It's a Team's Life

Just say NO

When Bob was with a large company we were calling home in the pay phone room. Yep been a few years ago. I heard a women's voice behind me getting emotional and stressed as I heard her say the word "No I am not doing that". We at the time were with a forced dispatch company and as I listened to her try to explain to the dispatcher that she was not ready to take a load into New York City to please take her off of the load my stomach lurched as were not ready to that load. The person on the other end would not give in as she pleaded with them. In the end she was fired and she hung up the phone crying as she went outside to clean her truck out and find another job. That was the beginning of the end for us being a company driver.

When we feel unsafe or that we are being forced to do something unsafe we have to have the ablity to say no. Someone sitting at a desk in a controled environment does not know what we are seeing out of the windshield. As winter gets closer I am once again reminded that there are times to say no. In the winter I watch the weather much closer and the last thing I want to do is take a load into an area where a blizzard is headed. When we get stranded in a snowstorm and this has happened to us our pay stops and we risk damaging the truck.

Watching the winds in Wyoming can also be time consuming, as usually we are light going across that state and those winds can easily blow over a loaded tractor-trailer. We have learned to go slow when the winds get bad and take our time and watch the states road conditions to see where the roads will be closed. No load is worth dying for or destroying the truck.

So the bottom line is look out the windshield and consider the conditions and if they are outside your realm of safety "Just say NO."

Bob & Linda Caffee
TeamCaffee
Saint Louis MO
Expediters since January 2005
[email protected]

Expediting isn't just trucking, it's a lifestyle;
Expediting isn't just a lifestyle, it's an adventure;
Expediting isn't just an adventure, it's a job;
Expediting isn't just a job, it's a business.