Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

Do you work 3 days on and 4 days off schedule @Mike2633 ?

 

At my hub as soon as you punch in for the dock or city the eld will automatically show you on duty.

Machine of knowledge never lies

 

I work 5 days on Monday-Friday. The chain alliance group works 4 days, but us in broadline work 5 days. I work Monday-Friday and am off Saturday and Sunday.

 

Same as me weekends off. Is food service mostly done on nights or new drivers get day runs sometimes too?

 

Today I was a few minutes over 12 hours I had a full day I mean full day, I left the yard at 2am and got back in just a little after 2pm usually I can do better on Tuesday, then that, but I was 1045 cases and 20,800lbs the load was a big load a lot of it freezer which came off at the first stop, problem is, the freezer being over size pushes the bulk head all the way into the middle of the trailer and it really squeezes the cooler and dry section. The cooler was packed like a can of sardines and I was fighting the load for a good portion of the day, I essentially was about an hour and a half behind my normal schedule today.

Our routes have actually been stream lined a bit our local management has cleaned up our routes a bit, which has been good.

My first year at GFS I though if I made $60K that would be good. I ended up doing $70-$72K.

This year at 3 years almost 4 years of service in March I'll be at or right under $80K for this year. I was at about $39K 6 months into the year.

Like what @Radman did at McLane it would be hard to throw a lot of cases at McLane the company has great big customers with big 200-300 case stops if you're doing Olive Garden ,Red Lobster or Long Horn Steak House, those 3 stops could be 1000 cases if not more, plus places like McLane are always short on help which means more work and money opportunity for you.

The key is you have to be in a good market. Once in a while you'll get a guy for like Reinhardt on here who works doing street level accounts for Reinhardt at some 2 truck drop yard and they go out with 300-400 cases a day and the pay is kind of mediocre although most companies who have small street level presence like that sometimes have a guarantee like GFS I think in Atlanta the street level guys have like a $1200 a week guarantee or did, that was older information, but you get the point, if you're in a new market there's usually a guarantee. I know Northern Haserot still pays by the hour, but we've been on production pay at GFS since I've been here. If you worked for a place and made $52K a year I would say that's not that good and you can do better.

For food work if you're working for one of the big time companies, $60K would be the floor I wouldn't do it for any less then that.

I mean yeah like small time places like RDP, or some of the small regional companies might pay less, but some of those guys figure so what if I make an extra $10K a year I won't be living any better, and the kids are out of the house and it's just the wife and you beebopping along it's like ehh why kill my self. But people with expensive tastes like me I'm motivated to make the money LOL!

As far as hours go, I'm probably 52.5 hours in 5 days.

 

Gee that really really depends. Each route is different. Our stuff at my yard is technically day work. Because of our transit system and me being at a drop lot we don't have any technically over night routes because the trailers are being loaded and shuttled over night. However we do have different routes skip and express skip routes customers are all on a two day lead so there trailers are loaded first and shuttled to the yard first. My Tuesday it just so happens we have some keys and I can start at 1:00am. I could start later if I wanted, no one would say anything, but a lot of it depends on what the stops are and if you can get in or not. Our later express routes those normally don't hit the yard till 3-4am. Mostly our routes all leave at the same time our trailers come in the double sets are broken down the individual guys all hook up to there individual trailers and the singles are all taken out for delivery. By 5am the yards pretty much empty and every route is out for delivery.

Now Chain Alliance like what @double_r does is a totally different story those guys leave all night long and work kind of goofy hours, but see they might have a full days drive to there first stop. My first stop is 20 miles from the drop yard.

@double_r for example he leaves the warehouse his first stop might not be till Long Island, New York City or Virginia Beach, VA for example. I don't know if our warehouses chain group does, but I know there are chain routes where the guy leaves the warehouse Sunday night for example and the company doesn't see that driver again at the warehouse till Wednesday.

We have a chain route I kid you not that it's actually a primo route you drive a Ford Cargo Van from Pittsburgh to Baltimore do a few small time places and run back it's a primo route pays good to seriously.

I know the West Virginia Public Schools they were always loading all there shorts and over flows and stuff into the straight truck and expediting there stuff out with the straight truck.

But the answer is normally chain routes - go at night.

broadline routes deliver during the day.

Chain routes certainly can be overnight and we have a number that are some of them you're on the road for as much as 3 days. Certainly 2 days isn't out of the question.

This route here:

This route here runs over night and is 2 days. You leave the warehouse 10pm-11pm and go till like 11am-12pm and then tie down at the hotel for 10-11 hours what ever and set out again in the evening work all night to get the last stops off and then drive back you get back in about 2am-3am or so. I know because I remember getting back in that rainy Friday morning to the warehouse it must have been 3am or 4am because I was back in Cleveland at my house by 6-7am and I remember thinking wow this is the first time I've ever seen my neighborhood at 6am on an actual week day lol!