Profile For Jeff Rockholt

I'm going to be the misfit here. I keep an Atlas around for bridge law and state by state regulations, etc. The company-provided GPS sucks because once you get off route, it doesn't reroute. It doesn't care where you are, if it ain't the right road, you have to pull off and wait for it to reroute. I use my personal trucker GPS for general routing. As soon as I get my load info, I look up the destination on the Google map app and find out the total miles. I divide the miles by my predicted average speed. 750 miles ÷ 50 = 15 hrs. If most of the route is freeway, I can up the average. If it's curvy 2 laners, I'll drop it. Then I round or add an hour for heavy traffic or other possible unforeseen problems. I also play with the app, or Trucker Path to find good reasonable places to stop. I also use street view and satellite view to verify the GPS routing from the freeway to the receiver. Which also helps me know what the backing is going to be like. I drove tour bus for 800,000 miles and I've driven truck for 150,000. When I was driving bus I would make sure I was able to tell passengers the ETA and was seldom delayed. You have to manage expectations in that business, lol. It's helped me be on time in trucking too. I'm not telling anyone to do it like me. I'm sure some will think this is asinine. But it works for me. I run recap most of the time and I can't handle the stress of being behind schedule. Being in a hurry kills people. I use the modern tools God gave me 😆. Also, without video chat, I don't know how I could do this job. I at least get to see my kids open their Christmas presents if I'm not there. Hats off to you truckers who had to use payphones back in the day and do everything on paper. And Hats off to anyone who still does.

Where were you on the Island?

Patchogue

I assume many members have listened to Brett's podcast episode about getting fired for being early. It has helped me stay calm and avoid lashing out over legitimately unfair and aggravating circumstances. I just spent 2 days with relatives for Thanksgiving on Long Island, NY. I live in Oregon, but freight took me to the NE. I left at 3am Friday and had a smooth trip all the way to and across the GW Bridge. I was dispatched on a load I had accepted a few days earlier and was able to dead head 232 miles to Carlisle, PA to pick up a 2,500 mile load going to Long Beach, CA. UNREAL!! I arrived 2 hours early at the Shipper and the load was ready. But I didn't have the BOL# or trailer# yet. It was supposed to be sent to my Qualcomm. I called my DM. The CSR had not forwarded the message from the shipper that the load was ready. I waited 5 hours outside the gate, wondering which one of the 4 trailers contained my ticket out of there. The CSR then finally responded to my DM. She had meant to cancel that load, but got too busy and forgot. My DM broke it to me, and actually apologized, acknowledging the CSR had dropped the ball. He was able to line me up with a load to San Antonio instead, but it wouldn't be ready till Saturday (today as I'm writing this.) I went back to the shipper this morning at 5 o'clock. Someone else somehow had already picked up my load! I called my terminal weekend dispatcher. He said he messaged the CSR about and would get back to me. It's been 5 hours. I've been running on recap 4 out of the last 6 weeks, drove 12,000 miles in the last month and been early to every appointment. So do know what I'm entitled to? Nothing. As Brett reminded us, we have no authority. None. The only right we have is to decide when it's too dangerous to be on the road. If we're sick, we drive. If we get crappy load, we drive. We run hard to support out families. I'm 2,500 miles from mine. But yelling at someone is not goimg to help my situation. Empathy would be nice, but it's rare out here in this business. Brett's situation was more frustrating than mine by far and with higher stakes involved. And I have to believe this is just a hiccup. No one is out to get me. If Someone is being incompetent, they won't last long. This has been a great company to work for, which makes this seem even more out of place. Now I must go get some bandages. My fist seems to have lost a fight with my incredibly durable Coleman iceless cooler.

Update-- Second load was also cancelled. I was offered a 3rd load from the same DC; another San Antonio. And my DM paid me $50 for each of the 2 cancelled loads and all empty miles from NY. I never demanded anything. I did call to ask what went wrong on the CSR's end and I was going to request some compensation for the hours wasted, but I didn't even need to ask. It was done.

Back in October we picked up a little a load in the Chicago area to be delivered to somewhere in Tennessee. Our DM and shipper made it clear that the load had to be there by a specific time something like 9pm on a Friday evening. 8pm we arrive. Place is ghost town. I speak with security he tells me where some of the warehouse worker's are. I go meet with a supervisor he checks my paperwork and said man you are the early. I said we can come back in an hour. He said hour??? Heck we weren't sure expecting you till Monday, to be honest it would have been better if you could delivered on Tuesday. He told me where I could drop the load. Later we learned the delivery time and date had changed but we were never informed

Having to wait all weekend to deliver? Doing a forced 34 that you don't even need is no fun. And not great on the check either.

Where were you on the Island?

