Am I getting screwed?

If I get a load that starts late at night, I will grab it and then find someplace nearby to grab my sleep. Just moves me back to my normal running time. Never had anyone cry about it. I get to my drop point well within my scheduled time. Mostly earlier.

I've never refused a load, and my only reasons for being late are waiting on trailers or loads. My home terminal is a nightmare when trying to get empties.

 

Looks like the "I am a slave to the company. Or to freight schedules for O/Os" was not new to the new generation of drivers.

Mikeeee

 

Everybody always talks about the "new" generation, and how they don't work as hard as we used to. yada, yada, yada.

The problem today is we don't have the flexibility we used to have, where you could take the load and then pull over somewhere for a few hours and still get the load delivered , safely and even legally. Now if you stop you can run out of time while you are sleeping.

The OP works for a company with elogs, so he has no flexibility.

It's not a matter of him not wanting to work, it's that he doesn't wanna drive tired.

Rule number 1 : Don't crash.

 

doing your job you were hired to do does not make you a slave to the company . I don't see what good the it is us against them attitude does for anyone . If you are hired to run nights that tells me you will need to sleep days ....seems like a no brainer to me .

So if you are hired to run a dedicated run you need to do the work when it is scheduled if they try to get you to break the rules that is a totally different game then .

I guarantee you my company or anyone that knows me would never call me a slave to the company or freight schedule of any kind . But they would tell you I am a good contractor and do what I say when I say without whining or complaining . That is because I do what I was hired to that's my job .

My advice for anyone in trucking is if you think it is you against your company you need to find a different company or find another career altogether . The only way to be a slave to a company to do it to yourself .

The one thing that seems be hard to find anymore is personal responsibility and work ethic . It seems that all you hear anymore is a bunch of cry babies saying its not my fault or my company is so mean they expect me to do my job .

When I have ever been hired by anyone they told what the job was and what they would pay me to do it if they did their job and did as I was told they would I did my job ......if they didn't then I went somewhere that did it is that simple no crying whining or complaining .

I guess if doing my job that I was hired to do to the best of my abilities makes me a slave in your book then I am a slave and a well paid one at that .

 

you will find local has the same crazy hours as regional and OTR
many of the food service co are all night deliveries
or very early mornings
many local jobs they burn out your 70 in 5 days
so your off every day for 10 hours?
including commuting?
sleeping for 5-6 hours when everyone else is up

gravel haulers work from before dawn till dark
local can be more tiring too

 

Doing the job you signed on to do to the best of your ability in no way makes you a slave to the company. A mans word is his bond its all we have, if his word is no good he is no good period. Abuse of the I have the final say in safety is why most will never excel in trucking or be considered a good hand. If the roles were reversed what would you expect out of your employees we know what most will post and then we know reality too. Life isn't a bowl of cherries, they don't call it work or a job because its funtime if you want to go.

 

I hate to break the news, but OTR is extremely unpredictable and I have been driving and dealing with drivers for a long time. You just have to do the best you can. Good Luck Driver

 

You are not working for the company, you are working for the customer. If you don't like working for the customer, find another company. We are not here to do something for the company, we are here to make money for the company by doing something for the customer. We this attitude that we can demand them to change, we are looked down on more often than not and they just find people to do the work that many of us refuse to do. So this is part of the revolving door mentality and until we get that the company doesn't really control what the customer wants most of the time, we will feel like slaves or a commodity.

Are you being screwed?

Yes you are ... and you are doing to yourself, not the company.

 

If SOMETIMES as you say it is ready early, then you can take the load. SOMETIMES that will work. You might want to try starting your day a little later, arrive at the pickup as close to 9:00 pm as you dare, and pick it up at the time they said it will be ready by. You can start complaining when they don't have it ready after the time they told you to show up and you did. The key is to minimize the time you have to spend in the truck, keeping it legal of course. When I started I had a job like this. In the beginning my company wanted me always early for everything and the load was never ready before 2 am. I got to the point I would leave the yard late (according to them), arrive at the shipper at about 1:45 am, drop and hook, out of there shortly after 2, back to the yard. They had allotted 8 or 9 hours for me to do this run and it didn't take me long to get it down to about 6.5 hours. I was being paid hourly but absolutely hated sitting in a daycab with absolutely nothing to do.

 

If ya have to ask if you're getting screwed you probably are