Lease or go home? Is that in the future?

Oh it is even better than that...

I have now been to quite a few places where we USED to have lumper accounts and now have to pay by comchek. I ask ALL of them why, every single time. and the answer is the same...because the company hasn't paid the account and owes them a substantial amount of money.

Same at many washouts (except Blue Beacon...although I'm just waiting for that shoe to drop...)

Kinda makes me wonder what happened with the qcomm's the other day. EVERY qcomm in the fleet was inoperable...no signal.....yet the qcomms of other drivers, from other companies, that I checked with when it happened.....thier qcomms were working just fine - no problem.
I call a friend in our shop and ask him what's up...he gets fidgety and says "I can't talk about that right now..."
It's not a planned company upgrade or maintenance and it's not a qcomm systemwide update/maint./upgrade as a message would have been sent out to notify the drivers. It lasted several hours (long enough for the company to wire payment on the account perhaps? One has to wonder...).

Now they're not making the blue trip info books any longer, no new scanning cover sheets (just photocopies with the barcode removed).
So...what's next? We have to buy our own generic logbooks from the truck stops because they won't be printing company log books any longer?

THEN I hear that some lease drivers PrePasses quit working and they are told by permits that they have to turn them in so permits can order them new ones only...when the new ones come in and they go in to pick them up they have to sign a form that says they have to pay the company $15/mo for them.

AND NOW...
My ex co-driver tells me that she gets a charge from the shop for work done on her APU...only she signed up for the guaranteed maintenance on her APU when she leased her truck. She calls to find out what the charge is about and they tell her "Well...oops...we forgot to take the guaranteed maintenance fee out of your pay and we've forgotten to do this from the very beginning...so that's why the shop charged you. And, by the way, we'll need to go back through all of your records, add up the miles you ran since you've had the truck and find out how much you owe us for the guaranteed maintenance WE SCREWED UP AND FORGOT TO TAKE OUT."

And, apparently, the company is getting ready to pilot a program with 10 drivers to drive tankers...so they don't have to pay an outside company to haul fuel to the two terminals we have fuel at. Seeing as I know for a fact that at least one of those terminals has run out of fuel several times in the recent past, I have to wonder if it isn't that they forgot to pay, or couldn't pay, the outside company to haul the fuel in.

We won't even discuss the thrmonuclear detonation I had with the shop about two weeks ago. Let's just say it involved a complete lack of foresight, piss poor planning on thier behalf, a lot of yelling and ugly words on my behalf, a call to the CEO of the company, a maintenance supervisor on his knees apologizing to me (and, yes, I mean literally on his knees), me being the first lease purchase operator in the company to EVER get shop pay, and them finishing my truck by the time the shop closed for the day rather than sometime in the dim, uncertain future (after I had been waiting 3 days for them to even get my truck into the shop).
If you think a Scottish redhead can't light a bonfire under people's butts and teach you what "aversion therapy" is REALLY about...you have another "think" coming buddy...EVERYBODY on that yard, in the admin buildings and in the shop knew my name that day...and that is no joke.

RT

 

Hello,

The owner of your outfit is expanding into the RR business.

Your days are numbered !!!!!!!!!

 

I don't know anything about your company you or anyone else connected, but if all that's true, "the writing's on the wall y'all". I know most company's push the lease thing on drivers as that takes a lot of the financial burden off of them.
Hope things improve for you guys real soon!!

 

If companies would quit cutting rates and haul it at a profit they wouldn't have to push the lease "thing"

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen your trucks on the big road before. Just from what ya'll have written I have the old red flags and alarm bells going off. I'd start getting things ready for a quick switch to a new company. Get your expenses paid and clean the truck out of all but the essentials. I had a similar thing happen to one company I was at. I ended up being the 2nd to last driver in since I was one of their best and they wanted to keep me busy as long as possible. Wasn't long before I had a new job on the other side of the country. They let me take my truck home to clean it out at least.

I hope things go better for all of you though.

 

Wow!! RT.... I'd be concerned! I'm very happy we left the company and didn't lease!! Good luck to you and all there! Alot if nice people at KLLM...

