Financial Responsibility!

Turns out "No One" is responsible! UUUHHMMM!

So we have a new load that we r picking up from Coca - Cola. And we "have" to have load locks!

Okay we don't have any!

The last pair we had were in a sealed trailer that was dropped at a receiver. So we call the "Driver Mill" and ask them for a PO to get new ones, only to be informed that it will be coming out of our check! Wait what? No!

The trailer and anything to do with the trailer is not our financial responsibility! Well the "Driver Mill" says it's not theirs either and that when we dropped the other trailer we should have asked the reciever for replacements. How are we supposed to know that? We've never run n2 this situation b4.

So guess what? We had to pay for the damn load locks!

Plus we found out that out of the 30 people my husband was in orientation with way back when, he is the only one still with the company! WOW! Somebody at home office is really screwing up!

Trying to Be ProActive!

We got a load out the other day that brought us all the way down to McClenny, Florida. It was supposed to deliver tomorrow at four a.m. When our dispatcher gave us the load on Friday out of Waterloo, Iowa we told her that we would be there a lot sooner to try and move the appointment up to Sunday or Monday (today.)

An hour went by and she sent us a message saying that they tried but the appointment couldn't be moved up. LIAR!

I called the Walmart DC on Saturday and talked to the Receiving manager and she informed me that our dispatcher called and confirmed our Tuesday appointment but never said anything about changing it. So I asked her if it was possible and she said I need to call back at three a.m. and speak with the night supervisor. When I did guess what happened? He moved our appointment up! OH MY FREAKING GOSH! It's amazing what a little phone call can do!

What made it even better was when we sent in our empty call and six a.m. She called, that's right called, instead of sending a message. "How did u get unloaded today? Your appointment is tomorrow!" We called. "Your not supposed to do that we make the appointments for you." I told she wasn't doing a very good job at that and that I didn't appreciate being lied to, to which she hung up on me! LOL

Needless to say we got a call from the planner and we have a load out that delivers Thursday and will cap our week out with 3500 miles!

See what happens when your proactive and take matters into your own hands!

Til next time...

Busy, Busy, Busy

Today is my son's 3rd birthday so I am spending it with, therefore I will not be posting anything until later tonight when he goes to bed...

Til next time

Open Door Policy?

I'm trying to figure out what that actually means. I think my definition is wrong or could it be the head dispatcher for the company we are leased to has the wrong definition. I feel the latter is true!

I'm sure you have all heard the saying work your way up the ladder but have you heard that it's okay to be chastized for doing so? I sure haven't. I thought the open door policy was started with the intention of allowing you to work your complaints up the ladder til it is taken care of and to do so without any repercutions.

Maybe I need to send a reminder memo to her? I doubt it would do any good though.

I geuss that's what happens when you sign on with #86 on the top 100 list!

It just get worse and worse!

Okay a little update to today's earlier story.

So we found out the third drop is on Monday at one p.m. GREAT! Our preplan went something like this. First pick up at noon Monday, second pickup at one p.m. How is that supposed to work? They have never given us anything like that before. We make a phone call saying we can't do the preplan because we will still be dropping the current load. We r told, "Oh it's okay, you windows for the pickups so it will be fine." Okay great, but it is only given us about 1000 miles capping off the week with 2800 miles. Which would be fine if we had the same amount of miles last week but we had about 1800 miles last week - which put us in a whole. So 2800 miles this week will dig us out of the whole from last week and give us about a $250.00 check. WHAT?

We turned it down! We are also more than likely going to have too cancel our home time for Thanksgiving. Why? Because they are not giving us enough miles to be able to afford the time off. If we keep going at this rate we will barely make $800.00 for the MONTH! That amount is correct.

This company, which shall remain nameless, doesn't care about their drivers at all. If we quit today, in a weeks time they would have someone else in our place. So why worry about the hardship that they are putting on us? I think I'm going to nickname them the Driver Mill! From now on the company that shall remain nameless will be called the Driver Mill cause that is exactly what they are.

Their motto, "We will hire you, train you, starve you, bankrupt you and then replace you!"

Miles To Go!

