July 24, 2024 • 17 mins
Can maintaining professional boundaries really be the key to a successful trucking career? Join me, Walter Gatlin, as I pull back the curtain on my 40-year journey in the trucking industry to share why it's crucial to keep your interactions with dispatchers, planners, and brokers strictly business. Learn why getting too close can make it challenging to refuse unreasonable requests and how this could impact your job performance. I'll also provide actionable strategies for handling tricky situations like tight loading schedules and misleading information—emphasizing the importance of documentation and swift resolution.
Facing an impossible load that disrupts your rest schedule? You're not alone. Tune in to hear about the critical need for adhering to safety protocols and conducting regular inspections of your truck and trailer. I'll discuss a real-life scenario where a driver's safety was at risk due to an unreasonable demand and share tips on how to communicate assertively and professionally with your dispatcher. Prioritize your well-being and family while keeping your career on track by mastering the fine line between professional and personal boundaries in the trucking industry.
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Text me anytime with news, suggestions, and stories at (641) 990-5641. God bless, be safe, and keep it between the lines drivers.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Rollin' 18 Podcast.
This 40-year veteran is herefor anyone wanting to stay up to
date with the trucking world.
Grab your coffee, hop on boardand let's get on down the road
with Walter Gatlin.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Hello drivers and welcome to Rollin' 18 Podcast.
I am your host, walter Gatlin.
I appreciate you folkslistening to and downloading my
podcast.
I want to give you a quickreminder, before I go into this
story, about dispatchers, of theTop Gun large car shootout they
are having on July 26th throughthe 28th.
It's at the Rantoul NationalAviation Center in Rantoul,
(00:41):
illinois.
So if you guys are in that area, go ahead and Google Maps it or
GPS it and see how far you'regoing to be.
If you get a chance to go tothat.
You really need to go becauseit is going to be awesome.
Also, I wanted to remind youthat the podcast before this one
I interviewed Miss Flatbed Red.
This gal is awesome.
She loves classic trucks.
(01:02):
She goes around and goes to asmany truck shows as she can.
She does art, she draws trucks.
If you go to her website atMissFlatbedred, you will find
her and she is just an amazinghuman being that loves classic
trucks and she has so much tooffer on her websites, on her
YouTube, on her Facebook.
Check it out.
(01:23):
You're going to be highlyentertained.
Now, today's story is going tobe highly entertained.
Now today's story is going tobe about dispatchers.
You know there's a lot of youfolks out there that drive for
companies that has dispatchers.
I believe some of yourcompanies even have planners and
other people that get involvedwith your daily dispatching
activities, not to mention thebrokers that get a hold of you
(01:44):
when you're assigned a brokerload.
So I wanted to give you kind ofan example of what I went
through throughout my career andhow I learned to deal with some
of those issues.
And the number one thing that Ithink I should mention right off
the bat is I have learned notto develop a relationship, a
close relationship, with anydispatcher, planner or broker,
(02:06):
because that can lead to trouble.
You know, when you develop afriendship with a boss, it is
extremely hard to do your jobwithout some bias and it's
extremely hard to say no whenyou're put into a position that
you need to say no.
You know you drive for a truckcompany and the truck company
should know not all of them do,most of them do should know that
(02:27):
you're making one heck of asacrifice by being out there on
the road.
To begin with, you're away fromyour family, you are dealing
with a lot of stresses that youcan't handle because you're not
home.
You're out there on the roaddealing with all kinds of
traffic, all kinds of peoplethat do not respect truck
drivers anymore.
All of this comes into play.
(02:48):
But if you develop a closerelationship with your
dispatcher, you must keep thatrelationship professional, which
means you should not have anyproblem whatsoever telling that
dispatcher no when they put anunreasonable request or dispatch
on your table.
And that is actually realsimple if you think about it.
Now, the one thing I've learnedhow to do this is number one I
(03:12):
don't develop a closerelationship with these folks.
Nothing personal.
No Facebook pages.
I don't join any of theirsocial media groups.
