Finally got my own truck

Discussion in 'Ask An Owner Operator' started by BoyWander, Jan 1, 2017.

  1. nax

    nax Road Train Member

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    While I agree with @LoJackDatHo's sentiments, I also agree with you on the highlighted sections.

    I guess that why trucking (carrier side, O/O's) has more failures due to most not reading the fine print....which is only made worse by most O/O not being diligent on key aspects of business operations...

    OR EVEN WORSE...

    New entrants NOT doing their due diligence...
     
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  3. spyder7723

    spyder7723 Road Train Member

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    You know i was set up with pretty much every big player in the game and scores of small players, and that clause didn't exist in the contracts i signed, so no, sorry its not part of every brokers contract.

    Call it unreasonable all ya want, but the fact of the matter is before signing that I just called mercer or Bennett or landstar or any of the 15000 other brokers that had just as good a paying load.

    You want us to just trust you that you will be reasonable and not make bogus claims. I should just take you at your word? That's just not happening.
     
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2017
  4. BoyWander

    BoyWander Road Train Member

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    Oh...dear....how did this discussion get going? I forgot.

    Long update. Please bare with me.

    Anyways, I'm ending it now, being as how this is "my thread", not to be a douche about it...I know this is TTR's website, but I'd like to re-hijack my diary now. And yeah, I do use this as a diary. One day if I ever have a son, he can read through this and know what I went through

    Anyways, theme song of the day:


    Kansas City was absolutelyfriggindead today. Got the popcorn unloaded at a lumper warehouse, but apparently the load was an "efficiency load" so I didn't have to deal with lumpers, and they were pretty quick about it. I picked the popcorn up from Imperial, NE. I think I passed the Children of the Corn....and took...hmm...US34 to McCook, US83? down to US36 and across Kansas to St. Joseph, MO. Not too bad of a ride. 400 miles averaged like 59-60mph, with having to go through small towns at night.

    Anyways, yeah there was nothing in KC today. Not that there usually is, but it was worse than what I remember. Booked a load with TQL picking up in Harrisonville? Going to Louisiana. 30mins later, no rate con. Called the broker, "Oh, well it turns out the customer didn't run enough production last night so now they don't have enough freight to ship." Ok, thanks.

    And then there was this nightmare. Went to Pilot in KC, KS side, got fuel, got a burrito thing and asked for the habanero sauce. It was #### good, but was a little on the spicy side. My dispatch guy texted me a load picking up 10mi away going to Florida, 1,050 miles, $2100. Whatever, sure. Puts me at $6200 gross for the week. At this point it was after 12 noon so I was getting desperate. Turns out the load was actually 1240 miles. Of course. Dispatch guy finally says we didn't get a rate con but we got a sheet that states our pay and that they don't have the actual rate con sheet from the customer yet. Guess who the broker is? Landstar, of course. THey like to post air miles, and my dispatch guy doesn't seem to GET IT THROUGH HIS HEAD that the miles in parentheses are AIR miles. My truck doesn't fly, it rolls on the ground. Whatever. it is $2/mi with $80 more in fuel added to it. Whatever, fine.

    So at this point. I'm thinking, okay this load is double brokered, let's see if I can turn this into more $$$ for myself and cut their ### out of the deal because I hate that kind of crap.

    So I get to this shipper and we don't have a rate con yet. It's a very small shipper with one dock that you have to dodge personal vehicles to get into, and you have to make sure you go in the right way. Anyways I check in with the manager, and tell her I'm here to "tentatively" pick up this load but I needed to know who the broker was. She says CHR. So I tell her there might be an issue, and that I needed to call CHR. So I did, turns out they offloaded the load to Landstar, knowing they'd use an outside carrier, and it happens knowingly, it's fine, etc. etc. Ok, that's fine.

    So they start loading my truck, and it's 7 of these giant cabinets that need to be strapped to the wall. Manager asked if I had brought straps "Like you were supposed to". So of course, I just gave her a blank stare, and had to admit that the broker didn't say anything about straps. So now she's getting ticked off. She goes behind a shelf, grabs a box of straps, drops them on the ground, tells her loading guys "Fine, just use these last ones we have. I don't care at this point". I found out from the loaders that they had 2 other trucks come in the past 2 days for this load, one truck wasn't large enough for the shipment, and another didn't have logistic posts. LOL.

    Come on. CHR. You're the biggest brokerage in the world, and you can't service ONE customer properly????? Pathetic.

    So I call up CHR and tell them the situation, and that we still didn't have the rate con from Landstar yet. Oh, and btw, this customer requires 7 straps and I only have 1, and nobody was notified of this? Here, I have a solution. I will purchase these straps from this customer, give them the cash out of my own wallet, and then you guys can send me a new rate con with $150 added to it. You can divide the cost up between you and Landstar, whoever dropped the ball. So they agreed, thanked me, and we got a rate con with $150 added to the original rate.
    And then I wrote up a receipt and went to the manager and gave her $122 which is all the cash I had on me and said "Here you go, I'm purchasing the straps from you guys so that the issues can be resolved and hopefully you can at least be somewhat satisfied with the service, and you can go buy new straps to replace these ones, and I'll just keep the straps in case I come back here at some point, and then there won't be any issues :)" This makes her feel a lot better, and she actually smiled, thanked me, and signed the receipt. Of course I give her my name and number and our company name.

