Stevens Transport aviary

Because you are a company driver, with a company truck, company insurance and company fuel. If you don't like forced dispatch then put some of your own financial risk out there and be a L/O or O/O. "takes one for team Stevens"? It's a load, it's freight, it's what you signed up to do and you signed up knowing the pay is per mile.

 

And that's why average truck driver wages are a pathetic $37,000 A YEAR! Keep showing up to crappy jobs paying crappy wages and NOTHING will ever change. The smart guys are telling their dispatcher to jam their switch where the sun don't shine because it doesn't make economic sense to them.

 

Well said.

 

I had that issue with a load our of Laredo a couole of weeks ago... was running on recap hrs and there was no way I could make the delivery. I sent a qc to my DM telling him that and suggesting that if they moved the delivery date back one day I could reset and run it. He said he would pass that on the the CSR. They moved it, I reset and ran the load. It was 1800 miles and took me home so I didn't want to lose it.

 

Well said Dryver!! These company drivers want the 'perks' of being a L/O or O/O without having to put anything in to it. We recently had a company trainer decide to be a jerk when we showed up to repower his load that he couldn't make. We called the guy who had set up the repower, explained the situation, and told him the company guy could keep his load and explain on Monday morning why it was going to be late.

 

I agree with you ralph on the crappy pay for company drivers but it is what the market supports. You can't artificially set the pay rate higher for a given job or that job will dissapear. Trucking is an industry where risk can pay off if you are willing to put your money where your mouth is. I have my money on the table and what I earn is directly effected by how well I do my job and not just how many miles I drive. The smart guys work with the planners and DMs to keep moving, in my mind they are the ones you don't want to piss off. Telling the load planners to shove office equipment up their anal tract doesn't get you the good loads now does it?

 

Why did the drivers even accept the loads??? That acceptance is a 'BINDING CONTRACT' so they should no longer be employed!! They were 'asked' when the Load Assignment came in on their QC, and they agreed by accepting the load!

 

I come from a different direction when it concerns dispatch and requirements. I use to own a decent size company. 120 employees, 14 OTR trucks. I understand, as some of you that were small business operators, what it means to put your whole life into a business including your testicles on the line for everyone's paycheck.
If I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment (and I did..acutally millions), front the money for operations, pay the taxes, supply benefits, and entice the customers, then I can darn well expect people to do what they hired on and agreed to do.
There is no excuse, in my eyes, for complaining about pay. You are paid what you agreed to. If that's not enough, find another job.
If Stevens Transport folds up tomorrow, what have you lost? A job.
The Aaron family loses 25 years of blood sweat and tears, not to mention the liability of all the operations. And they are considerable.
Do I wish I made more? Of course!
But that's not the issue here.
A company driver doesn't have to make the truck payment, buy the fuel or pay all the taxes. Therefore, I think they should go where they are told, when they are told and shut up! Like I said, if they don't like it? There are plently of other jobs out there with other trucking companies.

A L/O and even more so, an O/O share risk and costs. I don't think they need to be held to the same standards as a company driver that gets paid the miles he runs regardless of all the other issues.

Now you can begin throwing rocks.

 

My only question would be how you will handle things when you run the company drivers off?

I have not, nor do I plan to turn down dispatches... however if I start getting forced to repower loads and sit on them for a day or two for the sole purpose of keeping another driver rolling... I won't be around very long.


I am still new and actually quite surprised and pleased with the quality of loads I do get assigned. I have had one load of less that 600 miles and one more less than 700... those were both pick up one day and deliver the next. Other than those two I have had nothing under 700 miles and I sat once for three days in Holcomb... so I really have no complaints however while I will run whatever they send me, once again, If I am losing money for the sole purpose of another making it... I will not be long for Stevens.

 

And as Emulsified said, you are welcome to leave!! We chose to be L/O for the ability to make our decisions regarding what loads we take, where we fuel, etc. You did not. Stevens is running dozens of new students thru their program on a weekly basis, so anyone can be replaced.