I don't connect with them inany way outside of the
professional manner, and thatworks really well with me.
I don't connect with them inany way outside of the
professional manner, and thatworks really well with me.
I do the same thing with thefarm that I work with now.
I don't go to barbecues, I don'tgo to different things that my
(03:35):
dispatcher may have or even theCEO or the owner of the company
may have, and I do that for aspecific reason I'm out there to
make a living for my family andI do that for a specific reason
I'm out there to make a livingfor my family.
I'm out there sacrificing mytime with my wife, my husband,
my children, whatever it is youmay have in your position and I
am doing so in order to providea wonderful living an amount of
(03:58):
money that is different than theamount of money you can make at
a regular job.
So you're sacrificing quite abit and we're not getting paid
24 hours a day, seven days aweek, even though we're gone 24
hours a day, seven days a week.
So the best thing to do is,when a dispatcher gives you
something and this includescompanies that force dispatch
when a dispatcher gives you aload that is unreasonable but
(04:22):
you feel like doing it, go aheadand do it.
Don't make it a habit.
You know, make sure that youunderstand that there are a lot
of things involved, a lot ofthings at play when they give
you a severely tight load andthen you get to the place and
you find out that somebodymisled you and told you that
when you get there, they'regoing to it's a drop and hook or
(04:42):
they're going to unload yourather quickly, and you come to
find out none of this is true.
All of this needs to be wrotedown in your black book.
So in the future, you know thiscompany does not do things the
way that is normally done andyou know for a fact that you've
been misled and all of thesethings.
Anytime that a dispatchermisleads you, you need to bring
(05:05):
that up right away.
That's another thing I'velearned.
Bring it up right away and saylook, you told me this was going
to be a smooth, easy operationand it wasn't.
And then I go to read thecomments on their social media
site or whatever, and I realizethis has been going on for a
long time.
Why did you not know about this?
And of course, they'll come upwith some sort of excuse they
(05:25):
always do.
But the point being is that ifyou don't develop a close
relationship with these people,you don't have to be cordial
with them.
That doesn't mean you have tobe disrespectful.
It just means that you don'thave to worry about hurt
feelings on your end.
They're not your friend,they're not your relationship.
They are your work partner andyou are to work together so that
(05:50):
you can ultimately get the jobdone, which means pick up the
load and deliver load.
That's the main thing and to doso safely, without damage,
without having accidents.
Things like that.
You don't need to go to theirbarbecues, you don't need to
laugh at their jokes, you don'tneed to have a personal
relationship on social media.
All you need to do is your job,and that is one less stress
(06:11):
that you have to worry about.
And when they do come up withsomething unreasonable, even if
they do it twice and they'vedone that before you can tell
them no, I'm not going to dothat.
There's not going to be enoughtime.
You're going to have to send mesomething else.
One of my biggest pet peeves outon the road was getting to a
facility where they treated youlike you were a zero.
(06:32):
They would not let you use therestrooms, they would not let
you inspect the loads.
They made you use an outhousewhen it was 104 degrees outside.
They made you feel less thannormal when you pulled into the
gate to check in.
I had an incident one time andI do not regret to this day that
I handled it the way I did, andthis is not a recommendation
(06:56):
for you.
It was something I needed to doto prove a point to this
company and ultimately it got mefired from my broker.
But that's okay, because theylearned a valuable lesson.
I pulled in at 50 minutes priorto my appointment because I was
told I could check in an hourbefore.
When I got up to the gate theysaid no, you can only check in a
(07:16):
half hour before.
You need to turn around and goback out to the lot you were
parked in.
So I turned around.
I wasted a whole 10 minutesgoing back to the lot.
I waited the extra few minutesit took me to get to a half hour
within my appointment.
I drove up the line.
The line was very long thistime.
By the time I got up to the gateand you're not going to believe
this, but it did happen I wasone minute after my appointment
(07:38):
time and they said I'm sorry,you're late for your appointment
, so we're going to have toreschedule you till the next day
.
And I said no, that's not goingto happen.
