S1E20 Dispatch vs. Diesel: Ryan Carraux Talks Freight Chess, Driver Hustle & the Realities of Trucking Ops

Dispatch vs. Diesel: Ryan Carraux Talks Freight Chess, Driver Hustle & the Realities of Trucking Ops

In this episode of the Channel 19 Experience, we go behind the scenes of the trucking world with Ryan Carraux of D&E Transport—our first guest from the operations side of the house. From dispatch stress and rate games to driver relationships and breakdown drama, Ryan breaks down what it’s like managing 120 drivers through freight booms, busts, and bad attitudes.

We talk about what it takes to match freight to personalities, how COVID warped the market, why etiquette still matters in dispatch-driver relationships, and who Ryan would really trust with a high-stakes load: Mile Marker Mike or Danger Dave.

It’s a gritty, funny, and honest look at trucking from the ops floor—where freight ain’t just moved, it’s orchestrated.

Transcript

All right. This week on the podcast, we’ve got another Minnesotan, we’re on a string here. We’ve got a pattern. Ryan Carro joins the show, , from DE Transport. Welcome, Ryan. Great to have you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Good to be here. Well, Ryan, we, you’re my first operations person to join the show.
, We’ve had a bunch of truck drivers, we’ve had industry people, technology people, , but I think you’re the first one to come from the operations floor. , And so now I’ve got a. A cohort to, we can talk a little smack about little brother trucker, , Mike [00:01:00] and, , danger Dave and other truckers.
So we can collaborate on that front. We can gather the pitchforks afterwards. Yeah. And then we can change our names and addresses quick before they find us. We go Ryan, great to have you. , Why don’t you give, just to kick us off a little bit of introduction , on your background and how you got started , in trucking?
Yeah. So my background’s UPS worked in the hub and, in and out of that kind of operation with drivers and employees alike. And really it was just about, getting your hands dirty, right? So that’s what we’re doing now. More or less, obviously the keyboard’s pretty clean in, in the dispatch office, but we’d like to think we’re, kind of fighting the fight with you guys, with the drivers and such to, make ends meet make a living, make a good living for the family.
Be successful and at the end of the day, just load the truck and get it empty. So, been UP or UPSI was there about 12 years. And now at DNE it’ll be five years actually this year. Okay. So you and with the DNE, what’s your role [00:02:00] now? So currently now just the fleet management dispatch, or you could title it whatever you’d like.
Mm-hmm. Pick and freight up that pays, worth everyone’s time and makes sense to, get reloads and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, basically just boots on the floor and the operation dispatch. And do you guys break it up by a group of trucks that you work with, or do you have like regions or how do you guys do it?
Yeah, we kind of do it a little differently than most. It’s set up basically in areas for customers to start with. That’s kind of where we, you know. Building the relationship with them too is important , to maintain, to, to have that connection, to be able to get more freight options and such.
So we’re kind of scattered in I’m out east primarily, but everyone’s got different quadrants, so to speak throughout the country. And then, there’s lots of gray areas with that. And, there’s. I can assure you, there’s not a time that if everyone’s covered out east, I get to kick back and relax ’cause we’re all kind of jumping in [00:03:00] to, help out with whatever area.
If, if there’s all of a sudden, an influx in trucks in Texas and we need some freight. So we’ll all jump in and help everywhere. But yeah, pretty much like I said divvied up between the country and quadrants more or less. Gotcha. So the owner operators, they pop into your region, they’re delivering load.
You’re, you understand the customer base, got the relationship with the customers and understand the freight and the patterns and you’re looking for, to get ’em moved on to whichever direction they’re headed to next. Yeah. Well, and you know, kind of knowing the drivers, right? I mean, there’s, there’s 120 of them, um, all with, unique characteristics and personalities.
Um, and you know, some guys, you don’t blame ’em, they don’t like to go out east, they’ll go out west. They have preferences just like anyone would. So really trying to hone in on that to, match it up with what the customer’s needs, right? Because, just because John doesn’t want to go out east but the customer has three loads going out east.
