Broker Raises Check-Call Requirement to Every 11 Minutes, Including While Driver Is Asleep

A freight brokerage that is entirely made up for this article has announced a bold new transparency standard: every driver hauling one of its loads must now call in a status update every 11 minutes, around the clock, including during the federally required 10-hour break.

"Our customers deserve peace of mind," said the brokerage's fictional Vice President of Knowing Where Things Are, who confirmed he has never personally checked on a load and does not know what a load is. "If a driver is sleeping, we simply need him to call and tell us that he is sleeping. Then, 11 minutes later, that he is still sleeping."

The new script

Each check call must include the truck's location, the trailer temperature, the driver's mood on a scale from 1 to 10, an estimated time of arrival accurate to the second, and a short, upbeat sentence about the scenery. Calls that go unanswered for 12 minutes trigger an automatic email, a text, a second email asking if the driver saw the first email, and a voicemail that simply says "Hey, just following up."

Drivers can earn a "Gold Communicator" badge after 90 consecutive calls, which brings no extra money but does unlock a slightly warmer tone of voice from dispatch.

Drivers adapt

Truckers say they are finding ways to cope. One long-haul driver reported he now records his check calls in batches the night before. "I just say 'Still on Interstate, still fine, the sky is a colour' 140 times," he said. "They've never noticed."

Another driver tried sending a real-time GPS link so the brokerage could see the truck itself. She was told that the tracking link was "great" but that they still needed her to call and read it to them out loud.

At press time, the brokerage was reported to be piloting a 4-minute version for loads it describes as "time-sensitive," meaning all of them.

Truck Snooze is a satire site. This story is made up.