And they said well, it's goingto happen, otherwise we're going
to have the guard usher you outof our property.
So I got out of my truck.
I set the brakes, got out of mytruck, disconnected the
airlines, dropped the landinggear and pulled the fifth wheel
(07:59):
pin and dropped the trailerright there.
I says if you're going to forceme to be here for 24 hours,
then I am going to leave thetrailer with you.
You can have your yard dog putit wherever you want.
You can unload it at yourconvenience.
I'm going to take my Bob tellto a hotel and I'm going to
check into it and then I'm goingto bill my broker and my broker
is going to bill you and, uh,I'm going to go ahead and take
(08:21):
the day off and I'm also goingto bill your company $500 for
loss to my truck because it wasmy truck and they're going to
pay me $500 for that lost time.
They just scoffed and laughedyou can't do this.
You can't drop that truck, getthat damn truck.
Blah blah, cussing up a storm.
I went ahead and whipped aroundand left.
I left that trailer right inthe center of their guard check
(08:41):
and now their truck could notget through.
They had to bring a yard dogover.
Ultimately they unloaded it thatday, called me up, said come
get the trailer.
They actually dropped it out inthe street because they would
not let me on the property.
They said I am banned from theproperty for good.
They gave me my paperwork.
It was all crunched up.
It was signed erratically.
It was just a nasty situationand I kind of felt bad about
(09:02):
doing it, but I had to teachsomebody a lesson.
Ultimately, I got a load back tothe area where my broker was
and he fired me, and that's fine.
But the last thing I told himwas you can't do this to people.
You knew the situation there.
You knew what was going tohappen.
They told me you knew what wasgoing to happen.
You treated me like a dummy andyou decided to take advantage
(09:24):
of me and my family.
And when you get takenadvantage of out there on the
road, they're not just takingadvantage of you, they're taking
advantage of your entire family, because that is more time you
have to spend away from yourwife, your husband or your
children, and that is not right.
I went ahead and went along withmy deal.
I went on and signed up withanother broker and when I did, I
told them exactly what happened.
(09:44):
I said this is what happenedwhen people lie to me.
This is exactly what's going tohappen again and again and
again.
And if you don't like that, donot hire me.
And I found out that beingupfront with brokers, being
upfront with bosses, withdispatchers, with CEOs, all the
way from the top all the way tothe guy that cleans the
restrooms.
I'm going to tell you the truth.
(10:06):
I'm going to say it the way Isee it.
If you don't like it, take ahike, because I'm not going to
build a relationship with peoplethat are unreasonable.
I want you to hear thissoundbite of a driver complaint,
and this is just one ofthousands out there, but it made
a lot of sense to me.
Listen to this.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Or if you're allowed inside, you're still limited.
You might have a bathroom, youmight not.
Some of the places we go todon't have public restrooms.
They don't have Val houses orthese little Port-A-Johns.
We're treated like you knowthey need us there but they
don't want us there, you know,and it's just.
Those are the places that putus in a pissy mood.
(10:45):
You know we got to deal withthat because it's not quick in
and quick out.
We get to a place like that.
It seems like we're there fouror five hours trying to get
loaded or unloaded.
You know our time's just asvaluable as anybody else's,
because now we can't go pick upour next load and get down the
road you know, the sad partabout all this is I've been
driving since 84.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
And the sad part is we continue to go through the
same problems every single year.
It's like some of theseproblems will not go away
because we're not learning fromthem, we're not dealing with
them properly.
And I'm on the side of a CEO,I'm on the side of a dispatcher,
I'm on the side of a planner,I'm a truck driver.
We're all on the same team, weall have the same goals.
(11:30):
But it's you know.
You can't treat yourdispatching job like a nine to
five banker job.
You can't do it.
You have to go above and beyond, just like the truck driver
does Same thing with the planner.
I still, to this day, do notunderstand why planners are not
directly linked upelectronically with dispatchers.
Because they will plansomething, they will give it to
(11:52):
the dispatcher.
The dispatcher will not thinktwice.
