Good night from...

Hammond, LA after doing a little off roading in downtown New Orleans. Oh wait those actually were the roads just felt like off road.

 

Well I talked to the DM, he said the problem wasn't the truck make or model, just that every time they've had overweight issues it's been due to O/O's coming up there with too much fuel. Company drivers don't have too much trouble because they are on the fuel optimizer automatically, O/O's tend to over fuel especially those who don't have a lot of business savvy.

Scottie,

Maybe to save some issues, the planners should look at their screen before sending a pplan on a load like that to a O/O, and also not offering them. That might just solve them.

 

I asked the DM that very question-- do the planners not see that I have a Kenworth before they send out the preplan? He said nope. Plus he didn't know which Kenworth I had either-- asked if I had the T2000 lol. ]

Doesn't matter anymore now because the preplans now include all those special instructions in them before you have to accept them to find out.

Got a plan today, accepted then they said Tcall it but the Tcall time was way after the actual delivery at final. No matter I Tcalled it a good 14 hours before delivery time (which is weird, New Boston Tcall, Detroit delivery). Usually they don't want to tcall a load that close in miles to the delivery. Got it in here 2300 local time Wednesday night so hopefully it will fall on next week's settlement putting me awfully close to 4500 miles for the pay period.

 

You know, it's going to be my luck. I'll pick Swift and start solo driving for them. Living in Michigan and reading many posts about folks heading to New Boston or Detroit, I get excited...until I see that most of them are from All Points West, like Scottie in California el Norte. So my bad luck will be spending most of my time running up and down I-5 (where Scottie67 probably wants to be) and never seeing I-94, where I want to be!

But hey. A mile is a mile, no?

 

Finally home for 3 nights. Buckeye Lake, OH

 

Scottie, was down in Edwardsville one day, and actually got to do what Shrek said, sat down with the planner, and he showed me what he does. After what he showed me, I asked him, do all the planners do this, and he flat out told me, NO. The original screen does not say either CO or O/O, which I thought that it did. They then are supposed to go into another screen and look. He always try and plan the O/O on the light loads, but told me, that many do not. They just try and cover them. I think that this is one thing that Swift needs to work on, Jerry wants more O/O, then take care of what you have.

 

My most recent conversation with my recruiter validated this. She said that the DM's work about 50 or so (give or take +/- 10) drivers at any one time. Considering the turnover in drivers and DM's, the different divisions and types of drivers in each (company drivers, O/O, L/O, solos, teams, single trailers, heavy hauls...), with 16,000+ power units, more drivers than that, and thousands of trailers to account for, making even small changes in their system is very difficult and time-consuming.

She reiterated to me the #1 problem Swift has is communicating with the drivers. Makes sense to me. She seems to be particularly open and honest.

 

For right now I'm just happy to go wherever the freight takes me. For denalidad, I picked up a Chrysler load out of Warren MI this morning and delivered it a couple hundred miles south into Ohio. From there I picked up another load going to Miami FL. Before all this I was on one of those 34 hour resets. I had never used Macro 34 before, I was getting blasted with preplans like crazy. I finally sent a message, please set my PTA at such and such time. So this planner in Memphis TN calls me up and asks me to cover this Chrysler load and he'll back me up with the Miami load. I said OK but the first one will be a day late-- no problem. I thought it was kind of strange they couldn't get anyone to cover that load and had to go to a guy who is on a 34. New Boston was brimming with bobtails.

Didn't think I was going to get an empty trailer in time to leave as well. Got an interesting message this evening concerning the fuel network-- Comdata cards at Swift will only work at TA/Petro- Flying Funk/Peelot and Swift terminals from now on. No mention of Loves. The purpose of this is to get the trailers into terminals more often. I predict fewer truck stop showers for company drivers in the future-- a little squeeze play along with slip seating and reduced hometime to get more butts in lease trucks.

This is very interesting to me. It might explain why my miles seem to do better when I get further away from the home terminal. Like maybe the planners see my truck coming into their spiderweb area, but don't bother to look up my service failures, backing crashes, speeding tickets, etc. the way my home terminal peeps do (and therefore throttle me back to slam dunk loads only-- shorties etc. whereas going away from home I hit 2000+ miles per load sometimes).

Interesting on the weight too, seems like when I first started they were mostly light loads then bam! one day it became nothing but heavy hefe loads nonstop. Makes one wonder if there is a method to the madness.

Ohio on the 90 at the Pilot.

 

scottie ... the fuel change applies to O/Os also. As of the 1st, we are limited to the T/A-Petro and Pilot/Flying J and the terminals ... No Loves, No Ambest, No Hess, no indepentents ...

This has nothing to do with trailers. It's about Swift maximizing thier take on the fuel discounts.

 

Yes, of course. I am just saying I predict a burden on the company drivers. The fuel optimizer will have them going into terminals for fuel whereas in the past they may have been sent to the nearby truckstop wherein they could score a better shower facility along with towels which are not provided at Swift.

Some savvy Swifies are smart enough to avoid terminals when they are emptied out for fear of losing that same empty trailer, will be routed to the terminals if they are in the area to drop that trailer and have it inspected. Again a burden for the company driver, will now have to scare up another empty when they get their preplan.

Where are you tonight MysticHZ?