“Why Haven't I Heard From You”
The lyrics from the song written by Sandy Knox and T.W. Hale came to mind recently. I had a drop and hook pick up at a large distribution center. It was scheduled to be ready by 02:00 on a Wednesday. I rolled in there at about 21:00 on Tuesday night with about 90 minutes left on my 14 hour clock. The guard told me that the
load was scheduled for 02:00 and was not started yet. That was not a big deal to me. They let me drop my wagon there. There is a truck stop a mile or so away and it would be a lot easier to park the bob tail. When I arrived at the truck stop there must have been 50 bob tails in the parking lot. It did not dawn on me that the facility having a major delay was the reason for so many bob tails, until the next day.
After my 10 hour break I bob tailed back to the facility and started my 14 hour clock. When I rolled up to the guard shack and asked for my load I was told that they were running about 24 hours behind. The song came to mind. “Why haven't I Heard From You?” I mean don't you know that “Back in 1876 an ole boy named Bell invented a contraption that we know so well.”? We are not a huge company. We only have one trailer parked 
at this facility. I thought well this makes us low priority to this shipper. There were dozens of bob tail rigs from mega carriers parked at the truck stop.
Recently, some friends of mine had a similar thing happen to them. They arrived in Dallas during the ice storm. They had a Friday pick up. They made it to the shipper. The shipper did not come into work that day. They ended up waiting until Monday. In my case my company had me dead head 150 miles to pick up a different load. After about 25 miles of that dead head I passed the spot where I had dropped my last load.
These days shippers don't like it when you call them. Directions are easily attained from a number of sources.
There is no need to bother them. Well, unless they don't call when they are late. That is a courtesy that I extend automatically if I might be late. All it takes is a minute's effort. I hear Reba in my head singing “By the 1950s they were in everybody's home” Now they can get a hold of our companies a day ahead of time and let us know that they are running that far behind. We can be either diverted to a different shipper or at the very least not headed into a storm to wait.
People wonder why there is a driver shortage? I have a question for these shippers-before you have a load sit because there is not a driver to pick it up-ask yourselves-”What is your excuse?”