They will contact the driversthat are in the area.
They will set up thisimpossible or this totally
unprofessional load on somebodyknowing.
And let me give you a perfectexample guy unloads at eight
o'clock in the morning.
He gets on the board fordispatch at nine o'clock.
He's done, he Trailer's washedout, he's ready to go.
(12:13):
Planner gives dispatcher a load.
Dispatcher sees the load, givesit to the driver that just got
off at 8.
He's got to drive 100 miles topick up another load, but it
doesn't pick up until 9 o'clockthat night.
So that driver's going to be upall day because he just slept
all night.
And then they're going toexpect him to drive all night to
get that load somewhere thenext day and that is
(12:34):
unreasonable.
That is not professional andthe planner is not obviously
looking at the electronic logsto see who slept all night, to
see who's been up all night, youknow, vice versa, in order to
make sure that that load can betransitioned smoothly by
somebody that likes to drive allnight long and did sleep all
day long.
(12:54):
And that's the point I'm tryingto get out.
You can't give mixed nights andmixed days to somebody unless
they're just crazy enough to doit, because I know a lot of
people that will sleep all nightand there's no way they can
sleep during the day.
They can take a nap, but that'snot going to do them any good.
Their eyes are going to beclosing between 12 and 3 o'clock
in the morning and that's avery dangerous situation.
(13:17):
So do not build a relationship,a close personal relationship,
with anybody in your companythat you work for, even if
you're an owner operator and youwork for a broker.
You don't need that headache.
It is very vital to understandthat you are working for you,
you are working for your familyand you are working for a
(13:38):
company that has to keep thingsprofessionally and you can't do
that when you have a personalrelationship with somebody at
the company.
I'm sorry, that's just the wayit is and it works out well Once
I started setting my foot down,even with the job I have today.
If it's unreasonable and I feellike I'm not going to be able
to do it, I'm going to tell them.
(13:58):
I'm not going to do it, period.
I've always said, you know, atruck driver may be a dime a
dozen, but I can get two dozentruck driving jobs for the same
dime.
I'm not trying to discourageyou to have an open and valid
relationship with anybody thatyou work for, open and valid
(14:18):
relationship with anybody thatyou work for, but I am trying to
discourage you from having thefun, laughing type of
relationship you have with thosepeople because it intertwines
with your ability to be able tosay no.
It intertwines with yourability to separate those people
from the people you're actuallyout on the road for, and that
would be your family.
Yes, I want to do you a favorevery once in a while, but I'm
only going to do that favor foryou if it's great for me and my
(14:42):
people and if I can do it safelywithin reason of life.
I have a life and we need tofigure out a way to stick
together as drivers and realizethat this making us use an
outhouse, not being able toinspect the loads, unreasonable
situations with dispatchers thattry and get you to do things
(15:04):
that they know you shouldn't bedoing in the first place.
And let me remind you, drivers,of another thing too there has
been a lot of drivers pulledinto the scale houses here in
Iowa that are getting red,tagged and shut down, and that
is completely unnecessary.
Always walk around your truckand trailer twice, three times a
day.
Every time I stopped on thewhen I was on the big road, I
(15:27):
walked around, took me a minuteand I used every known mechanism
in my visual, my hearing tolook for anything that could be
a problem.
And it's very simple to do Onceyou get to know your truck and
your trailer inside and out.
You know what to look for.
Look for those vital items andmake sure that you are in
(15:48):
tip-top shape.
And if you notice a problem, donot put it off because you want
to try and save the companymoney or you want to do this.
You contact somebody right awayand you let them make that
decision and if they make adecision that's unsafe for you,
tell them no.
That's the whole part aboutbeing a truck driver.
Whether you work for a companyor you're an owner operator, you
(16:09):
are the captain of your ship,and I've said this other times
on my podcast.
Do not build a personalrelationship with the people
that you work for, because itdoesn't work out.
Your ultimate goal is you andyour family.
I have all the links down belowof all the places that I do
business on.
You guys can check me out onFacebook, on Instagram.
