Yesterday I was finishing up my week by dropping the trailer at our shipper. Part of the "finishing up" routine is to call in to dispatch just to see if there's anything needing discussed. I started driving yesterday in Waterloo, NY at 2am, so yes, I was tired when I parked.
He proceeds to tell me that me and the other driver on the account need to drive to Easton, PA *THIS* weekend, meaning today, to pick up another truck and trailer for the account. Wait - no one knew anything about this the other 5 days of the week so I knew about it? I've ran pretty hard all week so I told him that if I go after a truck, I won't have a restart on my hours. That's when he got stupid.
He tells me that I don't have to log any of it - just mark it as "personal use" in the logs. Really? Personal use of a commercial vehicle can be a 400 mile run, with a trailer, for company business? I always interpreted the personal use "law" as just that - doing something personal, like running to Wal Mart for some snacks or to the local porn shop. Not only that, but one of us would be driving the other out there in our own car. Sorry, but my car doesn't go anywhere for free, but he didn't so much as mention reimbursement for that. If I'm taking MY car for company business, I expect to be paid owner-operator rates in it, including FSC, for all miles driven.
That crap went through me like a ton of bricks yesterday. I called in to our safety department to ask them if what he told me to do (logging) was legal or not. I'm 99.9% sure that it's not. The problem is that no one ever got back to me yesterday. He (my dispatch) called me a couple more times yesterday, but I had "accidentally" couldn't figure out how to answer his calls. Strange how that happens.