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Lol

I've only been here for a few months... I'm only telling the truth

Planners do have that power over the trailers.. sometimes, they'll make you bobtail anyway, even after they've said you cannot go without a trailer. Hahaha it's pretty awesome sometimes...

And it really does happen quite a bit

"You must submit your request for home time one week in advance." Haha ha ha that is what they'll tell you, but they don't tell you that you're probably not going to be home any of the days you're requesting to be home. What do you do: be flexible.

You must realize that freight isn't everywhere. Yes, you can accept that order that came across your qualcomm, but do you know if there is any freight up there that will get you home next week? No, you dont. And this is why you always call the area planner to ensure they can get you out of there before you even go in.

If you don't mind missing the hometime, then just go with the flow and don't be disappointed when you are sitting two, three, or five days at the terminal with no runs for you. Yes, this happens in some areas, especially at Swift.

Just be flexible, or cover your rear-end by asking the planner to get you a run out of there before you ever accept the load to go there.

"What? What are you trying to say?" Well, at Swift, we get our runs through the qualcomm, sent by our drive managers or planners. However, we made the mistake once of accepting a load from the shipper...

We had a run from Georgia Pacific, given to us by our planner, which included two stops. We get to the shipper (GP), and they've already given our pre-loaded trailer to someone else. "But, hey, can you take this load for us? The freight is going to the same two stops." --- that's exactly what the shipper said.

I thought, "well, I'm here, and I need the money... yes, I'll take it."

We made it to the first stop, and, three hours later, the receiver claims three pallets are missing from his order. "Alright, I'll let the company know," I said as I drove away.

Made it to the last stop, and was met with a rude employee. Whatever, be nice and just do what you're getting paid to do. Two hours later, the receiver explains to me that not all of his freight is there, and I've got freight that doesnt belong to his store, or the store I came from! What!?

I told the night dispatcher everything. "Okay, that sucks. Let me know how everything works out " --- night dispatchers say the darndest things.

Another two hours pass, the receiver put about 14 pallets back on my trailer, and I went to the terminal. Night dispatch is over, my drive manager is in the office now. I call him directly, he actually picked up the phone (he usually never answered phone calls), and once everything was explained twice, he tells me to call our OS&D department.

No problem, right? Wrong! OS&D has me call the shipper and tell them what I've already told four people already. I do it, though (because I was too new to know any better).

The shipper has me call both receivers to obtain item numbers and the quantity of each item they're missing from the shipment. It took me two hours to get all of this information due to people being on lunch break. By the time it was all done, the shipper gave me a confirmation number, and I gave that number to my OS&D department. No sweat, no money for my time, either.

Guess who calls me!? My terminal manager! Why? Because I contacted the shipper and two recievers doing work that wasn't mine to do!!! After explaining everything to my drive manager beforehand, he stepped up and told the terminal manager that I was told to do this by the OS&D department. Wow! The terminal manager's attitude changed instantly.

I was politely informed to never do any of that mess again, and that was the end of that fiasco.

"We have the freight!" That's what Swift has said multiple times, but you better make sure you get with a planner, not your drive manager, before the close of business on Friday, or that "freight" will disappear. Strange...

I've learned the best way to avoid this from happening, so that you're not sitting at a terminal (or truck stop) from Friday evening to Monday morning, is to obtain the names and direct numbers to area planners.

For example, if it's Thursday, and you're delivering to Decatur, GA, then call your South East regional/area planner and request runs from that area. Sometimes, you will get high mileage runs, sometimes you'll get a hand full of short hauls, but they may add up to be 1,000 miles in total.

Show them you're willing to run.

It sounds funny, and some of you may be scratching your heads on this one, but the veterans probably understand.

Most of our runs entail hooking up to an empty before going to the shipper, even if you're picking up a pre-loaded trailer. Well, some of the terminals have plenty of empties parked on the yard, but even a carrier as large as Swift doesn't have empty trailers everywhere, which came as a surprise to this rookie.

We've had to run local freight in the North West, because that's all they've got, so we do it without complaints. The following day, we get a 2,000 mile run. "Great! Our patience has paid off," or so we thought. There are no empty trailers on the yard. The issue has now become the terminal dispatcher telling me: "we are NOT trailer solutions!" Hahaha...

So a call to my drive manager at my home terminal, rather than the terminal I am currently sitting in, has to find me an empty trailer before I can pick up a pre-loaded trailer at the shipper. Yes, this is part of the life sometimes.

Lancaster isn't a bad terminal, its roomy, and they have lunch catered... had to pick up some load stops there last week.

I was kinda caught off guard by it at first. It began happening when my co-driver was in the wheel. I just told him that I figured that was the update tha happened when we were heading from Yuma to Laredo and the dang thing decided to turn itself off for about 10 minutes before the use of the GPS returned. Thank the Good Lord we've got an Atlas.

Well, we finally got on board with a new DM, and a new division. Now we are running coast-to-coast. This week's check has a little over 7,000 miles worth of pay on it, and I'm only going to see a little over $1,000.

I'm not too mad about it since it's about $350 more per week than my lost job, but I'd always like to make more.

Thanks ironmike. The cb had the posts you're referring to, but was missing the three pin power plug. Found a three pin that connects to the 12V outlet on t he console. it works, but we have a wire hanging down from the cb to t he console now.