Lumping freight

Most places won't let you use their electric pallet jacks. Kind of corners you into paying. Some companies will only offer a driver a fraction of what they are willing to fork out to the lumper company - go figure.

Lumping loads is a good way to stay in shape. I just hate doing it. I am not tall so it isn't very easy for me if it's stacked high. The customer pays for it anyway. I'll take my sleep instead. Your friends and family are right you will do it a bit then never again lol

 

If you’re a company driver, just cut the lumper service a Comchek and take a nap. The breakdown and other nonsense most times aren’t worth the hassle...

 

Was told years ago CDl stood for certified driving limper... Lol

 

After pushing a pallet of water from the nose of my trailer to the back with a pallet jack all I have to say is hell no never again lol. It only weighed 2500 ish and took two of us to move it.

 

No and no and no.

Lumping means moving every box off the trailer onto the dock. Sometimes off the floor of your truck to the dock. Other times stacking your big pallets to many big pallets on the dock. Maybe big pallets to many more small wood. 48 pallets of widgets became 98 pallets on small wood. 48000 pounds in 4 hours, hurry up. In fact for a time early in my trucking there was a qouta of 250 cases per hour to be required moving. Weight does not apply. So... 256 100 pound cases. That's half the load. 500 100 pound cases of meat... close to 49K averaging.

Or...

McCormick Spices. 6000 little ####### boxes, everyone of them with two unique numbers. Match against a 4 inch thick stack of spreadsheet paper in your hands and pencil. check check check. Keep 10 people busy 6 hours moving it into a sysco. Do not be off in your count. It will dock your pay.

You might load a truck, then drive it 10 hours unload it early next morning at 4 am after a half night wait and spend the next 24 hours lumping.

With work like that, if your body is fit, you will be fine for about oh.. 10 years. Then you begin to look for other work with less lumping to none. Flatbed for example. A little bit of work, but a whole lot of mental details. However forklift gets you empty in 10 minutes once you break everything down. And stow it.

Tanker work. Pop hatch, flop a hose down start moving product. Done. When it's done and not a moment before.

Dump? Even better. But god help you if you plopped a pile where you were supposed to spread 50 yards of driveway. You get to shove that 20 ton mass down 50 yards of drive way with a short shovel.

In my time it's 60 dollars to lump a load. You do not know how long that will take. It's not worth it. Pay a lumper to do that oh wait, it's now 300 dollars for a lumper to do it.... Inflation. At least you get to sleep.

Maybe you learn to get into drop and hook only. No more dock time. All miles now.

OR even better, pick a trailer. Go there they empty it reload with cardboard back to shipper. Pick another trailer go.

That's my story. I have a skeleton that proves it via a number of health situations now. It's broken down and no good for much of anything. 10 years ago I was still cutting trees on my land so that people stay warm in winters. After a time I had to put the saw down and leave it.

Lumping? Sure. You like it? Great. Its not for everyone.

You will meet some seriously interesting people doing that. I remember two in particular, brothers who lumped a load of glass gallon cider from White house in West Virginia. You have to set the cases of 6 down gently or you crack and leak em out. They dock your pay. I hope you like vinegar cider.

These two brothers were about 6 6 in height their arms matched my legs just to start. Barrels for upper body. They threw the cases to one another in the air one handed. Cases jingle on the way.

Not one broken. 150 dollars please. Ty. Next load lumping started in 50 minutes for them. So... 8 x 150 it's a good living tax free. Cash.

 

Some companies also require that your company fax over proof of liability insurance with your name on it as a covered party. In other words, not possible.

In many cases, as explained by others, its not practical. You will want to log the time it takes to offload as "sleeper" and save those on-duty hours for driving.

If you lump, that would most definitely be "on-duty, not driving" time. It's easier to make money driving than lumping and you can always hit up the rest stops for running laps.

 

Where is your location?
You're going to sign on with a company for what; CDL School?
As for lumping freight, I lumped my own freight for years and made anywhere from $200 - $500 extra tax free money every week. Some companies allow this and some don't.

 

Have to learn the system and how to beat it. One of our drivers found out the BOL's had the true lumper fee hidden in the information. Once we learned that, we submitted receipts for the full amount and got the same as the lumpers. Can't do that with all trucking companies though.