Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

After 4000 mi week I’ll have around 1800 to go home for Xmas.. I’m cool with that.. plus I’ve been in this business long enough to know that around Christmas week time. Miles always gets screwed up. That’s just the nature of the business. I could say the 2025 was a hell of a year… almost $11,000 increase in pay year over a year this year.. I would say this.. driving here sure is paying off..

 

The contracts can be structured to drive traffic into certain locations, or have a clause about filling a certain number of gallons at any one location gets a deeper discount - but that's not what's driving the fuel optimizer to give out 'short fill solutions'.

The fuel contract doesn't guarantee a 'national price', it's a discount or rebate off the pump price. Fuel in Green Bay will always be 10-15% higher than fuel in Oak Creek due to transport costs. If the driver fills all the way in Green Bay, then runs the tanks dry and fuels in KY he's going to pay $15-20 more than if he put in 50 gallons, then drove to someplace in Indiana and filled up. With a small operation (say less than 50 trucks), it doesn't pay to spend the time to figure out 'optimal fueling', while a big operation can eat the hit to operational efficiency that the fuel optimizer introduces to save 5% on their fuel bill.

 

I'm not going home for Christmas so I'll see if running through to New Year's makes a difference. Then I'm taking a week off for New Year's....

 

If id actually been able to do the loads they wanted me to, I would've had about 2300mi for the week getting home Wed morning. And my bonus. Im ≈900mi away right now. Unfortunately I couldn't make otd on the load to get me back home. Now im sitting waiting

 

Looks like déjà vu all over again for Christmas… Waiting on a driver to get my load to the Kansas City yard at 6:45 this evening. The driver was 380 miles away then at 11 o’clock tonight. They said his ETA is 1430 tomorrow Sunday… The load has to deliver 500 miles away at 6 AM … And the next load is supposed to be out of Wisconsin going back to Texas… Come morning if this driver isn’t any closer to get into Kansas City I’m having them removed the preplans and I’m renting a car and I’m going straight home for the holiday… This will not happen two Christmases in a row because of lazy drivers…