It, it doesn’t always [00:04:00] work out. So you’re kind of always playing that chess game with maneuver and stuff around to the best of your abilities. So, yep. Lots of Lego pieces, not all of them make the shapes you want on every given day. No, it’s definitely fluid, but that is the fun part. I mean, more or less, whether you like it or not, it’s, uh, it is a challenge.
But it definitely is very rewarding, when you can make the plans come together for both parties too, which I’d like to say we do more times than not. But yeah, it’s it’s fun for sure. So what’s it been out, what’s it been like out there lately? From a freight, I mean, tough.
I mean, it has, it’s I mean everyone’s, working twice as many hours for less pay and honestly it’s been about that for, I think we’re going on three years now. Yeah. There’s a lot of variables with that. Coming off COVID Peak with freight. Rates and stuff. I mean, as much as everyone loved it, no one can deny the fact that some of those rates [00:05:00] were kind of outlandish as far as what the normal market would’ve done even before that.
But, , this dip now and, people aren’t even comparing it to 2008 these days. It, they’re saying it’s worse. Mm-hmm. Because of how it’s been. And it has, I mean, fuel prices continue to go up. Customers don’t want to pay anything. And I, I don’t even say customers because there’s a lot of them that don’t, but brokers really dove into a lot of that market at that time.
And now they’ve somehow successfully held on to some of those rates and obviously still have to make their, percentage. And so it still drives the rates down generally then going to the carrier and to the driver. , But our core customer base, I will say is pretty good.
I mean, we have, I. Pretty high paying customer freight that we maintained over the years and continue to do so. Which kind of, helps give us a leg up so we don’t have to hopefully, go to as much brokered freight. But , you gotta connect the dots too. And if you can load a guy over to [00:06:00] point B because your customer’s paying $6 a mile and he gets the guy home and it’s, the perfect storm.
, That’s what we’re always looking at in the office, trying to, to play the chess game. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And you see it, right? We saw the, the big influx and all of the. All the broker authorities that got spun up over that couple year span, and then the unwinding of the same, the same number of brokers falling off right as the good times were over and it just became cutthroat.
Right. E even the owner operators, there’s, we had plenty of stories of which they’ve obviously moved on in, in some regard, but, there’s, I, we had plenty of owner operators that were accountants, before COVID, and they saw, the COVID Freight increase and said, ah, I want to be a trucker.
And so, they go get their CDL and thinking they can hang with everyone and that, uh, you maybe is good. But it definitely, there was an influx then in drivers too with the amount of freight that all of a sudden just dropped [00:07:00] off. So I think it hit, hard on both ends with the rates, just washing out a little bit from the.
Of COVID stuff and also just the amount of drivers that thought, let me get in the game, kind of thing. Yeah. It’s been a weird job market when you look outside of, let’s say, the truck driver market ever since COVID, right? I mean, COVID was a huge curve ball for just about everybody. And then it was a bunch of reactions to it as we realized it wasn’t gonna go away quickly and this wasn’t a, a one month problem and right.
And then it. Th then it’s been a matter of unwinding a bunch of weird stuff that probably didn’t make a heck of a lot of sense. And if you subtracted the government money from the equation, what didn’t make any sense and just it takes a while to unwind it. Yep, exactly. And then too, just equipment, right?
I mean, I guess that’s a whole nother topic, but you got, with all the emissions stuff these days and. [00:08:00] Parts, all that kind of plays into to everything there with just lack of , basically people being able to work on the trucks, the shops are short staffed and all that. Yeah. The rates are still high on a labor side.
Parts are higher than they were. I mean, I think that’s probably the, the biggest, one of the biggest heartburns for, the guys running the trucks is just the. The cost of everything. Even I think a TRI came out with a, one of their annual surveys on operational costs of running trucks.
And it was, once you subtract out any fuel fluctuations, it just got down to, tires and all the other stuff that is less variable than fuel. Costs, it’s significantly up again this year over last year, another 5% or so on the cost side. Right. So it’s just the squeeze is, continues to put pressure on people.
