Stevens Transport aviary

So do I just go to his class room? and at what time. Perhaps questions I should have asked my counselor, but she spent more time talking with my trainer while I was driving on Friday.

 

18 update... Well, finished week one of classes. Needless to say, starting week two tomorrow. The class is still thinning, I hope to get as much time on the hill as I can. We had a good exercise on mapping and trip planning. Not much more than a "touch base" on logs. The students are forming bonds but some look nervous and rattled. The whole process can be overwhelming. You get back what you put in on this type of thing. I really like driving these rigs, does not seem like work at all. I had a man tell me once " the best jobs are a whole lot of fun or a whole lot of money, preferably both".

 

This week you should start getting out on the road, or into the industrial center at least. Then you will probably get to see Seagoville and get on and off a bunch of ramps. Remember, get off the highway then brake down to 30, downshift into the proper gear (6th in an 8 speed). Don't stomp on the brake, get it applied then increase pressure. If you brake too fast they will complain.

 

Hey Fozzy, I would just go to Sgt Major's classroom. If you haven't run into anyone at the hotel that knows for sure, I would be there at 0700. Better to get there early and wait than to be late and start off on the wrong foot. Good Luck.

 

Happens around the houston area is very common down there, as the person in charge of dispatching that area, dispatches days late, and the shipper sends the load out with someone else, and have gotten tired of notifying stevens, so they just wait so they can laugh at the poor driver caught in the middle of Stevens reactive management style.

It sucks, but she does it all the time.

Happens in Arkansas many times too.

 

Virtually all loads are tendered to shippers via internet. In many cases, they are sent to a preferred shipper first where they take all they want and let the others go, and in others, they are posted to a subscribed load board and first come, first served.
It is not uncommon for shippers to have more than one person posting loads. More often than you would think, the same load is posted multiple times. Each time we take a tendered offer, it is assigned (automatically) a Stevens load number. So the same load can easily end up with two different load numbers.
The first truck there, gets the load.
Sometimes a sharp load planner will catch it simply by recognizing two identical loads, but everytime we get a sharp load planner, he/she moves on (it seems). We have recently lost five people that have been with Stevens operations multiple years.
If you get put on such a load, it requires some pushing, but find out if your's was such a load. When the mistake was the shippers part, Stevens can sometimes get some kind of payment for the problem, and if so...so should the driver.

 

But we all know that Stevens keeps any payment and the driver gets shafted. Same thing when the meat plants go hours past a DLD!!

 

You would be surprised at the number of loads tendered to Stevens at the last second. There were loads being tendered last night that had friday as the original pu day. While there are lots of screw ups in operations, one thing I can say for sure is there is a pound of flesh paid for each load that is failed to pu. There is a production meeting every day during the week where exact numbers are discussed, attended by sales, CSRs dept heads and supervisors. If we cannot cover a load (and there are flurries of emails trailing up to each load not covered) it is assigned to our brokerage dept where independent truckers (and some other fleets) cover that load.
One of my responsibilities is to 'track' each shipper (I'm assigned several, not all of our shippers) and notate all loads. If it is running late, if it's not covered, if it MAY have a problem, it's notated and the list is passed onto appropriate supervisors. This is where much of the repower list comes from. All of our loads are tracked several times per day, EVERY DAY. If a load isn't 'covered' (dispatched), it is noted.
Some shippers are more forgiving than others or have wide windows of shipping and receiving. As an example, Campbells will show a drop time of 0800 at many recievers such as Walmart (if it's a non refrigerated load), but the window is 0800-2300. We see 0800 on the del time, but if we dig a bit into the load, we'll see the window. The same may apply for pickup. That is why it may appear we are late picking up or delivering. But the shipper is happy.
The number of last second dispatches from shippers is amazing. Also the number of last minute changes to loads (especially produce) would make your head spin. I have seen shippers turn trucks around and go back to adjust a load already in transit!
We get emails in the middle of the night asking us if we can cover 'one more load'.
In a competitive environment you can't just tell a shipper, "sorry. you're late on this one. no can do." you suck it up and do your best.
There is a line of trucking companies waiting in the wings to take shipper's business. Shippers know this.
There are also problems generated by our own CSRs. One such issue that comes to mind is with Smithfield.
Those loads have more drops than produce on the average. It is not uncommon to have a 6 drop Smithfield load.
I have been seeing a rash of loads scheduled with one or two hours between drops. Superman can't make that happen!
I discussed this with a CSR last week and her response was, "it's only one pallet at the first drop. Just get there early, drop it and get on tothe next stop." They have no idea of what is involved, hence the repower department is expected to pick up the slack.
Not defending the problems, but just explaining the process.

 

Two things to keep in mind...just some FYIs...
We switch to a new phone system this week. Wednesdays. Things like this have hiccups. Please be patient.

Also, there is a new directive from upstairs that we don't tow anymore unless it's the company's fault. So if you have to be towed due to HOS, you will likely be charged even if you're on the company side. This means you need to watch your hours carefully and plan for possible issues, then handle them AHEAD of time.
If you are delivering into a known slow receiver such as Ralphs in Compton and you may run out of your 14, get a solution on the QC ahead of time.
Not saying it's easy, just saying.....

 

get a solution ahead of time, emulsified you need to stop look around and see where you are working... the answer will be, just go ahead and deliver, we will fix it later. As usual management is knee jerk reaction to the cost of towing, instead of a proactive approach to prevent the tows, and the driver will be the one paying the price. Most of the fleet of drivers have no idea who the slow receivers are, as they have never been their before.. and as VegasFan pointed out, each location for the same receiver is different, Kroger is an example.

CSR's are clueless as to how to schedule a multi drop load, and what is involved even for ONE pallet.