I've gotten a few calls after 9 or 10 at night for a load picking up at 6AM or something. Maybe 3 or 4 times a year I'll get a call in the wee hours for a load picking up ASAP and delivering ASAP, usually a replacement part for something that's broken down at a factory, emergency inventory, or in one case, to replace a blown tire on an airplane at the airport. But for the most part those middle of the night beeps are for swaps and breakdowns.
Moot:
"Loads swapping out because of length of haul should be set up before the freight leaves the shipper. I can't understand why dispatch waits until the last minute to set these up."
I know why. I had the operations guy in, uhm, an east coast state, tell me why. It's because, "It's impossible," to make those decisions when the load is booked. When I pointed out that there are many carriers who swap out long loads when using solo drivers, and they almost all do so by scheduling the swap right up front so that the first leg driver will know when and where the swap will be made, he still insisted that it's impossible and that those carriers don't do that. He even went as far to say that that's the reason Con-Way NOW is no longer in business, since he had heard that they did that sort of thing on a routine basis.
I had to laugh at that one.
A few weeks ago a solo straight truck driver picked up a load in Canada, bound for the US. He faxed the paperwork to ViaSafe from the shipper, and headed out for the border. Never called in to make sure the paperwork was received and was legible. Whoops. He gets to the border and still doesn't have a clearance. They can't read the paperwork, please re-fax it in. In the meantime, he runs out of hours.
About 4AM I get a phone call from dispatch (I'm having a hard time typing this while laughing) who wanted me to go from New Baltimore to Windsor and take his paperwork to a fax machine and fax it to the broker for him.
I'm still laughing at that one.
Slow and steady, even in expediting, wins the race - Aesop
