The WORST Shippers and Receivers - Truckers WILL NOT Buy Their Products!

Grocery warehouses have got to be the bottom of the barrel of the trucking industry. I don't normally pull a van, but when I do, I make sure I only go to places that will pay the minimum ($50) hourly pay for detention after 2 hours. NO cap! NO 3 or 4 hours free, either. Can't believe these brokers that expect us to GIVE our time free after 2 hrs. That should be plenty of time to unload anything. And the $25-35 hr is a big joke! That's company driver pay! I need pay for me, my truck, my trailer and time lost not being on another load.

 

You don't want to think about it this way. Customers pay for stuff all sorts of ways and trucking companies pay drivers all sorts of ways. When you start saying stuff like this all you're doing is giving away information to the people you're negotiating with. (What you want out of them... telling them what you want and care about tells them how to pay you as little as possible)

Remember that at the end of the week it's about your paycheck. Same for me. Same for everyone. Never let anyone get you to negotiate on the basis of anything but how much you make in a week and what your quality of life is. Everything else is a distraction.

 

Not exactly sure what you're saying there, boredsocial. Can you be a little more specific in what you mean.

 

I'm saying that in life people are constantly trying to distract us from the bigger picture. Go and try to buy a car/boat/house/truck and they try to get you off of price and onto payments. Some crappy trucking company that doesn't have much freight will try to entice you to come work for .70 cpm.. Two weeks later your check is 400 bucks.

There's not much point in getting fixated on the fact that we're getting screwed on the details when the bigger picture is great. Similarly don't let some ####### make you think he's Santa Claus because he pays for detention when his whole business model revolves around 1p1d loads from East Coast to West Coast and back again.

And please believe me when I say that brokers fall for this kind of thinking CONSTANTLY. The one's I've trained (I've had a few assistants) all had to be broken of it. The whole thing is a game and your job is to make as much as you can for doing what you can stand.

 

I've got two to add to this list.

Ford Motor Stamping Plant in Chicago Heights IL.

Delivering some frames. Guard at gate says go to dock 2. Go to dock 2 and try to talk to someone. There's a window with cardboard over it. Another driver in a tiny room sits there and says that gotta wait for someone to open the window to talk to them. So I wait. For two and a half hours. Banging on the window does nothing. Finally a girl opens it, looks at my paperwork and says I've gotta go to dock 3. Same thing except wait this time is 45 min. Sent to dock 1 who then after an hour send me to dock 4. Only 20 min later a guy there highlights a part of the bills and tells me to go back to dock 2 and show them that part. Two hours later I got unloaded. The unload took 5 minutes.


Rexam beverage cans in Winston Salem NC.

I generally prepare for a wait, but this place is downright obnoxious. Show up at 1300 for a 1400 appointment. Check in is a piece of paper to write some info on and then sit in truck till yard jockey finds you. Sounds great. Go inside at 1430 and wait for a while to see someone that works there. Ask what's happening and what time gonna get loaded. He looks at the paperwork and says that it'll be 1800-1900 before they get me in the door. Sitting and watching the preloaded trailers get loaded and moved in and out of docks. And watching day cabs show up, get loaded and leave. Still sitting... went in again at 1800. How's it looking? Oh another few hours and we'll get to you....

 

You make a very good point. The "richer" , the most demanding.
Had a few to call in on me, and the company rule book always sided with my action. My terminal manager had to "eat crow" the times he called me into his office, when I pulled the company rule book on him.

 

I have one. Associated Wholesale Grocers Gulf Coast Division. Same ole start to story. Get there early. Blah blah bla... seems to be taking them a while so I pass out. 6 hours later I get a knock on the door. The manager? Asks me if I've been called. Nope. He says go to the receiving windows. Ok.

Three hours later a group of us truckers stop another manager to ask what's up. He cuts us off in mid sentence and says "we work here as a team." I cut him off and say, "yeah you're the Cleveland Browns."
No one laughed because we were serious. This place is a disaster.

 

You could have stopped there lol.