An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

Well, my OD load won't be across the border until 14-15:00 this afternoon. Looks like a long ride since many of the states I will be traveling thru won't let OD loads on the road over the holiday and some thru the holiday weekend if I remember right.

Plus, as of Dec 1 I will officially be switched over from the guaranteed daily rate pay to a straight up per mile pay, and not by choice. My pay rate is $0.65/mi...which is less than I was making pulling a Shaffer reefer. The downside, tarp pay goes down by 50% (from $100 to $50) but they're now gonna pay an extra $10/stop to untarp and retarp, plus extra stop pay goes up to $20 from $15. Plus, the performance bonus changes from a flat rate at $0.05/mile to $0.01/1000 miles over a certain threshold/month. Not sure I like the changes, especially on the performance bonus. Right now, I get a nickle on all miles, in the future, on months I take hometime, I won't break the mileage threshold so I will get elzippo performance pay on those months. I feel a bitter Wylie rant coming on...so I will go bite my tongue until after the 1st of the year...

 

I would like some saltines with my frog soup...

 

I had to laugh at a sign just before the entrance for the border crossing. It said "no medical marijuana allowed to enter Mexico"... isn't there a drug war going on with cartels sending tons of stuff over here...what, does Mexico have enough weed that they don't want Americans bringing in they're own? Or is it like the CA fruit Nazis and the FL cabbage cops, they don't want any invasive species tagging along with some importated pot to contaminate their home grown.

 

The more I think about this new pay ########, the more pissed off I get...I hope I get a decent tax return so I can afford the plane ticket home in the spring...I can see why drivers who have been here a while stop giving a flying fornication and just go into autopilot.

 

The part I have the biggest problem with is the dropping of the flat rate bonus and going to a penny per 1000 miles over a certain level(he mentioned a number, but we went thru it so quick, I can't be certain what I heard...8900 is what sounds familiar...but don't quote me on that) and the cutting of the tarp pay in half. He used last month as an example saying I would have made more on the per mile plan, but didn't calculate how much less I would have made on the single stop tarp pay at the new amount. I had many single stop tarp loads last month that would have erased much of the gains I made by going to a cpm rate...and it also didn't include the penny cut I will be taking on the bonus pay if I max it out(currently it's 5 cpm on all miles, the new one is capped at 4 cpm). He said he would have HR send me the new pay package, but I have yet to see it. If they do similar reworks to the 9900 mile salary pay package, I would imagine they're gonna need some help in the recruiting office because I see a lot of drivers getting pissed off and leaving over it.

You're only making $0.64 base pay? Holy crap, talk about being under paid for the amount of physical labor you do. I was making more than that as a door slammer where I only had to get in, sit down, shut up and drive. Hell, Blue Max pays $0.60/mile for their SE regional fleet who get home way more often than us OTR drivers.

you're only making .60/mile. There are a lot of reefer companies paying what I will be making after Dec 1, and some pay more than that for drivers with lots of experience.