TransAm Trucking On my way ...

All right guys, get yourself a soda, coffee, or a beer, depending on the time of day, then kick back. This could be a long one.

!st thing you need to know, is that I've just finished another night drive and did laundry, so I'm tired. Hopefully, I won't screw this up to badly trying to explain things.

Out of that 30 cents a mile your making, your actually only making 20. The other 10 is per diem and not taxed. Thats as far as I'm going to go on that.

Here is a typical scenario for TA. You've just got 5 msg's from them and 2 you can ignore and delete. The 3 primary msg's you've got are your load info, fule sol, and routing sol.

Load info tells you where your going to pick up and when and where your delievering and when. Fuel and tring should be self explanatory. Load info also tells you the loaded and mty miles your going to run.

Your going to a meat plant and best case scenario, its ready when you get there. You drop the tlr you brought in and pick up the one your taking out. You go in an sign for your bills and look at them on the way to your trk. 1st thing you want to find is the seal # so that you can check it as you go past the tlr. Ok, it matches. As you walk to the front of your truck, look at the level of your reefer fuel, then look to see that the temp on your BOL's match what the tlr is set at and that its eithere on cycle or continous as needed. You've now scanned your BOL once.

You crawl into the trk and start looking at your BOL again in preperation for sending a loaded call. What your looking for this time is how much weight your carrying and how much product and you can glance to see what your carrying. You have now looked thru your whole BOL 1 time.

Now, you pick up the QC and bring up the form for your loaded call. Its going to ask for the temp, is it negative, whats the seal #, whats the # of the trailer you picked up, weight, pieces, and fuel level and a few other things. You've now looked at your BOL twice. You've entered all the info needed and hit send.

Oh no!!! You just got a temperature msg. It will tell you to send in an 038 which questions you about the temp again. You fill it out and hit send. What has just happened to you, is that somebody in Olathe didn't do their job and enter the correct info.

Whats going to happen next is...you'll get a msg telling you to fax it in. What their telling you is, that even tho you've looked at this BOL at least 3 times by now AND have sent in the correct info, your way to incompetent to be telling the truth without you sending it in to them.

Next thing is...you head to a trk stop with a scale and check the weight of your load and slide tandems as needed. Since your here, might as well fax the BOL while at it. Here's where the being a thief part comes in. You go in an pay for the scales and the fax but you could just be scamming the company. Now you have to send in another form, actually 2 of them, 1 for the scale and the other for the $2 fax and the DM will send you a PO #. No reimbursements with out it. 2 years ago, when I started here, you only had to do that for lumpers and escort fees.

Soooo, now, all in one load here, you've been called incompetent and a thief. Cheery...ain't it.

Will do their thiefing part another time. No energy left for now.

 

Good luck with your job at TA. but listen to the warnings about the lease. I was a new driver for them and I got talked into the lease. I was told if I didnt like the lease I could go back to a company driver. I didnt like the lease and was told to bad after thr papers were signed. In 2 and a half weeks my truck made just shy of $7000. after all fees I only received $57 in that time and I DID NOT over fuel or go home (they will thell you thats why people are not making money). If I would have went company off the bat I would have average mor ethen $600 a week pocket. good luck and watch your back with the trainers.

 

you hit it right on, ph.

 

All I can say is, I try to tell the truth, both good and bad, as I see it. Right now, they are running my *** off.

 

For the most part, yea it is. BUT sometimes a little break, here and there, would be nice also.