

Rainy wrote:

This reminds me of that "runhard" YouTube guy who whined he was off for 20 hours then couldn't drive. He tried to make dispatch look like the bad guy. In the two hours he complained with them he could have napped. I just don't understand this behavior.

I don't understand it either...makes it rather easy for the rest of us to shine bright, earn a really good living when there are soooo many Knuckleheads like Werner unable to manage their way out of a one-car traffic jam at 0100. Yep,...happy to take his load while he is whining to dispatch.

Werner if you happen to be reading...if you are unable to safely drive after 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep; YOU ARE IN THE WRONG BUSINESS, or perhaps in need of medical attention cause you got something else going on.