I do put out a lot of funnyvideos on Instagram.
(16:31):
A lot of it's not even abouttrucks, it's just having fun.
Check out Roland 18 Podcast onFacebook.
Join my Facebook page.
I do put a lot of things abouttrucks on there.
I'm having a great time doingthis podcast, so I hope you're
enjoying it as much as I am.
As always, god bless, be safe.
Keep it between the lines.
Driver.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Thank you for listening to Roland 18 Podcast.
Please visit my website atmediaiowacom or the podcast page
at roland18podcastcom.
Welcome to Rollin' 18 Podcast.
This 40-year veteran is herefor anyone wanting to stay up to
date with the trucking world.
Grab your coffee, hop on boardand let's get on down the road
with Walter Gatlin.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Hello drivers and welcome to Rollin' 18 Podcast.
I am your host, walter Gatlin.
I appreciate you folkslistening to and downloading my
podcast.
I want to give you a quickreminder, before I go into this
story, about dispatchers, of theTop Gun large car shootout they
are having on July 26th throughthe 28th.
It's at the Rantoul NationalAviation Center in Rantoul,
(00:41):
illinois.
So if you guys are in that area, go ahead and Google Maps it or
GPS it and see how far you'regoing to be.
If you get a chance to go tothat.
You really need to go becauseit is going to be awesome.
Also, I wanted to remind youthat the podcast before this one
I interviewed Miss Flatbed Red.
This gal is awesome.
She loves classic trucks.
(01:02):
She goes around and goes to asmany truck shows as she can.
She does art, she draws trucks.
If you go to her website atMissFlatbedred, you will find
her and she is just an amazinghuman being that loves classic
trucks and she has so much tooffer on her websites, on her
YouTube, on her Facebook.
Check it out.
(01:23):
You're going to be highlyentertained.
Now, today's story is going tobe highly entertained.
Now today's story is going tobe about dispatchers.
You know there's a lot of youfolks out there that drive for
companies that has dispatchers.
I believe some of yourcompanies even have planners and
other people that get involvedwith your daily dispatching
activities, not to mention thebrokers that get a hold of you
(01:44):
when you're assigned a brokerload.
So I wanted to give you kind ofan example of what I went
through throughout my career andhow I learned to deal with some
of those issues.
And the number one thing that Ithink I should mention right off
the bat is I have learned notto develop a relationship, a
close relationship, with anydispatcher, planner or broker,
(02:06):
because that can lead to trouble.
You know, when you develop afriendship with a boss, it is
extremely hard to do your jobwithout some bias and it's
extremely hard to say no whenyou're put into a position that
you need to say no.
You know you drive for a truckcompany and the truck company
should know not all of them do,most of them do should know that
(02:27):
you're making one heck of asacrifice by being out there on
the road.
To begin with, you're away fromyour family, you are dealing
with a lot of stresses that youcan't handle because you're not
home.
You're out there on the roaddealing with all kinds of
traffic, all kinds of peoplethat do not respect truck
drivers anymore.
All of this comes into play.
(02:48):
But if you develop a closerelationship with your
dispatcher, you must keep thatrelationship professional, which
means you should not have anyproblem whatsoever telling that
dispatcher no when they put anunreasonable request or dispatch
on your table.
And that is actually realsimple if you think about it.
Now, the one thing I've learnedhow to do this is number one I
(03:12):
don't develop a closerelationship with these folks.
Nothing personal.
No Facebook pages.
I don't join any of theirsocial media groups.
I don't connect with them inany way outside of the
professional manner, and thatworks really well with me.
I don't connect with them inany way outside of the
professional manner, and thatworks really well with me.
I do the same thing with thefarm that I work with now.
I don't go to barbecues, I don'tgo to different things that my
(03:35):
dispatcher may have or even theCEO or the owner of the company
may have, and I do that for aspecific reason I'm out there to
make a living for my family andI do that for a specific reason
I'm out there to make a livingfor my family.