 

That is sad to hear Toad. For the longest time KLLM was THE Company to work for. I was rather concerned about the lease, being a new driver, and just couldn't force myself to commit without more experience.
But I hated to leave KLLM. My old trainer called the other day and he has quit training, and focusing on his lease now. It just wasn't worth his time and wear and tear on his truck to keep training.

Now that I'm driving for Associated Grocers in Baton Rouge, I am very happy. At first, I thought driving local in a daycab would be a drag, but I'm really enjoying it. I drive a Freightliner Columbia Daycabber; we have alot of them, plus International ProStars and a few Kenworths. The Kenworths are all autoshift, but all other tractors are Eaton-Fuller 10 speeds. We have a few 48 footers, but most trailers are 53' reefers.
I drive Louisiana, Mississippi and East Texas, with an occassional trip to very southern Arkansas. I'm home every night with 2 days off a week. I'm usually in my truck between 1AM and 5 AM, but go home around 12noon or 1 PM. Sometimes later, depending on my run. The most labor I do, is to use a pallet jack to move pallets to the back of the trailer, so they can take them off with a forklift if the store has no dock. If they have a dock, they unload the trailer. No hand dollys or boxes or anything like that. No moving pallets into the store, only to the door of the trailer.

My trailer is pre-loaded when I get there in the morning, my tractor is already fueled and washed. They assign me my run for the day, I do my PTI, hook up to a designated trailer, and go. I usually go to one, maybe two stores a day. Maybe do a backhaul if I'm in the area, to bring back merchandise to the terminal warehouse. Pay is satisfactory, med insurance is free for drivers, benefits are good. Guaranteed 40 hours a week pay, even if you only work 30 hours during slower weeks. Plenty of overtime if you want it during busier weeks. You can work Union or non-union and not be treated any differently as La. is a "Right to Work" state. About the only advantage here for Union members is the pension.
I see alot of KLLM drivers delivering here. If anybody comes here look me up, or send me a PM with your truck number, so I can watch for you. Later.......

 

They're pushing it that hard because they know that people will fall for it. Fact is; they pay that out over a period of let's say 36 months. If you arrive late a few times (due to weather etc and we all know that will happen from time to time); guess what? YOU DON'T GET IT. It mysteriously gets "yanked". Same thing with anyone thinking that they're going to reimburse for CDL schooling tuition like they advertise. You will be very hard pressed to get any trucking company to pay you back for you tuition. If you're late one time, don't get along with your "overly prickly dickly" dispatcher; if you challenge the load planner too many times because he doesn't know how to use a calculator; (like when they give you a 715 mile run and your tractor only goes 61 mph) but you HAVE TO GET IT THERE ON TIME. That might be possible with a lease op tractor that runs 70 mph and good weather conditions / traffic conditions etc. But I think we all know that is way too aggressive to put into the schedule. That is the simple reason this company is in the condition that it's in. Prickly dickly dispatchers and load planners who (ALSO) have never lived the lifestyle and have no idea what may / might and probably WILL happen when you're out on the road. I hired onto a company that is total day and night different, they care; there is a cheerful voice who is willing to help on the other end every time I call. I give her the same in return. Shame on KLLM. Surprised they still pay lumper fees and not making drivers absorb that. Qualcomm? They gave me a load from Western TN to S. Carolina which was absolutely impossible to make on time. I was at home with tractor parked in driveway and told my prickly dickly dispatcher that it's not going to happen on time. I'll take it but you better change some dates. I was at home in Southern Wisconsin and they thought my tractor was right next door close in TN. WOW, now that's some accurate GPS tracking systems isn't it? Don't even know where you #### tractor is sitting at. You have a load planner throwing something at you and doesn't even know what he's throwing. Dispatchers just sitting back with their feet kicked up doing as little as possible...they know you're at home but just play dumb (HE DIDN"T TELL ME).... All problems there are direct reflections of management who are stealing from the payroll by simply "existing" at the expense of hard working men and women. These simple people (the drivers) want to better themselves and have the actual courage to run the road and be away from friends and their home. Shame on KLLM. It will be fun to watch Crete take over just like they did to Total Transport of Miss....move right down the street and clean things up.

At the end of the day; drive safe!!