PSD question

Your not employed by Prime. Your a student, what happens if you hurt yourself.

Lets assume they let you. Prime is going to want a receipt, as you are not an employee, it won't be a paycheck but probably a comcheck. reciepts creates a paper trail. All income has to be reported and taxed, and that will be your responsibility as an independent Lumping contractor.

Believe it or not there are still places that don't have on site lumpers or service. I've had to pick a sorry soul that hangs out at the gate begging to be one of the few that get picked to work that day. sign him in, and he lumps the load as an independent contractor. He has to provide me with a receipt or there is the rarely used Prime lumper form. Whether its the form or his own reciept, he has to provide his name address, social security number, his phone, my truck and trailer number, the piece count or description if the work done and the amount charged. Without my copy of this receipt, I as a driver do not get reimbursed. If I, as a driver, do not get this receipt, I do not pay. That simple.

Now, if you get that far, who's gonna teach you to lump. Sure, maybe it's a straight pull off... Easy. What if its a breakdown. Say 26 pallets, but maybe 10 different products with a couple different sizes. Then you have pallet stacking restrictions set by the receiver.

Take a candy load. Each pallet may have 5 different brands and 2 different sizes. That's 10 pallets.

You certainly won't be using any power equipment unless you bring it yourself. And if the Recieving agent doesn't like your work, he won't sign off until its correct.

Meanwhile, if you are going to be legal, you need to log the entire work time on your logs as "on duty" limiting you from your primary responsibility of being a student.

Somehow I don't think Prime will approve... If they do, they got you over a barrel. You have no room to negotiate like the other lumper services have. All they have to offer you is the piece rate they offer us, which is miserable to discourage us from wasting our time.

 

Even when not lumping he should technically still be logging as on duty. I know a lot of guys switch it to sleeper immediately, but I never do that unless I'm actually going to get a nap in.

 

Are you doing work? Or are you sitting in your truck? If you're sitting in the truck... not "working" ... seems like off duty time to me. That's the way I log it, at least. I'm flatbed, so I don't have horror stories about waiting hours on end, but still... If I'm not working, I'm not "On-Duty"

 

you log on duty time from 5-15 min to check in then you can either go to the sleeper or off duty. like right now im in the sleeper but awake just laying in the bunk waiting to get off loaded.

 

The "horror" of waiting to be unloaded in the reefer division is usually a healthy dose of Bravo Sierra. We tell our customers that they will be paying detention if we're delayed beyond what's set out in the contract, and most of them want us out of there post haste. In fact some of them will have other carriers wait so that we and our detention charges have left the facility. There's a few who don't, and very occasionally there's a big delay. Log some on-duty time to cover check-in, paperwork and door slamming, and the rest is off-duty. Usually line 2, sleeper berth. If you can get to sleep easily, it's a great time for a nap.