I'm out there sacrificing mytime with my wife, my husband,
my children, whatever it is youmay have in your position and I
am doing so in order to providea wonderful living an amount of
(03:58):
money that is different than theamount of money you can make at
a regular job.
So you're sacrificing quite abit and we're not getting paid
24 hours a day, seven days aweek, even though we're gone 24
hours a day, seven days a week.
So the best thing to do is,when a dispatcher gives you
something and this includescompanies that force dispatch
when a dispatcher gives you aload that is unreasonable but
(04:22):
you feel like doing it, go aheadand do it.
Don't make it a habit.
You know, make sure that youunderstand that there are a lot
of things involved, a lot ofthings at play when they give
you a severely tight load andthen you get to the place and
you find out that somebodymisled you and told you that
when you get there, they'regoing to it's a drop and hook or
(04:42):
they're going to unload yourather quickly, and you come to
find out none of this is true.
All of this needs to be wrotedown in your black book.
So in the future, you know thiscompany does not do things the
way that is normally done andyou know for a fact that you've
been misled and all of thesethings.
Anytime that a dispatchermisleads you, you need to bring
(05:05):
that up right away.
That's another thing I'velearned.
Bring it up right away and saylook, you told me this was going
to be a smooth, easy operationand it wasn't.
And then I go to read thecomments on their social media
site or whatever, and I realizethis has been going on for a
long time.
Why did you not know about this?
And of course, they'll come upwith some sort of excuse they
(05:25):
always do.
But the point being is that ifyou don't develop a close
relationship with these people,you don't have to be cordial
with them.
That doesn't mean you have tobe disrespectful.
It just means that you don'thave to worry about hurt
feelings on your end.
They're not your friend,they're not your relationship.
They are your work partner andyou are to work together so that
(05:50):
you can ultimately get the jobdone, which means pick up the
load and deliver load.
That's the main thing and to doso safely, without damage,
without having accidents.
Things like that.
You don't need to go to theirbarbecues, you don't need to
laugh at their jokes, you don'tneed to have a personal
relationship on social media.
All you need to do is your job,and that is one less stress
(06:11):
that you have to worry about.
And when they do come up withsomething unreasonable, even if
they do it twice and they'vedone that before you can tell
them no, I'm not going to dothat.
There's not going to be enoughtime.
You're going to have to send mesomething else.
One of my biggest pet peeves outon the road was getting to a
facility where they treated youlike you were a zero.
(06:32):
They would not let you use therestrooms, they would not let
you inspect the loads.
They made you use an outhousewhen it was 104 degrees outside.
They made you feel less thannormal when you pulled into the
gate to check in.
I had an incident one time andI do not regret to this day that
I handled it the way I did, andthis is not a recommendation
(06:56):
for you.
It was something I needed to doto prove a point to this
company and ultimately it got mefired from my broker.
But that's okay, because theylearned a valuable lesson.
I pulled in at 50 minutes priorto my appointment because I was
told I could check in an hourbefore.
When I got up to the gate theysaid no, you can only check in a
(07:16):
half hour before.
You need to turn around and goback out to the lot you were
parked in.
So I turned around.
I wasted a whole 10 minutesgoing back to the lot.
I waited the extra few minutesit took me to get to a half hour
within my appointment.
I drove up the line.
The line was very long thistime.
By the time I got up to the gateand you're not going to believe
this, but it did happen I wasone minute after my appointment
(07:38):
time and they said I'm sorry,you're late for your appointment
, so we're going to have toreschedule you till the next day
.
And I said no, that's not goingto happen.
And they said well, it's goingto happen, otherwise we're going
to have the guard usher you outof our property.
So I got out of my truck.
I set the brakes, got out of mytruck, disconnected the
airlines, dropped the landinggear and pulled the fifth wheel
(07:59):
pin and dropped the trailerright there.
I says if you're going to forceme to be here for 24 hours,
then I am going to leave thetrailer with you.
You can have your yard dog putit wherever you want.
You can unload it at yourconvenience.
