Roehl Driver Check In Continued

Yes she held my hand all the way home too. Nice to finally meet you since I been talking to you on here for months. Thanks about the tractor that is the only thing I am having trouble about switching to the hometime because I like that tractor too. Once I thought about it I told my wife that has to be him. At least I got to meet you even though I didn't realize it at the time. I am going to hate not calling that my tractor but I think the hometime is a little more important right now as you seen for your self. I ended up with about 1585 miles this week not bad for going home. Thanks for the help parking the trailer and be sage out there.

 

Well m I'm at my stop for today and tomorrow. There's a lake about 2 miles away, but I don't have my pole nor a license and there's no where near enough to grab either. So it looks like I'll be making friends at ruby Tuesdays here. I'm at the pilot off exit 417 on 40 in tn. Come say hi if you're passing through. I'll be bored.

 

Guys and gals, can you help a new guy out? I am a little frustrated at this point. I meet goblue at the drop yard in OH yesterday. That was cool. So, I got rolling from the drop yard with a van. It was supposed to deliver in NY and they had me relay it to Gary. I didn't quite understand that. I was told it was so they could get me back on flatbed, yet there were 7 or 8 flatbeds in the yard in OH. Anyway I relay that load. About two hours out from Gary, I send a message. Two hour ETA to Gary. Preplan? I get a preplan. This is Friday. 112 mile relay from Gary to deliver on 05/27 a 0630. Really? So I call. I get told freight is slow and they will see what they can do. I get a new preplan. Relay 243 miles deliver 05/27 0630. Not really much better. They said they have nothing else. So, I drive to MI and shutdown last night at 1830 and sit for 60 hours. I made sure to send in a message saying I was in a layover situation and wanted FM approval for the layover pay. No response. I resent the message this morning and finally got a response saying the layover would be approved. Is this the norm? It seems every weekend I am sitting. Advise?

 

Tell them that you will be claiming layover pay, don't ask. Talk to your normal fm about it. Talking to the weekend people, though they are nice, can't really help you. If it persist, tell them that you are in the business to make moneys, not to sit around and will do what you need to to remedy the issue, with or without roehl. I have found by talking to other drivers that the squeaky wheel gets the grease in this company. This weekend I can kinda understand as it's a holiday. But at the same time, we're expected to work.

 

Well the start of the story.... my FM called last week and said, "When do you want to head out?" I said Thursday of Friday. She said Thursday is better so we can get you moving over the holiday weekend. That didn't happen. I would have rather been told, "Hey, this is a holiday weekend and we may not have any freight, do you want to stay home for the weekend and come back out Tuesday?" That would have been fine with me. The way it worked out, I am spending more money in babysitting this weekend than I am making.

One more thing, I was not really asking for the layover pay. I was making them respond saying they knew about it. It was to make a point. The DRG says you have to inform a FM when a layover pay situation occurs. It gives them the opportunity to relay the load off you and get you moving to avoid having to pay it. I do it because I follow the rule to a tee. That way I have record of it and it gets paid.

 

Why would they do that when they can have to take a load 200 miles and not pay you much of anything. I'm with you. I would rather sit at home than sit on the road. I'd love to be at home right now instead of a little town in tn for 2 days stranded in the truck. Only thing good I can say is miles have been good to me leading up to now so I'm not really complaining. Talk to your fm when she comes in on Tuesday and say," there better be some good miles coming my way to make up for the crap weekend or I'm going to have to make a change, and be prepared to do so. You may have to switch fm, or fleet, or find another place to work. Empty threats only empower.

 

Make sure its a deal breaker before u run. OTR is notorious for stories like this. U can also examine different fleets to see if something fits you better. I have stayed busy since day one. An occasional hitch every now and then...never had a deal breaker with Roehl.

 

There has been nothing that a simple message on the qc or phone call hasn't been able to solve, but if you have a problem, and it's a real problem, you need to be prepared to act if it can't be solved. Like I said. That may be another fm, another fleet or another place of employment. If you have a problem, and don't offer a solution or search to find one, all you're doing is complaining. You complain and do nothing, what incentive does the person you're complaining to help you or the next driver out because they know nothing is going to happen if they don't. And at this point, you have your cdl, a little experience, and a clean record, you have several options.

I know gene isn't as rash as I can be seeing as it took him 2 months to get annoyed with sitting on the weekends when it only took two weekends for it to bug me and he was helping me from ######## too bad. I simply asked my fm for some more miles, because 2100 a week just inst enough, and that worked. My miles improved greatly. But gene can confirm that I was ready to switch fms, fleets or find a new job if the miles didn't improve quickly.

 

Sitting at home waiting for word on when my trainer will be picking me up...itching to get back into a truck and driving.

 

Go reffer if u want miles! Everyone has to eat....