Patchogue

I assume many members have listened to Brett's podcast episode about getting fired for being early. It has helped me stay calm and avoid lashing out over legitimately unfair and aggravating circumstances. I just spent 2 days with relatives for Thanksgiving on Long Island, NY. I live in Oregon, but freight took me to the NE. I left at 3am Friday and had a smooth trip all the way to and across the GW Bridge. I was dispatched on a load I had accepted a few days earlier and was able to dead head 232 miles to Carlisle, PA to pick up a 2,500 mile load going to Long Beach, CA. UNREAL!! I arrived 2 hours early at the Shipper and the load was ready. But I didn't have the BOL# or trailer# yet. It was supposed to be sent to my Qualcomm. I called my DM. The CSR had not forwarded the message from the shipper that the load was ready. I waited 5 hours outside the gate, wondering which one of the 4 trailers contained my ticket out of there. The CSR then finally responded to my DM. She had meant to cancel that load, but got too busy and forgot. My DM broke it to me, and actually apologized, acknowledging the CSR had dropped the ball. He was able to line me up with a load to San Antonio instead, but it wouldn't be ready till Saturday (today as I'm writing this.) I went back to the shipper this morning at 5 o'clock. Someone else somehow had already picked up my load! I called my terminal weekend dispatcher. He said he messaged the CSR about and would get back to me. It's been 5 hours. I've been running on recap 4 out of the last 6 weeks, drove 12,000 miles in the last month and been early to every appointment. So do know what I'm entitled to? Nothing. As Brett reminded us, we have no authority. None. The only right we have is to decide when it's too dangerous to be on the road. If we're sick, we drive. If we get crappy load, we drive. We run hard to support out families. I'm 2,500 miles from mine. But yelling at someone is not goimg to help my situation. Empathy would be nice, but it's rare out here in this business. Brett's situation was more frustrating than mine by far and with higher stakes involved. And I have to believe this is just a hiccup. No one is out to get me. If Someone is being incompetent, they won't last long. This has been a great company to work for, which makes this seem even more out of place. Now I must go get some bandages. My fist seems to have lost a fight with my incredibly durable Coleman iceless cooler.

Tour Bus driver for 11 Western states and school bus driver. Whenever I had a nice couple days to dead head to where I had to pick up a tour group, I was sad that the solitude would have to end and I'd be with 50 foreigners for 2 weeks. Tips were great, but being "on" all day dealing with people in addition to driving and giving tours in places even I'D never been, got to be exhausting. I've adapted to OTR, and there are many differences but enough similarities to not be a complete shock. Even when I have a blow out or breakdown, I feel thankful I don't have 50 paying customers looking at me, wondering what we're going to do, while I deal with an already stressful problem.

This is all so motivating. I love this forum. I may need talked down from a ledge one day and I'll know where to turn! 😆

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Thanks. Good things to remember.

I'm with Big Scott ... on this one you got into the business to make money ...(i'm assuming) and the only way you are going to do that is keep the wheels turning....correct... deal with everything else that comes your way... doesn't matter what it is ... if you start say no to any load then the process has started... you will not stop... now i am not talking about loads you can't possible make it time... unless they tell you your the only one close to pick it up and then you will need to ask your company to reschedule the delivery date and time... there are solutions to every problem ... trick is know them ... learning them ... school of hard knocks ...

go to school ( school of hard knocks) make mistakes ... believe me you will make plenty of them ... i know i did get graduated .... from the ... you school above and you will be a much better person in the end of your career .... and you can say ... I gave it all I got ... no regrets...

you have come to the right spot ... keep asking questions ....

I have driven for a very large carrier for 9 months. I had determined when I started that I would accept any and every load offering unless the appointment was so close that I assumed an error was to blame for my receiving of this load. It has happened. In my first few months of driving, I would listen to all the terminal rats talking about never getting miles, and then in same breath, list all the things he told his dispatch he would NEVER do. "Western 11 only, no NE, no LA, no states that have names ending with the letter 'A'." They told me I'd never get miles as a newbie with the company.

Well, I determined to go full George Costanza and made it appoint to do the Opposite of whatever these terminal rats were doing.

I've even done the little "favor" loads that are local deliveries in local gridlocked cities. Result? $$$! Very decent year So far and plenty of miles I've never begged for. What are some examples of loads you accepted knowing they would be a nightmare?

I have driven for a very large carrier for 9 months. I had determined when I started that I would accept any and every load offering unless the appointment was so close that I assumed an error was to blame for my receiving of this load. It has happened. In my first few months of driving, I would listen to all the terminal rats talking about never getting miles, and then in same breath, list all the things he told his dispatch he would NEVER do. "Western 11 only, no NE, no LA, no states that have names ending with the letter 'A'." They told me I'd never get miles as a newbie with the company.

Well, I determined to go full George Costanza and made it a point to do the opposite of whatever these terminal rats were doing.

I've even done the little "favor" loads that are local deliveries in local gridlocked cities. Result?

$$$!

Very decent year So far and plenty of miles I've never begged for.

What are some examples of loads you accepted knowing they would be a nightmare?