Con-Way Freight or UPS?

I couldnt agree more about practical safety vs. corporate safety. Alot of those safety videos are made by people who have never had a job outside of an office.

As for the dollies....I think 600-900lbs seems pretty light. Ive always figured 2500 for a dolly when figuring gross (our scale is a joke....50 year old piece of crap). I looked at Silver Eagles website and it lists this one at 2800lbs.

http://www.silvereaglemfg.com/dollies/Falcon_converter_dolly.shtml


I like jockeying too, but the money on linehaul is hard to pass up. Right now, I dont even know what kind of driver I am...Technically Im a city driver, because I bid from the road to the city, but we are so slow that Im barely even working right now...And when I do, its usually on the road.

I really dont mind it, this is a nice break for me. I can pay the bills off 20 hours a week, and I still get more than that. The last few years running linehaul I really put in some miles, so now Im catching up on some sleep, TV and internet forum posting....I imagine you feel the same way. Theres really no such thing as an 8 hour day to a linehaul driver.

 

Parcel gets the Christmas rush...Millions of people shipping gifts to each other all over the world. Freight doesnt get that rush. Our busy season is during the summer.

 

We ship big shipments...For example, if you want to ship 2 boxes of computer paper, call UPS. If you want to ship 5 skids of computer paper weighing 10,000 lbs total, you call UPS Freight.

75% of our freight is palletized. Whats not are things like tires, crates, pipes, beams, tanks, cylinders, carpet etc...Most of these things arent really Christmas present material.

 

Seriously I've been bored and weighed dolly's.. Our's weigh between 600 and 900 lbs.. They really do..

All kidding aside about everything..

The one thing about Con-way Freight I would not change for anything in the LTL world is that we bid yearly on one board.

I've only been here for 8.5 years now and am at a massive terminal with about 200 drivers and I'm in the 60's. I really did 8 and the gate this year with my yard bid and I've been done by 2 PM 95% of the time. My 2012 bid is night line-haul which I start in January while almost doubling my pay. I'll be back on 10-13 hour nights but I'll go from 55K to an easy 90K by choice.

One board is the only way IMO.. I can flip back next year if I so choose..

 

I wish we had one board...Ive got about 13 years there but I recently switched over to the city side, putting me at the bottom. We can take yard bids also as city drivers, without losing seniority, but that is new. Before a year ago, drivers werent even allowed to bid to the yard at all.

I kind of enjoy the yard, but it is 50 cents less per hour, and not a whole lot of overtime....But you can 8 and skate most days, which would be nice.

 

working 8 hours.

 

8 hour shift then head home - since last January I've probably had about 60 total hours of OT and probably 25 of those were in a two week period. It has been strictly by my choice this year but I swear an 8 hour day in the yard feels longer than a 12 hour line-haul night.

It's nice to a degree but I'm looking forward to driving again. It gets old just moving trailers around for an entire year while clock watching.