Fuel for Thought

Don't Be That Guy

I remember that guy from my pre Load One days when I drive north out of Dallas on US 75. I was out of service for the New Year, and dispatch called looking for a missing driver the day after New Year’s Day. He had one of those cherished holiday loads that picked up before the holiday and delivered after the holiday. Dispatch had lost track of his Qualcomm signal a couple states to the north, and he never showed up for his delivery in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The driver’s family had not heard from him, and dispatch was resorting to calling all drivers along the route to see if anyone had seen the van stranded or sitting. I am pretty familiar with the US 75 route north out of Dallas, so I drove the section of road between Dallas and Durant, Oklahoma scanning all the shopping centers where a van might layover and spoke with the managers of all the truck stops. The Texas Welcome Center on the TX/OK border maintains a written log of trucks and long-stay cars, and the van I was looking for was not documented. I reported back to dispatch, and by the end of the day the driver was still missing-in-action. I was done with my part and left it in the company’s hands.

A week later I was back in service, and the same dispatcher called with a load. I asked about the missing driver, and she turned angry. The driver called in after four days out of contact. He said he had gotten sick and gone home and had no explanation why he didn’t tell anyone or why his Qualcomm had gone dead. At that point I didn’t consider it my business anymore and didn’t ask about the company’s actions.

Don’t be that guy.

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