Werner Dedicated accounts (general dollar, family dollar etc.)

Best advice for a rookie right there.

I busted my hump doing food service in nyc with a 48 and 230 in wb sleeper for my 1st job. Tough work but I wouldn't have it any other way. Honed in my skills real fast. Do or die type stuff. Then I got into the oilfield and was dragging around 100k frac pumps on the 2 lanes in the mtns of west Virginia

 

No

 

Even if you could. Doing 6 53” trailers in a week? That’s a good way to burn out right there. I do Foodservice and 4 48” trailers a week is a burnout. I’m glad I do 2 trailers a week 3 being real busy.

 

I'll add a little more to what I said. Doing food service and finger printing 120,000 lbs of food a week turned me into the person I am today 4 years later. By far it was the hardest job you can pretty much imagine.

2 driver NYC run 3 times a week. 8 stops and 1250-1400 cases each run. No lift gate or pallet jack, just a ramp and a hand cart with a 48 footer stacked floor to ceiling, front to back. On top of all that work our run was on avg 20-24 hours from start to finish back at the terminal. 460 miles. 183 mi from the terminal to our 1st stop on Broadway and 165th, 205 mi back home from our last stop out on the island. One of you sleeps on the way down, whoever sleeps on the way down is the one driving home. Bust your hump for 15-18 hours unloading then drive home 200+ miles home. You both work the whole truck unloading.

Hardest job I've ever done and all my jobs before getting my cdl were construction labor type jobs. If I didn't start off doing food service i wouldn't be the person I am today. I don't just mean my work ethic, it helped shape personal stuff in my life on top of teaching me what a days work really is.

Its a life lesson that will never be forgotten and will pass it down to my kids and their kids

I'm not the best at putting my thoughts to words. Doesn't come out like it does in my head but you get the jist LOL

 

How my driving miles to go with that? Doing 2 driver run was 1350 mi a week 3 runs.

Doing a solo Baltimore it was 1500 mi a week doing the run 2x a week. Not for the weak minded that's for sure

 

When I left Werner I was getting $90 a trailer and I was on an hourly rate (paid all hours on duty and driving). Swift was getting 200 a trailer and miles. Depends on how well you ran. If your close to the warehouse to go home every night you aren't getting any miles. It takes 7-8 hours to unload a full 53'. So you could really only get maybe 350 miles total per day in Cali in best case scenario. That's if you aren't caught in traffic which is nearly impossible.

Only guys with Werner that were making 1800 a week on dollar tree were on a 'flex' account where they were getting 200 a trailer and .50 a mile but staying out for 2 weeks at a time instead of home on weekends. They swapped them over to hourly and took a huge kick in the teeth on pay.

 

What about .78 a mile and .08 per box? Would you do it then?

What do you guys average for miles per week on this account? 1500-1900?

 

To answer your question Warner's Dollar General and Family Dollar accounts are yes basically slave accounts. You leave out Monday midday you get home if you're lucky Saturday evening on Dollar Generals account everything is loaded enroll tainers and you've got what they call Toppers and 4 stack you are unloading in roughly 20 degrees higher in the truck then it is outside, and some of the Roll Turner's can weigh several hundred pounds. Family Dollars is all for stack meaning that you put your hands on every piece of merchandise. On the Dollar General account some of the stores as everyone knows or not in the best of locations, I have had drivers in with that company on that specific account for more than 8 years now we have had two drivers injured three of the four drivers have left simply because it's more work than the pay. However one of my drivers went from the Dollar General account over to Warner tracker account and was quite happy where they were hauling boats however that is a seasonal account and if one or put you on the Bass Pro account you might as well expect to get paid a lot less with a lot less miles as far as versus The Bass Pro tracker account. You can call the DC and Bessemer Alabama which is a Dollar General DC and kind of asked questions of there's a safety officer and he will tell you what their accent ratio ratio is and things like that. Keep in mind our injuries have went from as minor as having a box of detergent or something fall on a foot to we have had to separate drivers end up with concussions from DC's not stacking the items in the trailer appropriately. I will say this this is not a Warner's issue, this is a Dollar General Family Dollar issue however Werner can only do so much about it so you kind of have to take it as it goes and you either like it or you hate it there is no in between.

 

We have four or five dollar stores in parts of the County. One n Jacksonville AR has had three LOC. They paint over the gore, holes in door frame etc IF the funding is good there will almost be needs met. The last prom night I actually got assaulted. But I can tell you that it is not a stressor item as it was once. Bed, Rest, medicine, disinfect, clear other situations like busted Vase etc. Next day put the agressors either away or back outl. The classmates found two things, First I have a unreasonable love of violence. Second it was important never to be looking for a fight in the first place. It's not worth the financial damaged etc one an place.