I'm going to take my Bob tellto a hotel and I'm going to
check into it and then I'm goingto bill my broker and my broker
is going to bill you and, uh,I'm going to go ahead and take
(08:21):
the day off and I'm also goingto bill your company $500 for
loss to my truck because it wasmy truck and they're going to
pay me $500 for that lost time.
They just scoffed and laughedyou can't do this.
You can't drop that truck, getthat damn truck.
Blah blah, cussing up a storm.
I went ahead and whipped aroundand left.
I left that trailer right inthe center of their guard check
(08:41):
and now their truck could notget through.
They had to bring a yard dogover.
Ultimately they unloaded it thatday, called me up, said come
get the trailer.
They actually dropped it out inthe street because they would
not let me on the property.
They said I am banned from theproperty for good.
They gave me my paperwork.
It was all crunched up.
It was signed erratically.
It was just a nasty situationand I kind of felt bad about
(09:02):
doing it, but I had to teachsomebody a lesson.
Ultimately, I got a load back tothe area where my broker was
and he fired me, and that's fine.
But the last thing I told himwas you can't do this to people.
You knew the situation there.
You knew what was going tohappen.
They told me you knew what wasgoing to happen.
You treated me like a dummy andyou decided to take advantage
(09:24):
of me and my family.
And when you get takenadvantage of out there on the
road, they're not just takingadvantage of you, they're taking
advantage of your entire family, because that is more time you
have to spend away from yourwife, your husband or your
children, and that is not right.
I went ahead and went along withmy deal.
I went on and signed up withanother broker and when I did, I
told them exactly what happened.
(09:44):
I said this is what happenedwhen people lie to me.
This is exactly what's going tohappen again and again and
again.
And if you don't like that, donot hire me.
And I found out that beingupfront with brokers, being
upfront with bosses, withdispatchers, with CEOs, all the
way from the top all the way tothe guy that cleans the
restrooms.
I'm going to tell you the truth.
(10:06):
I'm going to say it the way Isee it.
If you don't like it, take ahike, because I'm not going to
build a relationship with peoplethat are unreasonable.
I want you to hear thissoundbite of a driver complaint,
and this is just one ofthousands out there, but it made
a lot of sense to me.
Listen to this.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Or if you're allowed inside, you're still limited.
You might have a bathroom, youmight not.
Some of the places we go todon't have public restrooms.
They don't have Val houses orthese little Port-A-Johns.
We're treated like you knowthey need us there but they
don't want us there, you know,and it's just.
Those are the places that putus in a pissy mood.
(10:45):
You know we got to deal withthat because it's not quick in
and quick out.
We get to a place like that.
It seems like we're there fouror five hours trying to get
loaded or unloaded.
You know our time's just asvaluable as anybody else's,
because now we can't go pick upour next load and get down the
road you know, the sad partabout all this is I've been
driving since 84.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
And the sad part is we continue to go through the
same problems every single year.
It's like some of theseproblems will not go away
because we're not learning fromthem, we're not dealing with
them properly.
And I'm on the side of a CEO,I'm on the side of a dispatcher,
I'm on the side of a planner,I'm a truck driver.
We're all on the same team, weall have the same goals.
(11:30):
But it's you know.
You can't treat yourdispatching job like a nine to
five banker job.
You can't do it.
You have to go above and beyond, just like the truck driver
does Same thing with the planner.
I still, to this day, do notunderstand why planners are not
directly linked upelectronically with dispatchers.
Because they will plansomething, they will give it to
(11:52):
the dispatcher.
The dispatcher will not thinktwice.
They will contact the driversthat are in the area.
They will set up thisimpossible or this totally
unprofessional load on somebodyknowing.
And let me give you a perfectexample guy unloads at eight
o'clock in the morning.
He gets on the board fordispatch at nine o'clock.
He's done, he Trailer's washedout, he's ready to go.
(12:13):
Planner gives dispatcher a load.
Dispatcher sees the load, givesit to the driver that just got
off at 8.
He's got to drive 100 miles topick up another load, but it
doesn't pick up until 9 o'clockthat night.
