I may regret this... But ask someone on the inside!

Discussion in 'Swift' started by BigShrek72, Mar 2, 2011.

  1. BigShrek72

    BigShrek72 Light Load Member

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    As for long PP's when you are due hometime and close to home, sometimes the planner is looking to see if you would rather take the run or go home. Sometimes drivers will choose to stay out if they can make money, especially OO's.

    The short haul live load stuff... well, you know.. those loads suck, but the customer has freight to move, and they pay us to do it. We cant pick and choose. Well, if we are overbooked we can and will. Sometimes there are more of those loads than we have daycabs to handle. Plus consider that we have daycabs that are in intermodel divisions, dedicated divisions, etc. So while you may see 30 daycabs in a terminal, there may only be 7 or 8 devoted to short-haul division 005 work.

    I have a hard time believing that a driver was threatened with termination for not wanting to do a short haul load. If its true, he should have called his FM or TM. Now, if he was the only driver in the area, I can see them really wanting the driver to do the short haul stuff, but threats dont do it. I usually offer cash myself.

    The other pay stuff, really you need to get with your DM on that. I have nothing to do with pay and honestly I do not even know what drivers make, other than there is a sliding pay scale.
     
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  3. BigShrek72

    BigShrek72 Light Load Member

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    If you know that the load will probably be ready, unless you have specific instructions to not be early, as we do with some customers, by all means go for it! However, if you call the shipper and they say it'll be ready, and you get there and its not, well, you will need to wait. And since your dispatch said it picks up at noon, then you will need to wait even longer for detention pay.

    Why not enjoy a couple of extra hours with your family? :)
     
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  4. BigShrek72

    BigShrek72 Light Load Member

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    Yeah I will respond... still trying to work out how much anonymity I am willing to give up :)
     
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  5. Rug_Trucker

    Rug_Trucker Road Train Member

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    A man with green skin, trumpets for ears, and Scottish accent isn't hard to guess who you are.

    :biggrin_25523:
     
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  6. scottied67

    scottied67 Road Train Member

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    california norte
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    OK, for my next dumb question::

    Preplans have pickup and delivery dates and times. Who figures those times? Is it a person with a calculator muliplying miles and hours? Is it a computer program? You guys can see our available hours left on 70/14/11 etc, from our Mac 10's correct? They are always pretty close insofar as a driver has to hustle to make it-- is it by design that way to cull out the lazy drivers? Sometimes a 34 hour break is integrated into a load--I think that is brilliant, just wish someone (mentor) had told me to watch for stuff like that and take advantage of it. Once dilly dallied on a load and ended up with 33.5 hours and had to start my day to get the load going-- what waste!
     
  7. BigShrek72

    BigShrek72 Light Load Member

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    It depends... Some JIT customers, especially air freight, will figure out how long it should take to the hour, and say "pick up by this time, deliver by this time". Others will use the 500 miles a day standard, and still others will go by when their customer needs the product. Thats why you might pick up a load that picks up on the 7th, and delivers 1000 miles away on the 15th. Its nearly all dictated by the customer, and I am sure they all have a different matrix that they use.
     
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  8. Midknight

    Midknight Light Load Member

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    This is very true...just did one 2 days ago from Memphis to Massachusetts. UPS load that had to make a plane. Total trip time was 25 hours with PTI, fuel stop, bathroom stops, and driver switches....got it there with 45 minutes to spare and didn`t take any unnecessary stops.
     
  9. blsqueak

    blsqueak Road Train Member

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    I would like to make a suggestion that I think would really help some, and that is when, you or others in CSR make the appointments, ask the customer if they have parking available, and if so, they can put in the remarks section of the load. This would save us from bothering the customer, and also if you get a load on Saturday that delivers Monday early, like say in NJ, and you can park at their location, that would save HOS on Monday, and having to fight morning rush hour. Case in point, I am sitting now 60 miles from my delivery, 8 am.
     
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  10. BigShrek72

    BigShrek72 Light Load Member

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    I agree that would be nice. When I was a driver, one of the companies I drove for actually had it in the load assignments that came over the Qualcomm, a "parking, Y/N" section. Wasnt always accurate, but gave you an idea anyways.
     
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  11. JustSonny

    JustSonny Big Dummy

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    I'm sitting on one of those "34-hr restart built-in" loads right now. I didn't need the 34 at this point but the load need to be shipped on a certain day, Friday, and the receiver isn't open on the weekends. I don't expect shippers/receivers to get concerned about whether a driver has waaay more than enough time to get to the final. They're the ones paying us so we just accomodate and it doesn't always work out in the best interest of the driver. These are the loads we just accept and look at the positive side...a fresh 70 to run as hard as the planners will run us!:biggrin_25525:
     
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