Yep. And you gotta be, kind of savvy to work on your own rig and be able to [00:09:00] change out a couple fuses every so often just to not run the bill up, which yeah. Hopefully you know, that, people continue to learn that kind of stuff. ’cause there is a lot of, and maybe that’s a good thing too, but there is a lot of drivers out there that just don’t have that knowledge and, end up going under because of it, which it’s tough to manage that overhead.
And with the rates and with the fuel and just, again, all the variables. Right. So, yeah, for sure. So what, what kind of fun do you get into over at the office there with these drivers? I can only imagine having heard of Mile Marker Mike and Danger Daves running around the easier bunch. No, it’s, I mean, it’s, I mean, it’s all good.
Really, when a new driver comes on we definitely take the time to, to get to know them. We’re always trying to call ahead to drivers and see when their, ets are gonna be at and how’s your day going? And, we get some guys that are just so used to from other companies that, just call in and, Hey, this is Truck 2, 3, 4.
What, what’s your name, man? I, [00:10:00] what, what, who are you? Break the ice a little bit and build those relationships up. But as far as fun goes with the drivers, I mean, we have tons fun. I. Try to, throw jokes in there as much as we can, but obviously, we got a job to do to, to get them loaded and where they need to be, when they need to be there, and when the customer needs the freight.
So it’s just, again, playing that chess game. But we definitely try to incorporate the fun side of it. We, even with just dispatchers amongst ourselves, cracking jokes and. Inside jokes and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it’s all to keep the mood light as much as you can.
’cause it is a stressful job, when you got a customer breathing down your neck because you’ve missed, pickup appointment times, three weeks in a row and they’re threatening to cut off. Your freight options and you got Billy over there who’s trying his damnedest and you don’t really wanna, bash him in because of how his week’s been going, breakdowns, whatever’s happening.
So it’s definitely finding that balance and perspective of [00:11:00] everyone to kind of, again make it work for both parties. Yeah, and I mean, you think about it, right? Any relationship you have, whether it’s friends, whether it’s a spouse, like. The hardest conversations are usually around like real life problems and money and when you’re.
When you’re running a trucking company, especially when you’ve got owner operators, it’s always about money, right? There’s other trade offs, but the trade off always on the one side of it, has money as part of the equation, right? Whether that’s dealing with people’s breakdowns, dealing with which load do you want to take, taking a load and finding yourself in a spot where the freight coming out doesn’t pay as good.
Like it’s it’s, it can al it always has the potential to be a stressful conversation as the person on the other end of the phone is weighing their options and their realities and their obligations and everything. And especially in tough times like now. Right? With, with business and personal, it’s, it’s just because [00:12:00] maybe they did okay on the freight, doesn’t mean maybe their personal life’s going great, their doctor appointments and bills and, just everything a normal person has to deal with and you gotta do it on the road too. So it’s definitely a lot to deal with at times For sure.
For, for both, for everyone. Yeah, it’s funny, I was, last week I read a little story by a it was posted by a former truck driver. His friend had written it, and it was about, it was written by a trucker’s wife, and this was back in the previous era, kind of like when I grew up. Maybe, talking more about the eighties and nineties where the, the truck driver, you could hide a little bit more.
Right when I started out, if you didn’t want to be found, you could disappear for days and weeks. Nobody know where you were. Right. You know, without cell phones and things like that and, satellite tracking devices or, ELDs and but now, yes, it’s great the communication’s there but it is a double-edged sword and people can find you with their, with problems from home too.
And you [00:13:00] know that right? That weighs on people’s minds. , The stress of what’s going on at home that you can’t really do much about other than be a voice on the other end of the phone, that it just adds into the overall environment of being a modern day trucker. Definitely a different time. Yeah. Like you had mentioned, even with the ELDs, it just, you got sometimes forced to, run because your clock you only got so many hours, it’s during the week, and if you’re not feeling up for it, but your clock is going, then you kinda gotta go.
