Jim
Orlando,#2Consumer Comment
Wed, January 16, 2013
As per your report...you were hired by Shelton, a flatbed company. You were hired to primarily run those southeastern lanes you spoke of, and it should be said, when freight exists for those lanes. You stated you were send out west of these lanes but expected to get home. They sent you a dispatch to pick up a load, as you said, 300 miles away and it was going "up north". You didn't go 300 miles away on your own, you drove 300 miles because you were DISPATCHED to pick up that load. Then, as per your admission, you DID NOT deliver that load "up north", instead you took it upon yourself to go to a terminal and clear out the truck. That load was NOT delivered by you...that load upon which YOU WERE DISPATCHED. Flatbed freight in the southeast is down this time of year. When freight for any type of "dedicated" lanes is down, the company...any company...must look outside those lanes to keep the trucks moving to generate income for the company and for the driver. Every driver with a few years under their belt knows this and every driver who runs in so-called "dedicated" lanes knows at any time they can be dispatched outside those lanes to service existing customers or to help obtain new customers. Trucking is NOT scheduled airline service. As such, every driver knows they must be flexible to changes at any time and dispatchers need to know this too. You told them at first you were not going to pick up this load. In many companies that is viewed as the driver has quit. You chose to disobey dispatch and not deliver the load but instead drop it and the truck somewhere even if it was at their terminal. Indeed, YOU QUIT UNDER DISPATCH because YOU chose to NOT deliver the load YOU were dispatched on.
No doubt you will get another job in the business, if your safety record is clean. When that time comes, you will need to be a bit more flexible rather than doing what you did. Additionally, I would HIGHLY suggest you pick up a newspaper...any newspaper and compare the writing of the articles in that paper with your posting. You would be well advised to get someone to teach you the basics of punctuation, capitalization, grammar and word usage. How people write and use the English language is a primary indicator of their future success. Finally, before it is stated, I do not work for Shelton.