Another Company to IC Choice Thread

Yes frozen meals in bags meant for a skillet. Tonights was made by birds eye, and it was very tasty.

 

It has been a couple days since my last update. Things are going well. I did the 2 loads my wife booked for me and had to book the rest of my week myself...

First load she booked went from Hanover, Pa to Windsor, Va Paid around 1.83 a mile. Second load went from Four Oaks, NC to Denver, PA and paid 2.29 a mile. Nice light loads. I was struggling to pick a decent load out of that area and managed to find a HazMat load out of NJ that is paying 1.79 a mile down to NC, and a load right back out of NC that heads to IL, paying a crappy 1.30 a mile. I will follow that up with another load that takes me over to Ohio paying 1.79 a mile, that should finish my week.

I did make one mistake this week, I thought the pick up in NJ was for yesterday and quickly learned that it was not. I ended up staying at a TS for 20 plus hours waiting for the load time, only to get to my second stop and be told that the load is still in QC and it is going to be awhile before they can load the truck. Sucks cause I had to start my clock to get to the second pick and now I am cooling my heels. No luck for any detention pay until around 2100 today since I am early to the customer. Lots of folks don't like to pull hazmat, but I don't mind a few every now and again. One of the dedicated accounts I ran for SNI was about 60 percent hazmat, so it really does not bother me to pull it. This is a minimal amount anyhow, 6k of the 18k pounds and it is a solid so no chance of a leak.

Hopefully will be out of here soon and headed back down to NC. Wish I could get through the house since my mobile hot spot showed up in the mail yesterday. Got on Millenicom, you only have 24 hours to test the device once it arrives, so my wife (who is not technology savvy) managed to get it turned on and hooked up to her iPad.

BTW...DFO, the changes you made to my ECM are working like a champ. Glad I took your advise on the times we set up for delay. I do want to make one more adjustment to the delay we set for the jake... so when we meet up again....

Hope all of you are having a good week. Stay safe this weekend and until next time....

Stay Tuned!

 

Well, things did not work out like I wanted them to. The load I was picking up in Jersey, I thought, picked up on the 3rd; my mistake, it picked up on the 4th. That threw a wrench in the rest of the loads I had booked for the weekend. Had to call in and have everything removed except the load I picked up in Fayetteville. Scrambling now, looking for a load in Illinois that will pick up and deliver on the 7th.

I have decent revenue on the truck and all of my bills are paid for the week, but an extra load will be the difference between a decent check and a mediocre check going to the house. Fingers crossed for the former. I saw a load up there that pays dang good for what it is, but the prospect of a trailer search would ruin that load. I called in and got my ICR on the phone, she advised against the load, because the customer I am delivering to may or may not be releasing empty trailers.

Going to have the wife keep looking while I hammer out these miles. Will pray for her to have good luck. But, if not, it is what it is, and I will work on next week. Although, having to get the revenue up next week will ruin my plan to go home next weekend. That to is what it is. I think some people lose sight of this; when you own a business your personal desires go out the window. You have to sacrifice and make decisions that you don't want to make. I have already been out for 10 days and next Friday will be 18 days, and while going home for a restart would be nice, it looks like that is not going to be the best decision for my business. It's called SACRIFICE. For those of you reading who are considering the path to being an O/O, this word is one you need to learn and accept. Things do not always go to plan and you have to be willing to do what is needed to keep your business moving in the right direction.

I shard the story of what happened in Jersey with DFO the other night and he was rolling laughing at how much that sounded like one of his days. When I stop tonight I will post the story for all of you to laugh at.

 

Good day today, Charlotte OC to the Indy OC, 586 miles in 9.5 hours. First time I have really had the truck on some good hills. It pulled very well with 34k in the box. Climbed most hills in 11th gear at around 42-45 mph.

Rewind a few days and I will tell you of my adventure this week. My wife was not feeling well and I took over booking my loads for her. So I was dropping in Denver, Pa and the only good paying load I could find was in New Jersey heading down to Raeford, NC. Got the load booked and made my delivery. Headed the 100 miles to the first pick up of two. Once I got to Flanders, NJ I easily found the road the customer was on. However, I could not find the customer. The customer name on the qualcomm was Chemical Company A (not really, but I don't like to put names of customers in my posts) I rode down this road and did not find the place. No customer with that name that I saw anywhere.

As luck would have it my wife called me and got on google maps to help me find this place. I ended up turning around in a abandoned farmers gravel driveway that was big enough to make a wide circle without tearing up the yard. Went back and drove slower this time. Still did not find the customer. I found a place to turn around again and rode through one more time. Still no luck. I pulled over on the side of a 2 lane New jersey state highway. The breakdown lane was not big enough for the truck so I had to drop the right side off the asphalt and onto the grass.

