Can a one man operation really compete with the bigs

Have you ever been to these places that the megas haul for? Your treated like a criminal. i haul loads of water from time to time. Its horrible. All those drop trailers, nothing is ever right with their bills. Always a cluster. I liek going to places where I don't have to yell through 8 inch thick glass just to deal with a receiver. So the megas can keep their high volume low profit crap!!

 

I can tell when I am NOT in the right market for an O/O.

You are the only one there with an OOIDA sticker on your truck. All you see is Swift, Werner, Prime or other mega carriers.

And I chuckle knowing the rate I was paid to haul it there. Especially when I double what I normally would have bid on a load and they paid it. Especially when a CR England L/O is there and I know my rate was just triple what he was paid to haul it in there for.

 

I don't even have the OOIDA sticker on my truck. I know when I roll in and I am the only hood truck with a spread I am in trouble. LOL

 

yes, after pulling flat's and step's for a few years it was a real shock to my system to go back to van's and the big warehouses and dist. centers. I find it very insulting, the seperate entrance for truckers with the glass window (with a person behind it who generally treats you as an interruption or irritation), list of rules which usually include, "don't ask us when your load is done, we will call you !", generally this trucker room and attached bathroom seem to be missing from the janitor's checklist and have some degree of accumulated filth, perhaps a coffee maker lacking in supplies to actually make the coffee, etc..., In my mind those places have gotten even worse since the late 90's, early 2000's when I frequented them. Mainly due to EOBR's, you've got guys running out of hours there who then have to complete their 10 before leaving when there is a truckstop 5 miles down the road. Or guys who get there 5 hours early, and are told they have to leave and come back who don't have the hours to come back at the right time, etc... And they wonder why there is such a high driver turnover ?

 

part of the reason I drive a Century. Camouflage....

 

Yeah. I do a lot of the foodservice dist. places. Lot of grocery warehouses as well. It's different when you just have a couple pallets usually. I don't get too much crap and I unload myself so I don't have to deal with the lumper services. And most forklift guys if you flag them down cause a pallet is stacked real heavy will give you a hand.

 

There is a papermill in I think it was Coshocton, OH that was very rude to the drivers, including me. They probably have had some rude drivers in the past. They were pretty strict about having the trailer swept out very clean, and made it clear that if the trailer was not swept out properly, the driver would be asked to leave and not come back.
I was even yelled at by the office guy for asking a simple, honest question. I'm sure it paid a low rate, too. The broker I think was TQL. I remember my boss got a really good rate from Flint, MI to somewhere 60mi north of the papermill, on a very time sensitive load, and this was the cheap backhaul. But yeah, that shipper made me feel like dirt and a criminal, and I was trying to be as curteous as possible.

EDIT: yes it was in Coshocton, OH. Rock-Tenn. But they did load me at 11pm Friday. And they did let me sleep in their overflow lot.

 

I had one shipper start to treat me like that. I turned and walked away from the desk. He got belligerent and started to rant on me. I turned and told him I was going to the truck to call the broker to cancel the load. I wasn't going to take his trash.

I couldn't get to the door and he was apologizing to me. And I kept walking. By the time I got to the door of my truck he was there with the shipping manager trying to calm things over.

I told the manager I would only load if I dealt with anyone but the guy who was there to apologize.

I never saw the guy again. I have since been back twice more to the same place. still haven't seen the guy there.

 

Hey Guys, plain and Simple?????? If you dress and look like dirt? they will treat you like DIRT!!!!

 

clean cloths, and tennis shoes aren't dressing like "dirt". And that's a pretty narrow minded comment to be making.