Talked to my dispatcher at Trans Am today...

It wasn't a good conversation. He said he was throwing in the towel there and suggested I look elsewhere as well. Management was holding meetings to scheme up excuses, forcing him to lie to his drivers and not allowing him the latitude he needed to keep them rolling. The planning department is impossible to reason with, he said, and are clearly doing a lackluster job.

Apparently in an effort to secure more backhaul and broker loads to sustain the fleet, the geniuses at the helm negotiated ZERO fuel surcharge for these loads. In the old system, lease ops were paid 100% of the fuel surcharge on every load. If a meat load paid $.54cpm, that's what we got. If a Sterilite load paid $.17cpm, that's what we got. Even when diesel was $4.50/gal+, I could actually make a little money off my fuel.

Now they have switched to telling us the weekly DOE average and applying a percentage to that. Believe me, with our base compensation at $.84cpm, the percentage is ludicrous. This week the fuel surcharge $.19cpm based on a $2.296/gal DOE average. I should mention we get no fuel surcharge on empty miles. Let me lay out for you what my last 2 weeks combined looked like:

Load 1 - 370mi.
FS - $65.79
No fuel purchases

Deadhead 80mi to next load.

Load 2 - 1020mi.
FS - $182.02
Fuel purchases - $506.21

Deadhead 77mi to next load.

Load 3 - 240mi.
FS - $47.40
No fuel purchases.

Deadhead 63mi to next load.

Load 4 - 481mi.
FS - $91.86
Fuel Purchases - $160.43

Deadhead 291mi to next load.

Load 5 - 868mi.
FS - $169.20
Fuel Purchases - $400.64

Deadhead 101mi to next load.

Load 6 - 1116mi.
FS - $214.80
Fuel purchases - $509.85

That's 4,707mi with a fuel surcharge totalling $771.07.

I plan my fuel stops very carefully to maximize profit, and several of these runs went through OK, MO and TN where I could purchase fuel for substantially less than $2.29/gal. I even manipulate the company fuel solution to allow me to receive a discount at locations of my choice. The software that runs their fuel program was programmed by #######. I digress...

I won't bore you with all the numbers about base pay and fixed expenses, the point is the fuel surcharge left $806.21 worth of diesel coming out of my $.84/mi.

All told, I took home $926.44 over two weeks. That's 19.7cpm folks.

The head of dispatch tries explaining to me that while I'm in a lease I'm paying on an asset. Just like owning a home, when it's paid for I will be able to treat it like an asset and earn money from it. Excuse me lady, but do I sound like a middle school drop-out to you or something? Since when do trucks appreciate in value (like a home) as they get older? And how can I possibly save enough to pay this truck off at lease-end if I'm only bringing home $450/wk pretax!? You can't get a f'n home loan earning $450/wk, much less pay rent or afford a decent car!

You know, everything was fine before this. I could easily take $1,500 from a 3,300mi week. Heck, I could break $1k on a 2,600mi week. Now I'm much better off making $.30/mi as a company driver.

Feel free to call me delusional for thinking this would work out. It is my current opinion that this step has ensured Trans Am will fail as a company. It has been disclosed to me that dispatchers are now REQUIRED to try and convince every company driver to go lease. HA! Experienced folks will get one taste of this pie and leave the table, and you cannot run a lease-op fleet with a roster of newbs. Too many mistakes, too many accidents, not enough customer service. It's a lose-lose for the company and I fear they will figure it out far too late.