Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

tow614 · Sep 13, 2013

Ok..i was 4th last quarter with 33700 and 7.18 mpg. Didnt get it this quarter cause i took 3 weeks off so my milage was down at 29700 plus our former fleet manager stuck me with a service failure and never told me about it. Beat it all it was a load i was never dispatched on.

tow614 · Sep 13, 2013

Hope victor does not mind us chatting on his thread. He made a fuss about it once before.

tow614 · Sep 13, 2013

Blu_Ogre said: ↑

23.5k for 3 months?????? That's 2k miles per week.

What am I missing?

Performance bonus was just coming in when I split from GTI. Figured it would be more than 0.01 per mile though.
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The bonus is like a competition. It depends on where you place in your pier group. Top 5% gets .04 then works it way down to .01 from 60% to 80%. Under that gets nothing. Mine last quarter was over $1200 clear. Quarter before was a little over 500 i think but i was off for 10 days vacation over christmas as well as usual time off.

GreyHound · Sep 13, 2013

So what do they base it on ?

How do they figure it out?

tow614 · Sep 13, 2013

GreyHound said: ↑

So what do they base it on ?

How do they figure it out?
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Kind of a mystery..lol..there are different pier groups depending on the area you run out of and board you run. Then your milage as well as mpg is scored against your group. Depending on where you place determines your bonus if any. You must also run a minumum number of miles with no service failures or accidents.

Victor_V · Sep 13, 2013

Hope victor does not mind us chatting on his thread. He made a fuss about it once before.
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Chatting about Gordon on a Gordon thread does not = hijacking, tow614.

My neighbor's wife had a baby a night or two ago and I've taken advantage of not having someone to look after my dogs to sneak away for some non-Gordon guilty pleasures. (Actually, he probably would anyway but it was an excuse to take the week off... I've offered to take his dog over here if the wife needs their dog out of the house for a while.)

Reading Madeline Albright's (former Sec of State, Clinton administration) memoir, for one. Plus, always working on the property. Company picnic tomorrow. (No, not Gordon!! But that would be a sight, wouldn't it. Need parking for 2000 trucks. Everyone, just take a day off!! Ha-ha!!)

/I plan to post some 'recommended' reading in the very near.

Victor_V · Sep 14, 2013

A post I made at: http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...24658-ok-im-fed-up-bs-back-6.html#post3524420

The guidance you're getting here is good, especially the 'go see 'em in person' advice. The more shops you feel a little personally acquainted with, the better. You'll walk away from each with a little fuller personal knowledge. Get a business card from each and stay in touch. Ask if they know anyone who might be hiring. You'll find that people will give their time and take an interest in you.

It wouldn't hurt to talk to Gordon, Interstate, May and the other large carriers. There are sites that list literally every shop in your state, small and large. For example: http://www.fleetdirectory.com/bylocation/Washington.htm Make it your business to meet someone at each of them and to talk to their drivers. Look at the parking lot. What do the cars/pickups of the drivers look like? At Old Dominion, they reflect the pride of OD, for example. Good incomes = shiny, nice cars & pickups. Don't forget FedEx, UPS and the larger LTL.

But I don't suggest you go with any mega carrier at this point. Do yourself and your family a favor. Take a local job driving straight truck that gets you home every night or as a yard hostler. Your CDL is complete carte blanche entrée. A $10-$12/hr local job will literally beat the pants off what you will make with a starter company, where 80 to 100 hour weeks are standard for about $400 to $600/week. Or less. Where you 'earn' one day off for each week out...

You will also have a much larger 'world' to explore this way. Everything from Home Depot and Lowes, to Wal-Mart and other big box distribution centers, wholesale grocery delivery to restaurants and institutions, for example, small propane tank delivery (need your Haz-Mat to schlep these 60# tanks) to run fork lifts--and guess what? There are a couple straight trucks out back or maybe a semi or two at most of the customers who use these forklift tanks. You can get to know them. And who might be hiring.

Guys/gals driving little straight trucks for contractors to the Post Office make $18-$20/hr and up. Many of those companies have tractor-trailer runs, too. Start on the straight truck, plan to move up to the tractor-trailers within the same company.

Rather you not be 1500 or more miles away for 2 weeks at a time. Right now you can mow your own lawn... take the wife to see a movie--any night you want. Hey! Want a dry run? Start right now eating alone only at Pilot, Flying J, Loves and Petro. Get used to the food and see how you like it... say, compared with dinner at home with the wife or anywhere, just anywhere you want. Line up a couple nearby jobs to keep you busy at least 14 hours a day, just for giggles. Set up a bed and sleep alone in your car.

If you part-timed as a yard hostler and full-timed on a straight truck delivery, you could put in those 80-100 hours a week and see how you feel about it. And make a lot more $$ than you would from a Schneider, Gordon or other mega starter company. The rub of course, is you'd still go home every night to sweetie and the family. Tough. A sacrifice, I know.