Which, questions the safety part of it on both sides. So definitely a slippery slope when you look at that perspective. Yeah, for sure. Well, one thing I wanted to ask you about, ’cause we’re running through this etiquette series, slaying out some various areas where maybe etiquette is degraded a little bit in trucking.
Some of the various behaviors, whether that’s at the fuel island or in the parking lot or on the highway. But, I think one of the one areas that. That etiquette [00:14:00] also still matters quite a bit. Is just in that interpersonal. Dealings with one another, right? The, yeah, the conversations that go on between operations and I mean all departments in trucking, but you guys in operations talk to the truck drivers the most.
Yep. Wanted to get your thoughts on that, like the interesting parts about communicating with a variety of people, but also, the commonality that they’re their owner operators, that they’re, business owners and truckers as well. Right, right. Yeah. I mean that’s, uh, yeah, absolutely. It’s you know, you question even outside the trucking world these days with just regular peoples etiquette at the grocery store.
Right. That’s a whole nother topic. So kind of staying on track with that. But yeah, we it, it is just. About building the relationship, but like I had mentioned, just not caring. What, I don’t really care what truck number you’re in or what color truck you drive, or what your hours are.
It’s, what are you working with? We ask the questions to try to get into the mind of the [00:15:00] driver. ‘Cause it, it matters. We’ve had occurrences where. Drivers have been, felt like they’ve needed to push so hard to jeopardize safety and other things because they felt the pressure from dispatch.
And so we have always tried to take a step back and really think about how we talk to the drivers as much as we can. I mean, human emotions do take over on both sides. But really just trying to, talk to ’em like a person. It’s really just about building the relationship and.
There’s plenty of drivers that know, I like to play video games on the side and we talk Turkey with some of that kind of stuff. Or just, how’s your day going? And, oh, you sound sick, you know what’s going on. Sorry to hear that. Like just those personable questions that. Goes a long way. So we, we treat that pretty highly.
It’s very, it’d have to be a very special occurrence for us to, ever really get upset. We try to understand it. I mean, obviously we’re pressured to with [00:16:00] customers and stuff and in the dispatch office, but. Truly our intentions are to, voice the driver’s perspective to the customers and try to get them to understand what the dealing is with too.
So we, we take that to heart. We do at least a DNE to try to, you know, like I said, make them feel a part of the family. Feel welcome, feel like they can actually call when they do have a problem. Some people don’t even want to call their dispatcher with an issue ’cause they’re like, oh God, just, he’s gonna be pissed as soon as I tell ’em what happened.
And some of them do feel bad, which, we great. I’m glad you feel bad, sometimes you can’t really do anything about what’s out on the road and the variables you gotta deal with. And. Road construction and all the stuff that, that goes into getting freight from point A to point B there’s a lot of it.
So we take it to heart for the etiquette part and yeah I can only imagine and you hear the stories, but you know of. All of a sudden a guy lost his his crank, ’cause we run all [00:17:00] Conestoga. Mm-hmm. They’ll steal the cranks out of the back flap and stuff.
And then the guy’s gotta go waste his day, going a hundred miles outta route just to go get this special crank. ’cause some of them have that in different areas. So it. It’s unfortunate, and that’s, again, that, that dives into my whole tangent of what’s wrong with humanity in General Guard.
But that’s a bigger topic. Yeah. Yeah, it is. The list of things that can go wrong in, in a day in trucking it well. It can be long and there’s no, there’s no, well, we dealt with one thing, so that’s gonna be it for today. Like, usually it doesn’t, it can go five, 10 deep on things that go wrong right in a row and really test people’s patience.
Yeah. And that’s the load, that’s, there’s a crane waiting on the other side. Right? So then you, you get the dispatcher’s stress levels and the driver’s stress. ’cause he know he’s trying to get over there and he’s doing everything he can. And it’s, that’s why you, I, I think you can’t take it [00:18:00] super seriously.
