The six-figure club.

Well I can tell you what the six figure guys had to do at LTL to get those amounts. I worked at Estes for reference.

I did P&D and would use a linehaul drivers truck during the day and had the truck back to him by the time his bid run started. So I got to know him a little bit. He had one of the highest bid runs at our terminal. He had the Charlotte, NC to Indianapolis, IN meet runs. I can't remember where but his specific meet place was just north of Corbin, KY I think. It was around 650 miles a night!

His bid run started at 8:00am. But every single night, he got to play the "hurry up and wait" game where he waited 30 minutes - 1 hour after his scheduled start time before his trailer(s) were finally loaded. This may not seem like a big deal, but on a monster run like that, it was.

He usually got back to the terminal between 9:45am - 10:15am. Meaning on top of his commute, he only had a 10 hour break each day. So in essence his home was his sleeper birth and I guarantee he went into "hurry up and sleep" mode 5 days out of the week to get his 6 hours or so of sleep each night.

He told me he only had time to stop once during his run, not including when he stopped at the actual meet point around the Corbin, KY area.

He also had to drive The Gorge on I-40 each night. For those who have never driven that before, it's just past Asheville, NC and there's a left lane restriction for truck drivers for about 30 miles or so. The cops do not play around in that area and they WILL fine you and pull you over if they see you in that left lane for that stretch. They do not play around there. Now the thing about the Gorge is that 95% of the time that I've driven it, no matter what time of day or night, there's always that 1 driver who is going about 35 MPH through the whole stretch. Meaning that it takes you about 45 minutes or so to travel 30 minutes.

So the Gorge held him up each night too. He told me he was always one bad wreck away from not making it back to the terminal because of his clock running out. His run was just so tight. He had to pee in a cup I guess because he couldn't afford to take a quick break every few years. He couldn't get out and stretch his legs. And on top of that he only had a 10 hour break PLUS his daily commute.

IMO he earned that money. That sounded awful to me. He was at the top payscale though and was at around $0.685 CPM.

0.685 X 650 = 445.25

445.25 X 5 = 2226.25

2226.25 X 52 = 115,765

So, he made good money. But, IMO, he earned it.

There was another guy in linehaul who trained me who had a 3 stop run. Every single night he waited 1 hour at the Charlotte Terminal for his trailer to be loaded. On his last stop he would then always wait another 1 hour for his trailer to be loaded. That added 2 hours to his day (he didn't get paid for waiting either). His scheduled run time was at 8:30pm. He would get back around 10:30am everynight because of all the "hurrying up and waiting" he had to do on that run. He was a family guy so on the weekends he would flip his sleep schedule to a "normal" sleep schedule so he could be with his family. So Saturday morning when he got home he would just stay up and when he went to bed Saturday night he had been up for 34 hours or something like that. Then Monday night when he came in he would be going off just a nap, meaning that by Tuesday morning he was running on fumes.

I say this as a reefer OTR driver - His sleep schedule was absolutely screwed up. His run was about 550 miles per night and he grossed about 94k per year at his pay rate. I would say he earned that money.

For P&D, well the P&D guys need to work most Saturdays on a linehaul run to get to the 6 figure mark. So they'll have a 6 day work week. And then M-F doing the actual P&D, they get to deal with the usual stresses of driving in city traffic all day long. It can also be difficult dealing with dispatchers if the dispatchers aren't very good and have never even stepped foot in a truck before (which was the case with all of them where I worked).

So I mean, at least in LTL, if you were making six figures you were definetely earning that money. It wasn't easy. And to anybody who thinks running 3rd shift and going to bed from 11:00am - 7:00pm is easy (and then flipping your sleep schedule every weekend if you have a family), it's not easy at all. There's a reason linehaul guys are paid what they are for that crazy sleep schedule they have. Like I said I'm a reefer OTR driver and if I drive at night, I'm still shut down before the sun comes up or as the sun is just starting to rise. I've never gone to bed at 11:00am in the morning doing OTR reefer work (maybe once or twice but it's extremely rare).

 

Having 650 mile run every night seems stressful because you know gonna be extremely tight on clock every single night. What if you gotta go into shop because flat tire, waiting for load or accident happens.

I have done plenty of 600 mile runs from Chicago to Des Moines, Cincinnati, St Louis, Dayton and I want no part of it anymore.

Give me 500 mile run and I’m good to go.

 

I run for OD and did a meet that' was 634 miles. It would take me exactly 10hrs from gate to gate. The tractor speed was governed at 70mph. I bid off that run and took a 618 mile bid with a 68mph tractor and it's taking 10hrs from gate to gate. Both runs have good meet drivers on the other end and that's what will make or break the run.

 

I do LH for OD made the club for the first time this year by 4k caught the Rona at the beginning of December would have made it by 6 or 7k had it not been for that. Would have made it last year but the Covid slow down prevented that.

 

I would say yes the free benefits do count for something, I pay $2600 a year for health, dental and vision where I am at, so just based off that, you could probably figure that your free benefits are another $2000 to $3000 in value in addition to the $92000 you made.

 

Do you hook and break your own sets at OD?

 

Yes we do

 

It may seem unreasonable to you, but it is what's happening now, my place of employment pays $29.86 an hour and .7250cpm for doubles and .7450cpm for triples for current top scale, with some of our competitors paying even more than that, a 500 mile or more a day run makes $100,000 for the year easily attainable now.

 

One of the reasons I moved right across the line to Pa, flat tax rate.

 

Not knocking you, but this posts brings up a thought.

4 weeks before my sister graduated college, her school was hit by a tornado. All things considered, the college escaped almost unharmed. A lot of broken windows, a few small buildings destroyed, but the majority of the campus was fine. The surrounding community, not so much. There were delays in getting records processed so her teaching credentials were delayed. When her license did not arrive by mid July, she "lost" her job for the fall. My dad arranged a 'temporary' job for her with a friend and my sister felt obligated to take it. Clarke was a good man and he thought he was paying a good wage, but he wasn't. All the folks in the office were in their late 40s or older and thought the money they were making was 'good'. It wasn't. They were making 'good money' compared to what was standard when they started working - the late 70s.

This happened at the same time my dad 'made me' give up teaching swim lessons for a 'real job'. I was working twice as many hours for the same total after tax pay (I was paid in cash for private lessons) and had to iron my shirts to boot. My dad couldn't understand (and I didn't know how to communicate my own thoughts/desires) that working at a public pool paid more than working in a bank. He also didn't understand that my sister's part time job at the Container Store represented 40% of her income. She should have just made her part time job and full time job and by now she'd be managing the place.

My point is that we need to talk more about what we are making. Over the last two years management has cautioned me several times over me telling other drivers on the account what I make compared to their pay. My response was "pay them more and the pay disparity isn't an issue". If people actually understand what their labor is worth they are less likely to settle for being paid less. For the last 30 years pay rates have stagnated in relation to inflation whereas dividends have out paced inflation and executive pay has gone through the roof.

Do I think it's ridiculous that I make almost as much as the average pediatrician in Green Bay? Yes. Do I think it's ridiculous that I make more than the Green Bay Chief of Police? You betcha. Do I think it's asinine that I make double the average salary of a Green Bay teacher? Bet your sweet patoots I do. We are long overdue for a serious conversation about compensation in this country