Is it just us or is this happening to everyone?

Last month we ran close to 14,500 miles. That's a pretty good month, every week we got round about $1000.00, give or take. This month on the other hand has not been so good. I can't say anything about the first week of November because of our truck being in the shop. However since then I can complain all I want.

Our week runs from Thursday night at midnight to Thursday night at midnight, a full seven days. We got our truck out of the shop on Friday morning, so we were only minus eight hours = six and half days left. In those six and half days we ran 1811 miles. That number is correct! We have actually driven 1913 miles but the extra 100 miles is accredited to practical miles, which most of the bigger companies pay so that they can line their wallet a little better. Hence the reason I have vultures flying over mine!

Now we already have our first load for next week, it drops at six a.m on Friday (tomorrow.) This will start our week off with 683 miles. We also have a preplan setup that has an early pickup time for seven a.m Friday (tomorrow) morning. That load is setup to take us just outside of Philly with a practical mile of 901, maybe! It also has two additional drops, which our dispatcher will not tell us where the third is located or when it delivers. My guess is since the first drop is on Monday at six a.m and the second is at eleven a.m, this means the third won't be delivered until Tuesday morning. Why? Because we all know how receivers work, deliveries in the a.m. normally. Now she knows that we will more than likely deny the load if that is the case. So why tell us before hand when she can wait til the last minute making it almost impossible to get another load out. This means we will be stuck with that load and another load that has maybe 1300-1500 miles capping our week off with about 2800-3000 miles. This wouldn't be a bad week if the previous ones weren't so bad.

We have figured out how this whole thing works with the company we are leased to. They give you a half way decent month and then give you a really crappy month. They rotate this system so that they keep you where your hands are tied. Meaning you can't leave because your not able to save money. You pay all your bills in the good month and then they go past due in the bad month just to be paid (two payments) again in the good month. Therefore it's a never ending cycle.

You may be saying, "Why would they do that?" Good question, I'd sure like to know.

You can't make a living at this job unless your truck and trailer are paid for. We have a truck payment, insurance, maintenance and fuel. We do get a fuel surcharge but it is no where near enough to offset the rising cost in fuel.

We as drivers get hit all the way around. We pay the high price for fuel to transport the products, then we pay the high price at the register for the things we need. One hand is always slapping the other. When will this change? What do we need to do to make people realize that the drivers are being pretty much starved? I'm not saying that we don't make a decent living, we do but we have to be very careful with our budget. One mistake and it takes months to fix.

I ask again, What are we supposed to do? If we demand higher pay the cost for the product goes up, SLAP! If we demand lower fuel prices the shippers see it as an opportunity to pay less for the loads they want transported, SLAP!

Yet the companies are still making the high profit that they have always gotten because instead of raising the pay for their drivers at the rate that everything is rising, they are keeping it for themselves. So in essence the big companies profiles look great and business is booming! When in reality it's not. SLAP, SLAP, SLAP!

Till next time....

Photo taken at Louisville 2009 Truck Show by myself.

Also our hearts and prays go out to the family of Tahir Sheikh Fakhar who died on November 10th 2009 when his rig drove off the side of a bridge and plunged into the water below in San Francisco.

Just starting out on this so bare with me!

I am new at this and still figuring out how all this works so bare with me. I will be posting pictures and web links for different things that I find important or I think u need to be aware of. So first thing is first, CSA2010. I think all of us involved in the trucking industry need to be aware of this. Even if your company doesn't include itself in this it doesn't mean that you will not be effected in someway by this. So here is the website for u to check it out: csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov Also check out climatebill.org this website explains the Cap and Trade Bill for 2009. I have read several articles on both topics and I have to say that while they have good intentions with both. Neither of them is our best interest as far as our pocket books are concerned. But you read them and form your own decision and feel free to post your comments. Til next time....

*BREAKING NEWS : http://prweb.com/pingpr.php/U3VtbS1TdW1tLVByb2YtTWFnbi1FbXB0LVBpZ2ctWmVybw==

Picture taken at 2009 in Louisville Kentucky, truck done by the 75 Chrome Shop in my homestate of Florida.