Easier said than done. Don’t get me wrong. It’s, these are people’s livelihood, right? To make deliveries and do it safely to not get claims and all the extra charges. ’cause they, just had a $2,000 shop bill. The last thing they need is a claim from, something getting wetter, unsecured I properly or whatever.
So it’s it’s definitely a fine balance. I mean it’s funny now ’cause I’ve been out from behind the wheel for. 11 years now or so. Maybe a little more. But anyway, I’m in meetings or some, something, somebody’s frustrated, a customer’s upset or whatever. The normal office job, nont trucking, and people are like, how are you so calm?
And I’m like, this is nothing like for the, from the, screaming customers and trucking mad truck drivers at me because some plan didn’t go wrong or didn’t go right. And, I’m like, my, the frequency that I’ve got upset people talking to me in my ear, in, In a way that it feels like it’s the [00:19:00] 1970s or something all over again is way less frequent around here than in around the trucking business.
So I can handle this level. This is, a two out of 10 compared to some of the situations in trucking.
Absolutely, yeah. Some of those can and they can even get worse, like you said, if you. You’re on issue six for the day. It’s it’s pretty exhausting , and daunting to try to see the light at the end of the tunnel until you can, hit the sleeper. So, yeah. And you don’t know, right?
It’s not like you’re, you know, I mean, you, you have interactions because you’re, you’re working . With truckers who are not, under the same roof or in the same building as you, but you’ve also got coworkers. So you get, you’ve got both dynamics. The people you can see, the look on your, on their face and the other people that you can’t.
Right. And it’s a little easy to tell if people who you’re sitting across from, if this is a two out of 10 day or a, a pretty good day, you know? Right. It can be hard to gauge that on the other end of the phone at times. Yep, exactly. You don’t know that the guy just spent, the last [00:20:00] six hours trying to switch some hoses out and some clamps just to stop the water leak or whatever.
And that was his 10 hour break. It’s like, okay, that, that sucks. Yep. Yeah, for sure. It’s one of the weird things about trucking, I think, we spend so much time on. Issues. Right. It, it feels like the jobs are more issue management. Yeah. Because you’re spending, 90% of your time on 3% of the things that pop up out of the a hundred loads that you’re gonna haul today.
You invest so much time and energy dealing with the. Five that are went off the rails somehow, whether it was a breakdown, whether it was a shipper was late, the crane didn’t show up, or, whatever the case might be. but we tend to forget about the 95 times it went right every day.
And thank God that it did, if it would’ve, if it would’ve only been 85 that day, I think we, everybody loses their mind, um, right. So it is we just tend to not [00:21:00] celebrate as much as the actual success that goes on in this business. We all just take it for granted and go, wow, look at that. Every place I went today, there was stuff in the stores and people were able to do their jobs thanks to a crap load of truckers and the people behind the scenes orchestrating the truckers together for the world to go round.
Right, right. And we try to celebrate that in the office. I mean, again, it’s kind of a, I, I think both sides right, are at times a, a thankless job. But we have, plenty of guys that will, hands down say you guys are the best. Thank you so much. We appreciate your hard work. We get a lot of kudos too, which makes you feel good at the end of the day.
So we try to return all of that as, as much as possible. And it, it is good to hear the wins, right? Because yeah, like you said, there can be so many variables and so many problems. Yeah. You do forget that all the last five were pretty good and. We got one crap, one, hopefully we can, pick it up from there and then you get, some guys that just get five duds in a row.
And so then it feels like the world’s out to get [00:22:00] you two. So you gotta take that in mind as well, working with everyone. yeah, for sure. I mean that, I talked to Dave a couple weeks back after his adventures, just trying to get up to western New York there. I think it was head to Buffalo or somewhere in that area with that load from down south.
And just the trials and tribulations sometimes that like just get, can we just make it 50 more miles and get this over with and it sometimes the answer’s no, not yet, buddy. Right, right. Yeah. It’s tough to balance that and stay motivated. Right. To, to keep going and hey, you get the same feeling in dispatch sometimes, it’s.
