I will say here and now that I only worked as a dispatcher for a matter of three months (so I was still very wet behind the ears when I left) and if I could have learned a little more a little faster I might still --- no I wouldn't still be doing it.

There are some people that can handel the preasure of dispatch and thrive, alas I am not one of them.
In some companies the job of dispatch is little more than load planning in that sales has already procured the load and the dispatchers job is just to pick the closest piece of equipment and asign it to the load then track it's progress to the destination. However in the companies I have worked with the dispatcher must know in advance where his equipment is and the driver he has on that equipment. He must know where and when that driver will be available for the next load then go out and find a reload as close as possible to that driver. Now the load must not only be close but also fit the equipment he has available and bring in enough revenue to satisify overhead and company profit margins. Sounds simple doesn't it. Well listen to the talk of a lot of drivers and you would think so. Just for fun though we add into this mix the personalities of management, dispatcher and the driver then multiply the number of drivers by 50 to 100 and - awh why not - vary the types of equipment in the fleet then we'll give every driver your home phone number and you can easily see where this can get to being a primary cause of ulsers, heart attacks and untold other maladies.

Now some dispatchers (definately not all) will lie to their drivers (though they may call it something else) either outright or by omition (or in some cases believe it or not they were lied to by the load broker or shipper - I know that is hard to beleive huh) in an effort to get the equipment in the area under the load they have available. I haven't the experience to speak from but I would think this would only make it harder to get a driver to feel good about any load from that dispatcher and would only serve to foster an atmosphere for more griping and a pile of mistrust.

Back as a driver now I know I have my foybles and at times a bad taste in my mouth when I see what a dispatcher has gotten me into. Wether it is their fault or not doesn't much matter when I look at the hours ahead of me in trying to secure and protect the equipment and the load they want me to haul especially when I consider the time frame they want it hauled in. Guess who is going to be at the other end of the phone line when I vent my frustrations and who will be mentioned in not too glowing phrases at the next coffee shop. Yep my dispatcher. Now maybe just maybe if one were to call them after cooling down one might actualy find out why such an load got stuck on your equipment and if it is something they didn't know about then the shipper or broker could be enticed into a fairer compensation for the company and you.

A little something to ponder the next time that over-payed, under worked A__ in dispatch gives you one from the bottom of the load pile. (guess I told him huh)