Nobody Cares

Dispatched on a load scheduled to pickup at 4 p.m.
"Call the broker" they said, so I called the broker.
"Pick it up noon," said the broker,
So I started my 14-hour clock and drove to the shipper leaving my parking spot at the truck stop where I had access to food drinks a restroom facility Etc.
" You are early," said the shipper,
" That load doesn't pick up until 4 p.m."
"Oh," I replied "The  broker told me to pick it up at noon instead,  I assumed that she had cleared that with you."
"Nope."
" Well," I asked in my nicest voice "Do you think there's any way possible I might get loaded a little early?"
" Anything is possible," he said with a smirk.

At approximately 2:30 I was backed into a door,  about an hour later I felt them start loading my truck.
at 4:30 the broker called me back.
"Hey hon," she said in her I'm-trying-to-be-all-nice-and-friendly southern accent,
"Did they get you all taken care of over there?"
" Not yet," I replied "I'm still sitting here in the dock waiting to be loaded."
" Oh my goodness that's too bad," she said.
" Sometimes they'll load people early so I like to send Drivers over there early just in case.  Most of the time they don't but sometimes they do."
"The most frustrating part," I remarked  "Is that I had to start my 14-hour clock 4 hours early and now I've just been sitting here burning up my clock for nothing."
" Oh darling that's too bad," she said,  again with those syrupy overtones of southern hospitality,  but lacking the genuine sincerity one often hears.
" I just don't know how you guys do it out there, I know I could never do it."

Well, my patient reader who has read through this entire conversation hoping to find a point somewhere , I'll tell you how we do it.

We sit here on the  dock waiting to be loaded, and while we wait we silently curse under our breath.

We curse the load planner who felt it was appropriate to have the driver contact the broker, instead of contacting the broker themselves and getting the needed information and passing it along to us.

We curse the brokers who demand that drivers call them directly and we curse the company that tolerates those demands.

We curse the situation because if the company had directed us to come here at noon, and we had to sit this long, we would get paid for our time, but since it was the broker who made that demand, and since the original work order still says 4 p.m., our time is volunteer time and we sit here for free.

We curse Brokers that have no vested interest in drivers but still end up in a position of telling them what to do.

We curse Brokers that truly DO NOT  know how we do it out here, and who truly COULD NOT ever do it.

We curse everyone from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to the National Transportation Safety Council,  to the load planners and dispatchers and brokers,  and everyone else who has never been inside a truck,  never done this job,  doesn't have the first clue about how to do this job, and yet somehow managed to end up in a position of authority where their job is to tell us how to do our job.

And then we finish cursing and because we need the money,  because we have bills to pay, because we have homes and families to support, and because this is what we do,  we do our best to get the load there safely, legally and on time, because in the end that's all anybody really cares about.

The broker doesn't care if I sat here  all day without pay.

The dispatcher doesn't care, the load planner doesn't care, the shipper doesn't care and the receiver doesn't care.

When Billy Bob Consumer and Susie Q. Housewife go to the grocery store for their milk and bread and toilet paper, they don't care how long I sat at the shipper without any pay. All they care about is whether or not there's milk and bread and toilet paper on the shelf.

When people do their back-to-school shopping or when they put the gas in their car or when they BUY a new car,  or when they buy anything else for that matter, they don't care about how the manufacturer treated the truck driver or about how  the intermediate warehouse treated the truck driver or about how the retailer treated the truck driver.

They don't even care about how the carrier or the load planner or the dispatcher or the broker treated the truck driver.  All they care about is whether or not their consumer goods are there and available for them when they need them.

And because of about 3.5 million men and women out here on the road just like me doing what we do, the goods ARE there when you need them

Kind of funny when you think about it; How folks will fight about a statue because it represents how someone was treated a long time ago, but they don't give a second thought to how people are treated today.