I called the number listed on the QC for the customer and got the shipping manager on the phone, he said "we moved from Flanders three years ago, we are in Mount Bethel, PA, 45 miles from you. He asked for my pickup number and then said, that's not one of our pick up numbers. After I thanked him for his time I called into Charlotte and got an ICR on the phone. After I explained to her the issue she called the customer service team, she came back on the phone a few minutes later and said, they have tried every number they have for this customer, what number did you call? I gave it to her and she put me on hold again. When she came back she said they had a new location ID for me. I punched it in the nav system and when it popped up I told her that was the location for the second pickup 6 miles down the road. She checked and said Oh, I guess it is. She stuck me on hold yet again and came back with another location ID. She told me to try that customer and to call back to update them if it was the correct customer.

I took off and went the 8 miles to the new location. When I went in the office they clerk said, I have never heard of Ray Ford, NC. Oh boy!!! he looked through all of his paperwork and I said, do you guys ship hazmat? He laughed at me and said we ship latex gloves. So back to the truck and on the phone again. I got my ICR on the phone this time and explained the whole story to her. She put me on hold and called CS again. When she came back she said they don't have a pick up for you because the load is scheduled to pick up tomorrow. I disagreed with her and got my laptop out to check the screenshot I took of the load. The first stop had a ready date of 4/3 and the second had an appointment on 4/4. Ooops, my bad, but that still does not solve the problem. Again CS tried to call the customer and sent them an email, initially no reply, but within a few minutes they replied and confirmed the load and that it was ready to be picked up.

The CS team said the name of the customer is Customer B and that they had asked for me to call them. Once they gave me the number I called and the man on the phone answered Customer Logistics. He told me where they were and as I started naming off landmarks I had passed he said Stop, we are right before that. The big arse driveway with a white and blue sign that says Customer C. He told me the product was ready and I could come get loaded anytime before 1600. Once we got off the phone my ICR was calling back and said CS said to not pick that stop up until the morning because the second stop was not ready and would not be ready until late in the afternoon the next day.

Discouraged now...I decided I would take advantage of the situation and get a shower and a good nights sleep. I looked in my truck stop guide and found a pilot and then checked my garmin. It had the same pilot listed as the closest place, 38 miles away. I really did not want to deadhead 72 miles to get a shower but figured that was my option if I wanted to get a shower. As I was merging onto the interstate I caught a glimpse of the driver service sign for the next exit and it had the pilot logo on it. Score, the first thing that is going my way. So I jumped off and found the pilot. brand new to the pilot franchise, an old Citgo station. they may have had room to park 10 trucks. being that it was around 1400 I had no problem parking.

I ended up passing out at around 1730. the next morning I went inside to get a shower, the clerk offered me a small towel that goes on the floor, said this is all we have right now. they had not received all of their supplies from Pilot. Lucky that I always have my own towel and washcloth. Feeling refreshed I left and made it to the first pickup without starting my clock (3 miles away) Got loaded there 15 pallets for 6k pounds, all hazmat. Left and went to the next stop, remember it was six miles away? WRONG...16 miles later I was sitting at the customer and my clock had started. It was right around noon, got checked in and waited until they finished lunch to find out that the product I was picking up was still in Quality Control and had not been packaged. they said it's going to be awhile. Went out to the truck and made lunch and watched a movie. Around 1500 they came out and gave me a dock assignment. get backed in and go inside to check out the product and confirm if it was also hazmat and how much it weighed. No hazmat and 18k pounds on 10 skids all going right on the trailer axles. I thought to myself this is gonna ride like crap. They also informed me that they were not going to load me because it was time for them to go home and I would have to wait until the next shift came on and finished a safety meeting. I finally was finished being loaded and got out of there around 1730.

Lovely time to hit the turnpike, rush hour...enough said. It was wall to wall traffic until I got south of Mananas, Va Ended up stopping in Emporia, VA well short of my intention of making it all the way down to Fayetteville, NC. When I got to the customer to drop this stinking load would you not know that it just keeps going. The load is not on their schedule and the bills have the 7th as a delivery date. Went back to the shipping office and the clerk looked in the computer for the load, it was not even in their computer system. She was nice enough to let me drop it anyway but did not have an empty for me, time to trailer search. Just like everyone else I end up 30 miles OOR to get an empty trailer, just enough so you don't get paid for it.

Hope that if your laughing at my DFO day that you enjoyed yourself...Hopefully days like this will be few and far between...Until next time....

Stay Tuned.