Don't forget FedEx, UPS, they'll train you further. Fedex Ground pays pretty well. You can talk to the LTL companies like Old Dominion, Estes, Con-Way, etc. Consider a combo position that puts you part-time on the dock and part-time doing local shag on a straight truck. They'll hire you right off the street for that. Dock work is a great way to get on with the likes of Old Dominion. Sooner or later they'll send you out with a daycab and half-set. You're a dock worker with a CDL who'd like to move up. That door will open! Wages on the dock aren't that bad and $16-$24/hr for local LTL is about right.

But the mega carrier, starter company gauntlet?? Not with sweetie and a family at home. Give yourself some space between getting your CDL and any thought of rushing off to sign up with any mega carrier OTR. There is a reason they are called bottom feeders.

Where you're located, near Seattle (according to Google Maps), you have too many options to count. When those mega carrier guys come to recruit you, run, Paddlefoot, run!!

(Run. Away... Unless you're just really, really henpecked at home!)
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Victor_V · Sep 14, 2013

A post I made at: http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...ets-up-new-drivers-failure-2.html#post3528076

IMO there are much better ways to get started than the gauntlet of self-insured, mega starter carriers, who see the ongoing new crops out of CDL mills as their primary labor pool. In fact, I think it's a terrible mistake.

Much better to get the CDL, grab almost ANY job local that gets you home every night, preferably paid hourly, yard hostler, straight truck, dock worker, etc. But get someplace where the door CAN and WILL open to well-compensated heavy duty driving, just not necessarily immediately.

Working 40-50 hours local @ $10-$12/hr that leads to $16-$24/hr driving heavy duty will still beat the pants off rookie pay at the mega carriers' $400 to $600 or less for 80-100 hrs/week, 'earning' 1 day off for each day out.

If more new CDL drivers did this, said no to the mega carriers out of CDL school, the mega carriers would eventually up their ante.

I let my CDL go for many years, then bought a couple large pieces of heavy equipment, a Cat D6 dozer and a Cat 977 track loader. Wanted to move my toys myself so wanted to get my CDL back. First, I signed up with a school district that had great training for the 'B'. To get the 'A' I took a 3-day refresher at Vincennes University. The 3rd day the trainer had me take the skills and I passed. Cost me $450 total.

All I had to do for the school district was substitute drive occasionally. Then I took a straight truck position schlepping 60# propane tanks. Most of these 'customers' had both straight trucks and a small tractor-trailer fleet.

In less than a year total, I got on with Mid-States Express (now out of business) doing short line and local PU & Del. $16 plus/hr.

My next trucking job was running mail between Bloomington, IN to Cincy @ $23.67/hr, tractor-trailer, home every night.

It worked.
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Victor_V · Sep 14, 2013

Post I made at: http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...-good-otr-company-wife-can-3.html#post3536511

Hmmmmmmm. Sounds like an early mid-life crisis to me. And take the wife off her $30/hr dental hygienist gig to team?? Wel-l-l-l, consider both of you asking for a six month leave of absence so that once you come to your senses you both have your great jobs waiting for you. I know of a gal local who quit her $30/hr hygienist spot to live her dream, buy a restaurant she had loved working there as a teenager. Now she and her driver husband (formerly Maverick, BTW) lost the restaurant and are in real deep do-do.

So, my recommendation is don't.

In the meantime, read: OTR Pay Poverty Wages thread started by Surfer Joe.

(I'm not against adventures. When 16, bicycled LA-Minnesota alone, in 20's with a girlfriend canoed the Mississippi from Minneapolis to New Orleans, a year ago spent six months tooting around the country with 3 dogs in the car. Have many, many more. But I recommend see if you can take six month leave--both of you.)
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Victor_V · Sep 14, 2013

Post I made at: http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...getting-company-hire-me-i-10.html#post3536465

The personal attacks mystify me.

It used to be that trucking was where an ex-con could find a life. For others, it was a way out of the barrio, for example. It mattered that you could work. The mega-carrier starter companies probably aren't interested in the OP. However, a smaller company would. Years ago the saying was that the first time a company tried you out of the hiring hall, they just hoped you brought the truck back. The second time, they expected a little freight on it. Once you got through that, they'd call you for the third time and from then on you had a gig and they'd ask for you. Not so many hiring halls around any more and you have to contact each company direct.

Many of our drivers years ago had done time. The OP needs to look at dock work, straight trucks, yard hostling and guess what? Most of those jobs will get you home every night, too! And it will open the door to a good driving job. Forget CraigsList. Try: http://www.fleetdirectory.com/ByLocation/Illinois.htm, visit as many as possible IN PERSON. Then, stay in touch with them.

As far as OTR to see the country and get paid?? The OP needs to get real. OTR drivers get to see shippers, truck stops, fog lines and broken lines and a few hundred feet or so to the right or left as they go down the road. Yes, if they are alert, maybe--most aren't--and certainly not the dregs-crawling-out-of-the-woodwork to bash the OP here. For them, the trucking life's mostly just a blur. So they come here and bash other drivers.

I would be curious, though, what the OP's prospects would be as an O/O... (a real O/O who owns his truck, not a buy-the-company-a-truck-lease-ripoff).

/Edit: I should have read wstar2003's comments closer. I thought he was standing up for the OP, not on him--not trying to hold him back/down. (I tend to skip through the insults and back-and-forths.)
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