Question:
When you go to work for a trucking company sooner or later you are going to be asked or told to do something you do not want to do. Before you blow up, start screming no way I am not going to do that you need to stop and think for a minute or two and pick your fight carefully.
If what you were asked or told to do violates the regs, is a safety issue then by all means protect yourself, but if the issue that has you upset is due to being dispatched to go somewhere you do not want to go you need to really think twice about trying to fight dispatch on this. Even if you win on something like this in the long run you are going to loose.
If you start trying to tell your supervisor where you will and will not go they can and more than likely will starve you out. You will find yourself with every crummy little load that comes along. You will get these loads that pickup on Weds morning and deliver 250 miles down the road on Friday night and will be told you can not drop the load. You will find your weekend loads reduced from 900 miles to 300 miles. Your weekly averages will go from 2250 to 1000 or less, and sooner or later you will say uncle and quit and they will try to find a driver to put in that truck who will not throw a fit when dispatched to a certain area or certain warehouse.
I will always be a mutter trucker at heart.
Answer:
If they are sending you to places you don't want to go, perhaps it's time to look for another company rather than refusing to run.
If it's a matter of senority, then we need to examine closer:
In quite a few situations, I have been called to fill in for a difficult run--I was the "pinch hitter" if you will. These runs were, but not limited to, Downtown Boston, CT/MA, Downtown Trashington, D.C. including S.E.(shooting gallery)peddle, Alexandria, Va. peddle, NYC/NJ multi-stop. Meanwhile the newguy would get an easy run to Atlanta or an easy peddle such as bowie/annapolis (rural thus easier).
Now, in the long run, perhaps this strategy paid off in my particualr situation in that I was choosen to be dispatcher/safety and now I have a contract to haul for them now.
But, for the driver who has no desire to expand career paths or in starting his/her own trucking co., I'm not so sure that willingly taking anything is nessesarily the best thing to do. But, I'm not sure.
What do you think?

Answer:
Unless you work for a Union Carrier and are a memeber of that union there is really no such thing as seniority.
As a company driver for the typical company you agree by going to work for them to go where they want you to go, plain and simple. If they run into areas you do not want to go then you either should not have hired on with that carrier or you need to quit. If you quit enough companies you will soon find yourself hard pressed to find work as a driver.
In 3 years I have only "refused" to go back to one place. A warehouse in Ft Collins Colorado. I did 3 runs into that place and all 3 times I sat from 9 to 23 hours waiting to be unloaded. After the thrid time I told my FM that either they pay up on detention time or simply do not send me back there, and if they did send me back I was to be paid after 2 hours. Well I got full detention pay for the last time I was there (23 hours worth) and was told that if I did get dispatched back there again I would get paid from 2 hours on.
I will always be a mutter trucker at heart.