I can’t tell you how many days when there’s just no freight to tell anyone about. And you’ve called on all 70 lows that are on the board and got the same stupid answer that they can’t do any more money. And I. It’s bs but you know, you kind of just have to keep trying. I read it’s just all about putting in the effort.
I think, and [00:23:00] at least at the end of the day, you can say you tried even if it is unsuccessful, because I do think we are, more successful than not. And that’s because we try, you can’t really give up. I was operations manager for a big fleet and had a bunch of customer service, bunch of fleet managers.
I. Working under me and the one thing you can control is. It’s a choice is what your attitude is about it. You know? Right. There’s gonna be days like that. Hell, there’s gonna be months like that. Right. In trucking with the way these cycles go. And it’s funny ’cause you know when the upcycle goes, like it’s just a different kind of crazy.
I. Now we’re crazy dealing with all the freight that we’ve, people are trying, our customers that we’ve, got us through the bottom and we wanna make sure that they’re there for the, and they’re still our customers and we service ’em as best we can the next time we go through tough times together.
’cause they were good partners on their end of the deal. You’re trying to service them as best you can and you just got a lot of moving parts and it’s just. Trucking is just always a challenge. [00:24:00] It almost never sits at that nice equilibrium of, ah, we got just the right amount of freight, and just the amount of guys who, you know, working trucks just enough for you to notice it, just for you to say, huh, this is all right, this is going good.
And then, yeah, some, something throws a curve ball at you and you gotta adjust. And again that’s the fun part of it. I, I’d say, because it’s, uh, yeah. It is the moving parts and ’cause it, we get, we get jazzed up too when we can, put together a, nine, 12, $15,000 load for a guy to go cross country.
I mean, that’s, that’s exciting to us too. Yeah. Um, to to make all those pieces work too, as, as much effort as they gotta put into it. I mean, we did the effort too to make the plan come together and it’s a, a collaboration of both. So. I think that’s, if we were to call up Mike and Dave right now and ask them why are they with you guys?
It’s that right that you guys get excited and care about putting that package together on that load as much as it [00:25:00] matters to them to do it too, right? And, and what it means to their family and their financial situations. And that’s. I think that’s one thing that has always been a reputation of d and e is just that kind of mutual hustle for a win that matters to everybody.
I. Right. And we’re yeah. All motivated off, all the drivers making more money. So it’s it’s set up in a way that they make more money, we make more money, personally. Right. So it, we are very incentivized to really stack it up. There’s, we’re in the game just as much as they are with it.
Yeah. That’s cool. And it helps. people feel like, it’s not just a phone call from somebody collecting a paycheck. Somebody cares on the other end too. They wanna win with you. Yeah. You don’t want to hear the guy that says, I, eh, whatever happens. I’m going home at this time and, I’ll still get my paycheck next Friday, kind of thing.
It’s. That doesn’t usually sit too well. No, not one bit. No. And that’s where communication, I’ve had had a bunch of those coaching [00:26:00] sessions with people on my team on the ops floor over the years because if you’ve never done it, it’s hard to imagine it. Or if you, and especially like new kids coming out of supply chain, school at some university and they’ve never even really.
Even if they’ve been working, as a fleet manager, kind of a trainee or dispatcher planner, customer service, like you don’t really think about it, right? Even though there’s trucks everywhere you go. If I look out my window to the north towards I 10, like I’m gonna see 50 of ’em go by in the next minute.
You don’t think about what’s really going on in that truck. That we had a lot of young people who didn’t understand like how offensive that. A mindset could be to someone who’s like, I got nowhere else to go. Like, when Dave’s talking about his truck breaking down and his, oil pressure being at zero. What he, the parts he didn’t say was, well, it’s also hot as hell in, Tennessee right now. And it’s humid. And I’m not only just thinking about what [00:27:00] am I gonna do with this truck, I’m thinking about where the heck am I gonna sleep tonight and Right. How the hell am I gonna gonna pay my bills next month?