So that driver's going to be upall day because he just slept
all night.
And then they're going toexpect him to drive all night to
get that load somewhere thenext day and that is
(12:34):
unreasonable.
That is not professional andthe planner is not obviously
looking at the electronic logsto see who slept all night, to
see who's been up all night, youknow, vice versa, in order to
make sure that that load can betransitioned smoothly by
somebody that likes to drive allnight long and did sleep all
day long.
(12:54):
And that's the point I'm tryingto get out.
You can't give mixed nights andmixed days to somebody unless
they're just crazy enough to doit, because I know a lot of
people that will sleep all nightand there's no way they can
sleep during the day.
They can take a nap, but that'snot going to do them any good.
Their eyes are going to beclosing between 12 and 3 o'clock
in the morning and that's avery dangerous situation.
(13:17):
So do not build a relationship,a close personal relationship,
with anybody in your companythat you work for, even if
you're an owner operator and youwork for a broker.
You don't need that headache.
It is very vital to understandthat you are working for you,
you are working for your familyand you are working for a
(13:38):
company that has to keep thingsprofessionally and you can't do
that when you have a personalrelationship with somebody at
the company.
I'm sorry, that's just the wayit is and it works out well Once
I started setting my foot down,even with the job I have today.
If it's unreasonable and I feellike I'm not going to be able
to do it, I'm going to tell them.
(13:58):
I'm not going to do it, period.
I've always said, you know, atruck driver may be a dime a
dozen, but I can get two dozentruck driving jobs for the same
dime.
I'm not trying to discourageyou to have an open and valid
relationship with anybody thatyou work for, open and valid
(14:18):
relationship with anybody thatyou work for, but I am trying to
discourage you from having thefun, laughing type of
relationship you have with thosepeople because it intertwines
with your ability to be able tosay no.
It intertwines with yourability to separate those people
from the people you're actuallyout on the road for, and that
would be your family.
Yes, I want to do you a favorevery once in a while, but I'm
only going to do that favor foryou if it's great for me and my
(14:42):
people and if I can do it safelywithin reason of life.
I have a life and we need tofigure out a way to stick
together as drivers and realizethat this making us use an
outhouse, not being able toinspect the loads, unreasonable
situations with dispatchers thattry and get you to do things
(15:04):
that they know you shouldn't bedoing in the first place.
And let me remind you, drivers,of another thing too there has
been a lot of drivers pulledinto the scale houses here in
Iowa that are getting red,tagged and shut down, and that
is completely unnecessary.
Always walk around your truckand trailer twice, three times a
day.
Every time I stopped on thewhen I was on the big road, I
(15:27):
walked around, took me a minuteand I used every known mechanism
in my visual, my hearing tolook for anything that could be
a problem.
And it's very simple to do Onceyou get to know your truck and
your trailer inside and out.
You know what to look for.
Look for those vital items andmake sure that you are in
(15:48):
tip-top shape.
And if you notice a problem, donot put it off because you want
to try and save the companymoney or you want to do this.
You contact somebody right awayand you let them make that
decision and if they make adecision that's unsafe for you,
tell them no.
That's the whole part aboutbeing a truck driver.
Whether you work for a companyor you're an owner operator, you
(16:09):
are the captain of your ship,and I've said this other times
on my podcast.
Do not build a personalrelationship with the people
that you work for, because itdoesn't work out.
Your ultimate goal is you andyour family.
I have all the links down belowof all the places that I do
business on.
You guys can check me out onFacebook, on Instagram.
I do put out a lot of funnyvideos on Instagram.
(16:31):
A lot of it's not even abouttrucks, it's just having fun.
Check out Roland 18 Podcast onFacebook.
Join my Facebook page.
I do put a lot of things abouttrucks on there.
I'm having a great time doingthis podcast, so I hope you're
enjoying it as much as I am.
As always, god bless, be safe.
Keep it between the lines.
Driver.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Thank you for listening to Roland 18 Podcast.
Please visit my website atmediaiowacom or the podcast page
at roland18podcastcom.
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