bobtailing for hometime

The choice is simple: Life, Death, or Houston.

 

In 4 years, once. From Apple Valley on Dec 23rd.

 

I threatened to bobtail home once, but I was only 400 miles from home so it would have only cost me about $150 in fuel. When I told them I was heading home 5 min later they had a load "just pop up" that picked up 5 miles from me and practically delivered at my co-driver's house.

The bigger loss in bobtailing is not the fuel cost but the lost revenue. In Scottie's case from Texas to Cali is a potential loss of about $1,000 in net profits (excluding static costs).

 

That happened to me once too,kept asking if I could reposition coz nothing in that area for freight ( they said anyways) in Tucson.....finally left heading to Phoenix and boom! Up pops a preplan with a preloaded trl on the dsw yard there.....hehe,I knew it....

 

Yep. Them and their little games that they like to play.

 

I'm not so sure whether it is games. I'd tend to think it might be incompetence, but more likely lack of training on the current software or software that is so complex to work with that the folks in CSR, Planning, and Dispatch are overwhelmed. There was mention recently that they have started implementing "improvements" in the load planning and dispatch, I see that my loads are coming much more efficiently.

 

yes maybe not deliberately game playing,but not my fault that they are overwhelmed and swift doesn't do what's needed to be done to have better workflow for the internal peoples? It's been a problem of them being overwhelmed in ect for years now! Regardless the reason...it's a problem and longstanding issues prevent a proper workflow and personally and frankly cause me a lot of unneeded stress out here.....sometimes u have to make them ( people internally) put eyes on u and your truck to get a problem solved...without making a phone cal coz god knows why should I pay for my minutes just waiting them to answer the phone...it can be a worse then waiting a qcomm msg.......example....doing a late macro and blaming the wait for a trl or a csr to get u info,hehe that will get "eyes" on u and get them to move faster on a solution.....maybe it's not so nice of a tactic....I'm pretty frustrated with some of the issues...been 6 years.....god....so no I don't feel badly to resort to that....

 

true all that! Light a fire under some behinds when it's going to get the job done.

Reminds me of when I declined a load offer that had a JIT deadline to deliver three hours before the load offer was made. I declined, saying "My Flux Capacitor isn't working".

I got an immediate reply that I needed to put my truck into the shop... !?

A phone call set that all straight.

 

"How far" depends on your DM and your home terminal's policy. I'm sitting at home, and my empty trailer is sitting 98 miles from here. I'll pick it up tomorrow.

I was once authorized to bobtail 150 miles to go home.

Then again, I'm on a dedicated account. The rules are different.

 

My current home time I ended up taking a bit early.

I had a request in for the 15th in Denver, and I got a load delivering in Aurora, CO on the 11th.
Instead of piddling around with local loads or trying to get a round trip I simply started my home time when I finished this load.

From what I've read, they will try to get you to the area of your home time a bit earlier. That's nice at first glance. But I don't want to get there 4 days in advance just to be doing local loads.
I'll have to wait and see how this 'new' home time process works. Luckily I had enough time since my last home time to get a couple three days when I got here.

I'm also glad that I could keep my good mt with me.
Denver can be a real pain in the backside for mt's, since most of my loads out are from Miller Coors. This time I have a nice new 150xxx trailer behind me.