Right, exactly. Just all the overlapping elements for sure. Yeah. And that’s also why it can be a big deal about getting home when you think you’re gonna get home because you know your mind is looking forward to that sense of relief that the truck is parked in a safe spot.
It’s at my house or wherever I park it, it’s empty, likely, and not loaded. The amount of internal pressure. Just shrinks rapidly when that home happens. Like it’s not, it’s not quite the same thing as when you’re not a trucker and you’re just like, okay, I’m going home. ’cause I went home yesterday at five and I’m going home maybe today at five 15 or five 30 ’cause I got some extra things to button up.
There’s not that I haven’t been home in three weeks. Jesus. I’m just dying to shut things off mentally on that side of my brain and let it go. [00:28:00] Mm-hmm. And that’s something I think we try to do a good job at. But we are also very, like I said, motivated with making everyone money.
But you know, you forget the guy that just wants to land you, like you said, it, land home empty. You know, our, our goal sometimes for a lot of people are to load him through the house. Yeah. You know, Hey, we can go drop off, do your 34 and scoot back out. But like you said, I mean, it, I’m glad you said it.
’cause it, it, it doesn’t. It doesn’t always click, I think, in the dispatch office as much as it, it should maybe to what they’re saying. So we do try to listen ’cause that is important and try to ask, do you want to the house, through the house? And hopefully because of the relationships we built, most of the guys can be honest with us instead of having to make up some, oh, I got the, I got a dentist appointment.
I, I can’t miss it. And we’re all like, you know what the hell? It’s just a dentist appointment, right? You’re gonna pass up three grand. But the guy just wants to go the hell home, yeah. I, I’ve been out three weeks, I’m tired, I’m, I’m ready to just not have to worry about anything on my [00:29:00] deck.
Park the truck, like you said, in a safe spot and, sit on the couch in my boxers and eat Cheetos and play video games, you know, that, that’s what I want to go do. It’s definitely trying to keep that mindset in, in mind when we’re offering freight, making decisions and coming up with plans for these guys too.
For sure. Yeah. And truckers are funny creatures. And I know, ’cause you know, I, I was one and I was a funny creature too, and I fell into some of the patterns that it took me getting outside the cab, getting in an ops floor and seeing other truckers behave and then going, Hmm. Yeah. I remember being that person myself too.
And I, and I think one of the examples that I mean by that is the. sometimes we can be our own worst enemy as truckers, right? And make decisions and go, I really want to I’m, yes, hell yes. I’m going out for three weeks, or I’m gonna go stay out for another week. Even though my, the plan was only two weeks and I.
And sometimes it takes a little wisdom by somebody [00:30:00] on the outside going, eh, I think it might be time for you to run through the house. You know, like sometimes you can’t see it in yourself when you’re behind the cab and y yes, you got bills to pay and you’re always trying to get ahead. ’cause you never know when the next.
Shoe’s gonna drop on, a mechanical problem or tires or whatever. But, sometimes you need a little help managing yourself even if you, no matter how much you want to be the person in charge of all the decisions. Well, and just to give yourself that break because everyone needs it.
You really, it’s tough, right? ’cause you do feel like, well, you know, I, I can’t be sitting around here. ’cause at least, I guess your mind’s off from thinking about maybe some of the other problems you’re still dealing with or financial issues or whatever they might be. And so you feel like the option only is, is to stay moving, but.
Maybe you’d stay moving a little more efficiently if you took three days to yourself to kind of collect a right. Your thoughts and your things and just what you [00:31:00] got going on. So again, I, I think a lot of that’s easier said than done. ’cause when you’re, yeah, when you’re in that mode, you do get tunnel vision because you know you’re trying to survive.
It’s it’s , your livelihood, your family’s livelihood. Children, putting them through college, building a new house, whatever, you got going on. Or, just saving for that fun toy, and maybe you know that again, to your point, worst enemy there’s plenty of guys out there that maybe.