    So 1) I resolved a bad customer service problem and saved CHR and Landstar from possibly losing a customer, 2) Made the customer, who I may never see again, happy, 3) Got 6 new straps for free, and 4) made $28 extra on the deal, which I spent on a Brinks padlock so I can secure this load further. Oh, and the load was only 8500 lbs.

    Now I got this Landstar BCO office calling me for updates every 2 hours. I told them, "Look, this is where I am, I'm going to bed now, don't call me for 10 hours." "Sure, bro, no problem, lemme just put this in the system here, and urgoodtogo!" Yeah, I'm not your bro. I'm just a dumb truck driver who saved your ### and got paid like complete #### for it. You're welcome, "bro".

    Ugh. People are so stupid.

    I got the I Heart Radio app and have been listening to 90's alternative, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, etc. Love that stuff. But I hate Green Day. They can suck it. And also Fleetwood Mac, they are great. Rush, too. Rush is my favorite band. Well I call them "band" but they are more like true artists. One day I'll buy a drum set and take lessons just to try to be 10% as good as Neil Peart.

    Goodnight, Constant Reader.
     
  5. mladen86

    mladen86 Medium Load Member

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    If you have room and there's no seal try to find some partial load. Adds few hundred dollas to your ravenue.
     
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  6. boredsocial

    boredsocial Road Train Member

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    Sorry for the derail. This is a good thread so nobody is trying to damage it. If the mods want to make our whole derail into a child thread with a different title that's probably not a horrible idea.
     
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  7. daf105paccar

    daf105paccar Road Train Member

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    You should start a new one:The Life and Times off a Broker.
     
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  8. loudtom

    loudtom Road Train Member

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    If you've got space in the truck, buy a gaming system and Rock Band. Do the tutorials for the drums and gradually increase the difficulty. The drum tutorials are actually really good lessons, they just don't teach you how to tune drum heads. If you get to a point in your skills where you are limited by the kit, go buy an electric drum set and the adapter to convert it into the game.
     
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  9. BoyWander

    BoyWander Road Train Member

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    Used to be really big into guitar hero. I almost beat Through the Fire and Flames. Like 92℅ through when I failed. I did beat One, though. Great song. Metallica at their absolute finest. I have a TV in the truck but I don't have time for #### like that. 4200 miles when I'm through today. I gotta slow down. I'm pretty musically gifted, though. I play a bunch of instruments, pretty sure I could pick up drums if I practiced. I have a great long term memory...But where the f did I put my keys???
     
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  10. BoyWander

    BoyWander Road Train Member

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    Going to be empty in the morning here by Daytona Beach. I've danced around the idea of just deadheading toward Atlanta...BUT I know I will lose revenue. On the other hand, I'll be satisfied with the illusion that I'll have stuck it to the brokers.

    I'll probably take a cheap load to Alabama and try to make my way north.
    God I hope the market improves this week.

    No more diversions. No more out west. Unless they happen to be willing to pay $3/mi or #### close to it.

    I keep having these fantasies where this broker calls on my truck with a desperate load to Phoenix and he's called 50 trucks and nobody is interested but me, and after calling his customer with my quote, they pay me $3.20/mi to go there. I'll keep dreaming.

    Maybe I will get Rock Band...but I mean it's not like there's a lot of room in here, even in this Volvo 780.

    The other day I was driving along, and it finally hit me that I'm back out driving OTR again. And the truck is mine, and I'm an O/O. I felt a surge of panic. WTF am I doing?? After years of wanting to start my own business of some kind, I'm finally doing it. I'm still in shock and disbelief. Just like I'm still in shock and disbelief that Donald Trump is our President. Not that I voted for Hillary. But I'm still in shock. I keep thinking about that Radiohead song "Creep".
    "What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here...I don't belong here."

    This is the fate I chose for myself. Now I have to live with it. I've been out on the road 4 weeks now and probably 14,000 miles in that time span and starting to burn out.
    Another song comes to mind..."Lithium" by Nirvana.
    "I like it, I'm not gonna crack."

    We'll see.

    When I start to get stressed out, I start to become snippy and get an attitude. I hope my boss doesn't notice, but then again I don't hardly speak to him anymore. He pretty much leaves me alone. I hope I don't take it out on a broker...or maybe I should? Maybe I shouldn't be such a pushover. Maybe I need a little bit of an attitude so that I don't settle for crap rates and maybe get more? Who knows. Some of these brokerages do deserve to be chewed out.
     
  11. Jeck

    Jeck Light Load Member

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    Thank you for this thread. I am really considering to become a O/O. I have the funds. What would you say is your bottom line per mile number for you to break even(not lose money) and your number your happy with (not $3.20/mile) Thanks again for sharing your story
     
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