I would propose that we erect a 53-foot,  18 wheel Monument to the American truck driver,  but I imagine most people would just assume it was sitting there waiting to be loaded and wouldn't give it another thought

For my few friends who like me enough to have read all the way through this,   you guys are the best friends in the whole world thank you for putting up with me

The Penny A Day Challenge. After 60 Days.

Friends who have known me for a while have followed along on the Penny A Day challenge with me now for several years.

This is year number five for me, and it has become as much a part of my daily routine as tying my shoes in the morning or putting my hat on before I get out of my truck.

The first year can be a challenge but for me it has just become a part of my life.

I've been trying to share some tips this year with some of my Facebook friends to help them get started on this challenge. For those of you who don't know how it works let me review it real quick.

Starting the first day of the year or January 1st, you put one penny in a jar. The next day you add two pennies and the next day three pennies.

It starts off slow but that's not what's important. What is important at first is developing the habit of putting the money into the jar each day.

January can be kind of hard because you're just developing The Habit and it's kind of discouraging to see how slowly it accumulates. But they say if you do something repeatedly and consistently for 30 days it becomes a habit so I always encourage people to do it that way at first.

February and March are a breeze because by then you just do it automatically without thinking and it's still less than a dollar a day. The second quarter is a little more of a challenge, because you have to start consciously thinking about it. But it's still generally just pocket change.

Right around the end of June I usually convert everything in the jar into paper money because going into the third quarter, I actually find myself having to sacrifice a little some days, give up the donut with my morning coffee, or the cookies with my Subway meal in order to have an extra couple of dollars in my pocket each day,  and it provides a really good incentive to see that hundred dollar bill in the jar each day when I add my money.

By the end of the third quarter we're actually talking real money; nothing that breaks the bank, but $20 out of my weekly budget is a noticeable amount and I start to feel it. But by then the jar has lots of paper bills in it, and the excitement of seeing it build up real fast justifies the financial inconvenience.

The first couple years it was real tempting for me to take what was in the jar and use it a couple days before Christmas but I convinced myself to wait, and so on New Year's Eve when Christmas is over and I'm starting to feel the impact of all of the Christmas expenses, I get to open up the jar and take out a big handful of money and I suddenly feel rich.


In 2019 it produced $667.95 in savings.
2020 being a leap year, it will end up $671.61.

Like I said it was becoming pretty much a routine at this point so I decided this year to kick it up a little bit and add a little bit more of a challenge for myself.

And so on January 1st instead of putting a penny in a jar I put one penny each into two jars.

I've kept that up everyday subsequently I have two separate jars going and I am doubling my savings.

If I can keep it up all year by the end of the year I will have just under $1,350.

For those of you who are doing it with me or considering doing it next year there are a couple of different tactics you can use.

The one that I actually recommend for those getting started is to put the exact amount in change into the jar everyday.

You will have a Jar full of change that builds up that is very inconvenient to spend. Do not be tempted to borrow quarters for laundry or a vending machine or anything else. By doing it this way there will not be any paper money in the jar until day 100, and by then, three months in, hopefully you will have developed the will power to put the money in and leave it alone.

If you have incredible willpower and self-control you can use the progressive method.

Under this method you might add one penny on day one 2 pennies on day 2 and then on day 3 put in a nickel and take out two pennies, leaving a nickel and a penny. On day 4 you could put in a dime and take out the nickel and the penny.

If you're going to use this method you need to be confident of your math skills and confident of your self control.

To demonstrate the difference I have done one of my jars using each of the two methods this year.

Today is the 60th day of the year so today's contribution was $0.60.

If you have been doing this with me since January 1st, you have $18.30 in the jar, and you've probably developed The Habit yourself as part of your daily routine.

Up to this point it's been fairly easy; just a little bit of change here and there.

The next sixty days are going to be a little more of a challenge. Every day is going to require at least two quarters and in just over a month from now will be up to a dollar a day.

It's a little more challenging now but it's also a little more rewarding.

We're really going to watch those jars start to fill up fast now.

Keep an eye on them.

It's finally starting to get exciting.