Prospective employees... DO THE MATH

Yes, I saw the post that parrots the same recruiting material that is posted elsewhere.
OK, so the top 50% "average over" $68,000 per year. That's a ridiculously vague statement that means "half of our drivers make at least $68,000 per year".

Is that gross or net annual pay?
What's the average for the lower half that makes less than $68k per year.
Guaranteed detention pay after 2 hours - at what rate?
What other pay besides detention pay is offered - layover, breakdown, etc.?
What's the pay per mile?
Average length of haul?

Things like that are important for proving or disproving the validity of a statement. If someone is claiming something erroneous, then you, as a driver with firsthand knowledge, are in a better position to correct that and lay out any pertinent information as opposed to just posting a picture and then getting your panties in a twist over whatever perceived slight you felt was there.

 

I separated this into a second post for a reason.

Here's the document that covers the guaranteed detention pay:
http://shafferjobs.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/guaranteed_detention_pay.pdf

Benefits documentation:
http://www.shaffertrucking.com/careers/media/benefits.pdf

The website states the following:

Again, parroting the annual average of $68,000 per year. I also like the fact that they did the math for me.

Now, excluding any other types of pay that are included in driver pay and calculating strictly on cents per mile, you would need to drive 133,333+ miles per year to arrive at $68,000 at 51 cents per mile. 133k miles annually is 2,564 miles per week consistently all 52 weeks of the year. Break that down daily and you need a minimum of 366 miles on each and every single day of the year, all 365 of them.

Granted, with things like detention pay, referral pay (if applicable), vacation pay, profit sharing (after 1000 hours of service), etc. you don't need to drive 366 miles every day of the year to achieve the claimed $68,000. That being said, they use that $68k in their marketing for a reason and that reason is to entice other drivers to come work for them. It's a business, they need drivers to move freight so they make money, and drivers want to feel like they're being well compensated for the job they are performing.

The thing is, most drivers will hear the marketing claim of $68k per year and will immediately end up with dollar signs in their eyes. You'll notice that Shaffer words it very carefully "top 50% average over $68,000". That means that out of 500 (arbitrary number) drivers, 250 will average over $68k annually and 250 will average under $68k annually.

Here's the thing though, they're stating that it's the average and as we all know, that "average" is the result of taking the compensation paid out to however many drivers. It's an easy algebraic formula:

x / y = z
X - Total amount paid to the "top 50%" of earners.
Y - Number of drivers in the "top 50%".
Z - Average compensation paid to each driver in the "top 50%"

Now, just because a driver is included in the top 50% doesn't mean that he personally will be getting a minimum of $68,000 dollars - that's how averages work. To give an example of this, let's take the same 250 drivers from our previous example. Say 50 of those drivers worked consistently and had incredibly high miles and were somehow able to gross $95,000 that fiscal year. The money that those 50 drivers made raises the overall average for everyone else that's included in the "top 50%" of drivers so while they may make $95k that year, that also increases the average for all other drivers and it's entirely plausible that the lower end of the "top 50%" may make considerably less than $68,000, but due to the law of averages, they are still included in the "top 50%" because the top 50 (numerical) drivers are causing the average to skew much higher.

That is the entire reason the OP said to think about more than just cents per mile.

 

nevermind

 

Great post. I liked his topic material but I corrected his misinformation. He did bash Shaffer saying that they were trolling giving tasty numbers. They are a good company employing a couple thousand families. Just keep the info correct. Those numbers also include the number of drivers that fail doing their part and hence not make as much money making the average lower. It is the crappy drivers that make the least.

 

Just in case someone thinks I'm only picking on Wild Murphy in this thread....I'll help you out.

Here's your help: Your math is wrong and makes that poor driver run 300 miles every day of the year. I'd hate to work for you.

 

No it's too late, say it so I can have something to laugh at

 

Thanks for straightening us out TinWeezer69!

 

Glad to help. lol