Maybe the most annoying thing about brokers is that often, they actually do end up getting their way. Carriers do end up downloading apps and consenting to some tracking and data collection to work with a broker. A broker who calls and calls and calls might eventually get through, and still likely gets their load delivered. With Convoy, even a broker that didn't pay might still get carriers back on the platform.
But sometimes getting what you want isn't all it's cracked up to be, as was the case when one junior employee at a mega broker recently ended up face-to-face, or perhaps even more than that, with a nude trucker on a mandatory rest break.
[Related: Long Haul Paul: Should brokers be allowed to call you at 3 a.m.?]
Hector Adrian Esquivel Rodriguez is a cross-border freight specialist for Load Partner, among a few other outfits, and on LinkedIn recently he recounted the story of a mega broker intern who got more than she bargained for.
Rodriguez mostly dispatches produce loads across the border, which he says is generally fraught with delays caused by cheap brokers not wanting to pay hourly warehousing fees for their loads once they've crossed.
As Rodriguez told the story: "This girl called me on Monday at 7 a.m. and said, 'Hey I have this load, I need to do four pickups in Pharr, Texas, and they're all very close.' That was the first lie."
The pickups were at least 20-30 minutes away, and when the driver got there, the loads were nowhere to be found.
"They do this all the time because they don’t want to overpay on the warehouse," he said. "First stop wasn’t ready, second stop wasn’t ready, third stop the driver waited six hours ... fourth stop, he stayed overnight."
When it came time to seek some layover pay for the driver, the normally chatty broker went quiet.
"She ghosted me," he said.
The next day, all the freight finally loaded and Rodriguez's driver got rolling around 4 p.m. Now, the broker's once again found her voice.
"She starts calling all the time, saying she needs updates every hour," Rodriguez said. "She said, 'we are late.' I said 'We? You guys are late. We showed up on time.'"
Bear in mind, this is the kind of mega broker that has drivers running a tracking app. She had access to the driver's whereabouts the whole time, according to Rodriguez. Not only that, but the load is bound for Massachusetts, so she's committing herself to as many as three or four days of incessant check-ins.
[Related: ELDs/location tracking making brokers more annoying? Or more efficient?]
Hopefully the driver, whom we'll call Fernando, puts his phone on mute and enjoys some clear hauling up toward the Northeast for a while. He uses up his driving hours and retires into his sleeper berth at around 2 a.m.
By 6 a.m, there's an urgent problem in the mind of the insistent broker.
Rodriguez continued the story on LinkedIn:
I received multiple calls from an agent this morning, all aimed at getting an update from my driver. When she finally reached me, I provided the current location, but she insisted on having the bill of lading (BOL) from the pickup. In response, I explained that my driver was currently in his sleeper berth and would be resetting in 2 hours due to regulatory rest requirements. However, the agent insisted that this matter was urgent .She proceeded to call my driver 20 times, and on the final attempt, accidentally initiated a FaceTime call, during which my driver answered and was unexpectedly found to be naked.
She said the FaceTime call was by mistake. Fernando said he answered nude by mistake. In any case, the call concluded and she was significantly updated on the situation.
"She was angry as hell, like 'Hey, why'd you do this?'" said Rodriguez.
What ensued was a brief chat about respecting a driver's mandated rest times and the sanctity of the sleeper berth, and what might go wrong when ignoring these rules of the road.
"She went to call Fernando but got answered by little Fernando," said Rodriguez.
Hopefully, this is the kind of lesson the broker would remember.
"Some big brokers recruit interns and the new guys don’t know anything about rest hours," Rodriguez said, "about paying the fair share to the driver, and that the wait times are important. She wanted to give him $50 for detention when it took two days to get loaded."
Rodriguez said it's the last straw for this particular mega broker, and he won't have drivers haul for them again.
"During our conversation, I said 'You’re not a driver right?', and she said, 'How am I supposed to be a driver? I’m 22,'" Rodriguez recalled. "But it's not a problem of age, it's a training problem."
Rodriguez himself spent 10 years driving trucks, so he takes it personally when clueless brokers try to squeeze them for time, money or even basic respect. That's why he posts on LinkedIn about these type of antics.
"A lot of brokers don’t like my posting, but I’m on the side of the driver," he said. "I drove for 10 years. I know the drill. It’s difficult because you need to deal with angry drivers, regulations, your wife calling you with problems. If this 22-year-old lady yells at you because they got late on the pickup, that’s not fair."
Ultimately, his dispatching philosophy boils down to a simple rule that hasn't failed him yet.
"Take care of your truck and your driver and they will take care of you and your family," he said.
