Can I Make It at Mercer?

I've seen some stupid maintenance moves, no question. But it's hard to imagine that the guy who owns the trucks hasn't seen the same stupid stuff. I gotta believe that he likes his money as much as I like mine, and if he's doing something that looks stupid to me, he must have his reasons for doing it. I'll offer my advice - once - and then let him do things his own way. When it's my money on the line, I'll do it my way. But I'd have to be pretty arrogant to think that I can do something better than the guy who has been doing it up until now, when I've never done it before...

 

Th

thats a good attitude. We clean up on dumb mistakes drivers make all the time, until we got to let that driver go. Many drivers will never grasp the scope of what it takes to make the truck reach its full potential. Horrible driving habits, using cruise control up hills, lugging the truck up hills, driving to dang fast everywhere, rattling everything lose... then a driver wants the owner to come and fix the ignorant driving habits.

Drivers like that need to go work for a mega

or get their own truck, then see if what they used to do still works.

 

One of my favorites is the replacement of a single battery. You'd never replace one battery in a flashlight or your television remote, but people don't seem to know why. It's because the batteries work as a unit, and one bad one drags down the other good ones. The load becomes uneven, and charging becomes unbalanced, for example. Nobody wants to replace the batteries as a set, but the cost of the first tow exceeds the cost of a set of batteries, and they always seem to wind up doing it, sooner or later.

That's one thing I'd do differently, if it were my money. But it's not, so I just sit back and cackle about it. I haven't had to put my money where my mouth is, so far - so I'm all mouth, and no money, to date...

 

revenue per week is revenue, if you made 5 k on a run to cali and made 5k on midwest runs in a week, you make the money as a driver on percentage, you would end up loading and unloading more. but the facts are , if you look at east /west coast runners they end up with lower per mile avg for all miles. they may gross more but run more miles for less money. net money is the determining factor. i always hear plenty say their gross but very few quote net. i would be inclined to take a bet that some 37 state guys can net more on 140,000 than most 200k guys on east west only.

 

Having done both here I KNOW that one can net a lot more running shorter runs here then coast to coast. Excluding that occasional good paying east/west load. So on this sir you are 100% correct.

 

Many of the fancy Mercer trucks are usually husband and wife teams and they pull many secure/DOD loads. That is all they pull for the most part.

They wont wind up on goat trails, skinny deep docks and other areas. Some have been there so long and usually have dedicated runs set up. No problem with that at all.

Knowing the ropes is kind of a two way street. For example....if you pull a load to Arizona or California for $3,000 dont whine when you sit there for 5 days and cant get out. There are areas that make no sense to go to unless you are one of their favorites (this is the other part of knowing the so called ropes). Then you will have everything set up for you all nice. Lots of shell games played here also. Knowing the ropes is knowing about all the game playing and buddy hustling that goes on. Not to mention the majority of the loads are just cut and pasted off other load boards and carrier load boards (CRST, ATS, TQL, Landstar, CH Robinson, Quality Logistics, DAT, JB Hunt, Schneider, Daily Express.....I can go on and on). That is why many of the Mercer load rates are in the toilet.

I will tell you this much. Landstar is far worse.

I can put it this way. Going to Mercer is suicide and so is going to Landstar. It is basically if you want to bleed to death (Mercer) or jump off a building (Landstar). That is the best way I can put it.

 

And yet you are still here and whining every day. Must not be bleeding too terribly bad.

 

Yup...... its the lesser of 3 evils for the moment. However.....its not a whine....its letting people know the sneaky under pinnings of Mercer. Now Mercer is not quite as bad as Landstar. Landstar is far more devious in their ways.

People should not think that Mercer is all lollipop dreams and teddy bear lunches. This is why Mercer throws adds all over the place.....to keep the owner operator mill fed.