PAM Driver - Ask me anything.

You listened to a recruiter. First mistake.

 

So, the hubs has been with PAM for 6 months now and it's been an absolute nightmare. Huge pay cut, they'll tell him he has a load and then cancel, dispatch him on a load and then cancel, send him in to maintenance for repairs and then cancel, it's ridiculous. DM is a total tool, and if he got eaten by a giant lizard, not a single tear would be shed. Now Central wants them (he's a team) back, but now PAM is saying they won't release them because they're a special hazmat team. Total crap. They sure have a crappy way of treating their "special" drivers...

I can't wait for this nightmare to end.

 

I highly doubt PAM is cancelling trucks from getting maintenance when due for maintenance. They wouldn't allow me to go 100miles over for a B Service without blowing up my Qualcomm and phone. Those trucks have to have nearly impeccable service records when PAM goes to resell them. Maintenance is one thing they won't mess with.

Since when can a company keep you from leaving on your own accord?

 

Not anymore. Things have changed big time at PAM. Last time I was due for a B service, I waited about 20 something hrs and I was next in line to go in the shop, when all of the sudden I got a load over the QC. So I had to fight just to stay and do what I waited for almost a day over. And that's just one example... At one time PAM was real good on maintenance, but sadly those days are gone.

 

I agree with that. I picked up my tractor in El Paso. Neither of the front console power outlets work. I took it over to the "shop" in EP. The old guy there fiddled with it for about 10 minutes and declared that he "didn't have the right tools" and that I'd need to take it to Irving.

 

I don't know if that's true. I was in Irving for a b- service. And they wanted it done pretty bad. Held me up there for a day and a half over a chip in the windshield. That would fly with the dot.

 

I just thought I'd drop in an update on my recent activities.


I'd heard rumors that P.A.M.'s solo drivers spent a lot of time waiting for loads. That is soooooo not what I'm seeing. I have been running my arse off the past 3 weeks since I got off the Wal-Mart pop-up. And now I finally got a load I can't deliver on time because of the 70 hour clock. It was bound to happen as hard as I've been going. So I just sent a message to the 2nd shift dispatcher advising of the situation. Here is how the conversation is going.


Me: "I don't have the hours to deliver this load to Laredo by 1700 tomorrow. Pls advise if we need to repower or change the delivery to Sat a.m."

2nd shift guy: "I can't change deilvery. Why can't you make that time?"

Me: "I am 10 hours from Laredo, I will have 8.5 hours available tomorrow"

2nd shift guy: "when do you get hours back??"

Me: "hours are recovered at midnight"

2nd shift guy: "And how many do you have tomorrow"


Now as a general rule, I don't have conversations with morons. So at this point I stopped responding. I've done my job and advised my company of the situation. If they don't have the capacity to understand and make adjustments, not my problem

 

You get good weeks and bad ones... but sometimes the good weeks are the bad ones in other companies, or so I've heard. Can you be a little more specific with what you mean by "running" your "arse off??" How many miles average for those 3 weeks?

 

Very odd. With CSA being as big of a deal as it is, you'd think they'd get more hardcore about it. My current company won't let us even drive if we have more than 20 miles to go to get it fixed. The good thing about flatbed, delivery times can be adjusted pretty easily, so we don't have to repower very many loads.

 

Now not to rag on them too much their is a positive to the maint dept and its a big one; the guys who work in the shop are all very helpful people. I havent encountered one bad shop employee. The Road Rescue dept, now that's where it has changed; but you know how it goes, policies change (you can really relate to this being an ex trainer dj). They won't say no, but it seems like a tougher struggle with Road Rescue than it used to be. It might be that maybe they just cut back on the maintenance budget too. Trying to save every penny, I dunno, but if you've ever worked with PAM you know that their trailers have issues. Who knows, until we get a maintenance person on here to spill the beans we may never know why they can't keep up maintaining their trailers. Tractors; rarely ever a problem. Trailers on the other hand; it seems like every other trailer. PAM just needs a better system of tagging their trailers like Fedex or Walmart have... but PAM doesnt have a trillion terminals like Fedex and Walmart do ...PAM maint dept if you're out there reading this; get to the problem before it gets to you. Thank you for your time.