Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

It's been a day.

Started at 6:30am with my usual pre-trip, rolled into the receiver at 7:00am, had a dock by 7:10am.

Texted my DM long about 8:30am, letting him know that I was getting unloaded and would need something to get me back home for hometime, which starts tomorrow. They put a load on me to pick up Gatorade at 12:00pm at a plant a mere 40 minutes away, to be delivered in Newport News tonight at 7:00pm.

Time passed, and a lot of it. They didn't finish unloading me until 2:30pm, and that was only after I'd gone in to raise a little hell. Spent over seven hours in the dock.

Made it to the Gatorade plant a bit before 4:00pm. Still sitting here waiting for a dock. Already called the office to verify that the receiver won't be open when I get there, so I'm just gonna drop this load on the yard and let it be someone else's problem tomorrow.

 

I really hate days like today.

7+ hours in a dock at previous receiver.

4+ hours here at current shipper, and still haven't gotten a dock.

I started my day at 6:30am and it's looking very much like I won't be fully "off the clock" until after midnight.

 

9 hours at this shipper. They didn't get me a dock until 10:30pm, and didn't finish loading me until 1:30am. It's like my own personal hostage situation.

Been awake for 20 hours. Not in any condition to drive a commercial motor vehicle. Parked on the street by the shipper. Will worry about it in the morning.

 

Delivered Pepsi products to receiver, dropped empty trailer on the yard, home for the weekend, back on Tuesday.

 

At home for the weekend, hear freights down in Richmond, but it's good down south.

 

It's days like that in OTR, where you calculate your hourly wage and wonder what the hell you're doing with your life.

 

Amen to that! Hated those long wait times sitting at the dock. Now I just say, “Take your time. I’m paid by the hour.” And paid very well, I might add. Get a mini workout in, make some food, watch some tv and get some sleep-all while getting paid. Win, win!!

 

Got loaded in Mt Airy late yesterday morning, two hrs to load because they had to pull the load on the opposite side of the warehouse and bring all the way across to where I was docked. Dropped on the WM yard late last night. Few nasty accidents across 40 and 840 with how heavy traffic was. Probably road rage or inattentiveness. Grab the Beth Page in Forrest City Sunday after my 34 and get up there Monday night so I can unload soon as they open. Home time coming Thursday for some VA appointments.

 

That’s me sitting in traffic at the border every day. Other drivers are upset about it and I am just hanging out waiting and getting paid.

 

I think every OTR driver goes through those days that ExtremeUnction described. The thing that really takes its toll on days like that, is that for most OTR companies detention pay starts after 2 hours.

But how many people get to a shipper or warehouse exactly on time? None. You're getting there an hour early most times to check in, follow whatever asinine policies the warehouse has (doubly so if it's reefer), back into the dock, etc etc.

That means in ExtremeU's case of dealing with such extreme BS at both the shipper and receiver, he gave the company about 6 free hours of his labor that day (arrive 1 hour before appointment time, first 2 hours free before detention kicks in, multiply 3 free hours times 2 because he went through this at both the shipper and receiver).

Then when detention kicks in, for most companies it's what about $15-$18 per hour?

So if it takes the shipper 3 hours to load you, and you arrived 1 hour early before your appointment, that means at most you got about $18 for 1 hours worth of detention (because the first 2 hours past appointment time are free).

$18/4 hours labor = $4.50 per hour, AKA illegal hourly wages in the United States (rare exceptions in tipping workplaces excluded).

For most people, if they have too many days like ExtremeU described in his post above, they rightfully say F this and quit, thus contributing to the 200% annual turnover rate in this industry or whatever it is nowadays.

The right thing for Abilene and every other OTR company to do for days like ExtremeU described would be to give him 1 day layover pay for dealing with that BS and if the layover pay is some kind of low BS below $100 per day, then it should be layover pay + detention pay.

Just something to rightfully compensate the driver for wasting basically a whole day of his life for having to deal with that ####.

But does that usually happen?

We all know the answer to that.

To be clear this isn't a shot at Abilene nor any of its drivers. It's a shot against the OTR industry in general.

ExtremeU, as I was reading your post I just shook my head, because I could've written that same exact post a thousand different times over my OTR career. Those days really, really suck.