Companies Similar to landstar?

One of the most asked questions by non-trucking friends is about the "driver shortage".
I reply by asking them these questions:
Q1- when you go shopping do you see empty shelves or do the stores seem to be well stocked?
A1-..they always say that the stores seem to be well stocked.
Q2- who told you there is a driver shortage?
A2- they almost always reply that they heard it on the news or "somewhere"

So they think for a few moments and say "then why are they saying there is a driver shortage"?
I then tell them that there is a shortage of people who will work this hard, away from home for so little pay.

 

I had some jack*** scream at me the other day while I was delivering to a Sam's Club. It seems he didn't like how my truck took up the whole entrance to turn in to the place. Side note: I was entering via the truck route at the BACK of the store, and he stopped short giving me plenty of room to turn in and then decided after the fact he didn't like it.

I wanted to pull him out of the car and beat on him awhile while screaming "how do you think all that crap in your trunk got here dude!"

 

There is no driver shortage. There is a shortage of drivers willing to pull loads that only pay $1.03 per mile. There are a lot of loads that don't get hauled, so someone screams driver shortage. It's the same story in the nursing industry. Nurses don't want to work for $8 an hour, so there's a nursing shortage because they can't hire nurses.
As far as Landstar goes, I've been with them for 6 years now. The best advice I can give you is that if you try to call a broker and it's a San Antonio number, hang up. If you book a load through them, as soon as you get the paperwork call the shipper and receiver to make sure the info is right. There are very few good agencies through Landstar anymore. More and more they are getting the Avon agents that sit at home and snatch off of the CH boards and every other board, and do absolutely nothing but cut and paste. That's the way that this industry is getting these days though. You can probably find better, but it won't last very long. Everyone wants to work from home now, and anyone with an MC number can be a broker. That's where all of this is coming from. Incidentally, I don't do back hauls. If it doesn't pay $2 per mile, before Landstar's cut, I won't haul it. I don't care where I'm at. Funny thing is, I don't do West Coast and I'm always running. All you need to do is keep hitting that refresh button, and treating it like a business. If you're an owner operator and just want to live the life, that's all well and good, but you're not going to make money that way. You're a small-business owner, so treat it like a business. If you just want to stay home, get an MC number and call yourself a broker.

 

I've had good and bad results with the 210 area code agents. When I call they always say "the load is available", and they will call right back. If they call right back the load really is available. If the load is covered or something nefarious is afoot, they consider you a waste of their time.

When I call back and they say it was covered (which I already knew) I call them out on their underhanded tactics....and I get put on indefinite hold.