If you could improve 1 thing at Knight, what would that be?

And only in trucking could an "assignment" pay 200 dollars for four days. That's is not even minimum wage.

Speaking of minimum wage! The way some of these companies run your loads and your time you aren't even making that.

Knight has far too many live loads and unloads. The waiting time shippers and receivers is astonishing. Let's break down a basic load.

Amazon or ikea are two of the largest problems in this. You have been given a appointment time of whatever. You show up on time and have to sit for two hours bumping the dock. Another hour and you are off. You haul the load 200 miles and do the same thing at the receiver. Take in traffic on the drive time and you could be looking at ten hours shot.

So what did you make today? At 34 cents a mile. And remember its zip code to zip code. You made about 64 bucks for the load. Add another 30 for detention because the first two hours are free. You have now made 90 bucks for the day.

Oh and wait the no sitting duck policy. Now you have to get to a truck stop. That's now 10.5 hours. And I remind you according to dot when doing live loads and unloads you are supposed to be on duty.

You are basically making eight bucks an hour. Oh man that's some good money. And we arent talking about the search for the mt. Hell you might not even be able to pull that load in one day! Lol. The bucks are just rolling in!

But that's okay because you can just grab a load that has lots of long miles right? Oh wait the sliding scale. That's right. If you do a long load you actual get paid even less!

That is something that just dumbfounds me. You take a load that takes you thousands of miles from home and you don't even get your normal pay. You work harder for less money. Wow. I have never heard of that in any other job.

Hey you worked overtime to get that job done? Well we aren't going to pay you your twenty and hour for that. After your normal 40 we will pay you 15. Oh wait... They can't do that. Overtime is time and a half by law.

So again you really want to talk about comparing this to other jobs?

 

I read somewhere years ago that an OTR driver makes $2/hr for all of their time spent doing their jobs.

 

That wouldn't surprise me. Back when I first joined Schneider I would tell my dispatcher I should go work for McDonald's. I would make more. Lol. They gave me lots of miles after that. Lol

 

I am very glad to hear this. I start at the Indy terminal next week!

 

I can understand your analogy, sort of. The thing is, you are comparing apples to oranges. When you were previously a manager, were your employees away from home? There is a huge difference in the two. If your employees were at a "9-5", then, I agree, send them packing if they refuse a job. This kind of job IS different. If my hometime I have requested and got approved (in IL) is coming up, and they want to send me to CA with a load, I would imagine I would refuse the load.

Trying to compare trucking to most any other industry simply does not work very well.

 

I was looking for something different but from what you say I will wind up with rude people and being just a number like I am now.

 

Reduce wait times for the shop phone line, claims, and after hours dispatch. I commonly wait 20-30 minutes to get through.
I am happy otherwise. Reefer side treats me well.
I would like to seem them raise the pay another .02 CPM across the board too. The bottom rate would then be .40 cpm. Most of my loads fall in the 500+ mile category.

 

Your home terminal is going to be a less crappy experience than the rest of them. Staying out 2-3 weeks you will see many other yards and will not recieve the royal treatment you get out of your home terminal. Knight terninals compete like individual companies.