mercer transportation

I don't think its them lowering these Rates. if it was how are they making Millions in profits. I blame other Owner ops that are willing to work for cheap lol

 

It is my understanding that the large companies make up a small percentage of the trucks in the industry. Supposedly most of the trucks come from companies with 25 or fewer trucks so I don't see how the big companies can have much of an impact other than increasing the supply through their training mills as Roshea suggests. I don't know though. I work on theory. You guys are the ones with the experience.

I suspect like you guys have said many times, it is a matter of many O/Os are over leveraged so they take whatever they can to stay in the game one more day. Like Roshea says, they have poor business practices if any at all. They keep no books. They have no sense of the state of their business. They are just reactive. Unfortunately, they are probably the majority and guys like you are the minority.

Also, companies like Mercer that allows their drivers to see a load board and pick their own loads, are probably in the minority. The other guys can only pick from what is offered to them and it is likely that their "dispatchers" have no incentive to expend the effort to find them quality loads. The driver is one of forty that the dispatcher works with and he/she just wants to get the driver off their plate so they can move on to the next one.

 

Dispatchers don't control rates. While not every owner operator company had a load board, all the god ones operate the same way, generally. They got agents that get loads and negotiate the rate, which is then given to a contacted truck or brokered out. Either via a load board and our coordinator like we do, or through the agent directly. Which is better? That's up for debate. Some days i think or system of first in first offered and every load ruining the board is better, other days i wish u could just deal with the agents and throw away the board position thing entirely. On one hand or system is more fair, on the other hand, i miss out on loads cause some ####### that has rags for tarps and secures the freight halfass got unloaded 10 minutes before me.

 

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that they control the rates. I just figured that maybe they didn't go out of their way to look for the loads with good rates when they offer their drivers loads. That is flawed logic though. Probably doesn't take anymore effort. If the rates are there, they are there and they will offer them. It is likely all the same to them anyway. That puts it right back on the operators who just want to get anything to keep running and not sit, not understanding their bottom line.

 

I'm with you here. Perfect example, yesterday the agent calls me about a short hual she can get but wants to make sure I'm available and we could agree on a rate before she booked it. We come to terms, she gets it, post it and let's it run the board. Some yahoo swoops in and snags it. Not his fault really. I would have snagged it too. But man was I frustrated at the time.

I guess my secret handshake failed me that time.

 

Dang agents playing by the rules. I like it when they bend them and book stuff we negotiated without it hitting the board. Then again, I only like that when it benefits me.

 

The number of times that an agent called me "same scenario" if I book this load do you want it? Then it runs the board and someone snags it.

Sometimes, the agent is afraid of booking the load, then not being able to cover it. So they look at the list of trucks in the area and see's one they have a relationship with and calls them. Now they can safely book the load.

The point is, develop those relationships with the agents. When you get to know a few of them on a first name basis, you will learn just how fair this system is. If anything, the system almost seems to punish the guy trying real hard because the same load is there for the guy not putting in any effort at all. (it's just that the guy trying real hard is putting a lot of effort into a 1000 little things)

You have your favorite agents you deal with, now develop a relationship with your favorite shipper he has. Make sure the agent knows that you know, who is in the shipping dept.. Make sure the shipper knows that you know the agents first name, and where you live. Eventually you want your name to come up when these guys talk to each other.

When a shipper/receiver begins asking the agent where a truck is because of this relationship, you have arrived some place special.

 

Leasing to a carrier is not different now than then, except many companies had requirements that are totally incomprehensible today such as 15 years experience and no tickets or accidents. To get into tank work back then you could squeeze your way in like I did with only 7 years experience because I knew some people at the company that would "take a chance at an inexperienced driver". Yeah, it was like that at one point.

To clarify my time off statement. That was time off from trucking but not from working. I flew C-141's back then and it was before internet and cellphones. I might go on a weekend mission for my reserve unit and not come back for a week, even a month, as operational necessity demanded. There was no way to notify family or work. No 24/7 connectivity as there is today, and yet we survived, even thrived. So out of the six months off I would spend about 3-4 of those flying. Then come summer I would take 2-3 months off straight and head west to the PRCA rodeo circuit in the western states. I rode bareback and saddlebronc and, well, I made enough to eat and keep going to rodeos. So there is something that pays less than trucking out there!

I would not say that most other drivers took all that time off, I was definitely the exception to the normal work habits. They of course made a lot more revenue than I did. But the fact that you COULD work half a year and do well was the point. We have plenty of people here that think a full time driving schedule means you have to take at least one load every quarter whether you need the money or not. I have not worked since mid Oct but not by choice, dealing with a parent with cancer. Id rather be doing anything than that. But I still make my truck and house payments and everything else and not worried about it. So it is possible to make enough money here without busting your a.s.s. if you approach it the right way.

 

Oh this is just great. Pete has run out of things to break on his truck so now he's going to break the mercer app. Just friggin' wonderful. Thanks Pete.

 

LOL! Debating how hard I wanna run next week...