Shouldn’t go drop 30 grand on a new Harley. Maybe we should put, an account together to, to save just in case the truck breaks down, you can stay moving and stay afloat instead of add that extra stress layer two months down the road. And, you know, I, I get giddy to, to go out for some new fun toys, but yeah, it’s definitely just trying to manage yourself, which you can shoot yourself in the foot pretty easy though.
Yeah, you can. And I’m, I’m guilty of almost all of those things, right? Whether it was staying out too long or buying a bigger toy than I had any right. But some goofy banker gave me the [00:32:00] money to do it, so what the hell? Yep. I’ll just go chase it down. Right? But you know, it sounds good until you realize, in order to chase it down, I’m gonna have to be out here for five weeks to get ahead a little bit.
Oh crap, here’s crunch time payments coming. And I had two really crappy weeks and a, couple days downtime and a wrecker come out and get me out of a, job site. And again, just the thousands of variables. But, I, not to encourage bad behavior, I mean, you gotta live a little bit too, like, yeah, I mean there’s sometimes that’s the reason that gets you going.
There’s sometimes I look and go. I probably just did that ’cause I needed a reason to wake up in the morning , and kind of re re-up the choice in my mind of, yeah, I’m gonna keep doing that for a living because I need the money. And sometimes it’s I gotta blow a little money to put a little ether on the equation.
Sure. Yep. And get it moving. [00:33:00] Yeah. I mean, I don’t have a choice now. This Harley ain’t gonna pay itself. Yep. It’s here. They ain’t taking it back. And if I sell it, it’s worth 60% of what I paid a month ago. So I guess we’re going to work. The choice has been made. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a fun dynamic for sure.
Well, I gotta ask you, ’cause you, you know, both of these guys. Yeah. Given their track records. If you had one load and it really had to be there and it couldn’t break down, which horse are you putting your money on? You putting it on danger, Dave? Not the breakdown or mile marker, Mike, not the breakdown.
’cause they both have quite a track record. Well, I hate to say it, but unfortunately Mike’s first return load back, back with d and e. He broke down. That’s right. Out in Utah. Yep. So I, I think we’re gonna have to go with, with Dave, um, on [00:34:00] this one. Even recent history notwithstanding, huh? You’re gonna get a roll with Dave?
Yeah. I mean, it’s just a bad first impression. It’s unfortunate it went that way, but I’m sure it can all be redeemed, you know? That’s right. Um, and, and what we always try to do then is for guys like that, we, we always try to get two of them. That way they can both be happy. That’s the goal.
There you go. They’re both heroes in their own mind. Yes. You gotta be, you gotta be. Some days you do. Well, cool man. it was great to meet you. Yeah, I’m so happy I got to jump on the phone with you. Don’t be a stranger, you know? Absolutely. And and if we get some funny trucking stories about any of these characters on the show, you gotta make sure to share ’em so we can make fun of them worldwide.
Don’t let ’em, don’t let any of their mistakes. Go un broadcast. Let’s get ’em out there for the world to share and get a chuck a lot of them, some fun stuff on motive, some dash cams and all that good stuff. There you go. [00:35:00] Yeah. You know, Michael. He thought it was funny.
Hey, we’re gonna start it. We’re gonna do a podcast. That’ll be fun. Until I realize like everything he’s ever sent me on the phone and I’ve saved it all. And I, I’ve just been creating a stockpile of embarrassing moments from when I run another ma other material. So you have it dated, I’m assuming, just so you can recall it, right?
It’s that large. Oh yeah, yeah. Pictures he sends like, oh, look what happened today when I plugged up the freeway. ’cause I didn’t read my permit and I ended up. Stuck in a, 13, 13 wide clearance with a 14 wide load. Yeah, that, that’s the good part though. You get to learn from the experiences, right?
Yes. If once, once you get past the immediate fear of what might happen, the shame of what you’ve done, and you can move on to the lesson that you’ve learned, , there’s a pot of gold that all these. End of these rainbows. Absolutely. Well, thanks Ryan, man. Great talking to you.
[00:36:00] Yeah. Have a great night. Yeah, it’s been great. Yeah, you too.