Central Refrigerated Truck Stop

As little as they can get away with.

 

What do they say the pay is?
Or what is it really?

They say the starting pay is like .27 cents per mile.
But really .08 cents per mile is perdium, which you would get back at tax time anyway, so this is not really pay.
So you start at .19 cents per mile.
They use to give you 15 or 20 bucks for delivering on time, they stopped that.
They use to pay you layover time, if you were sitting waiting for a load, or on a load for days, they stopped that.
They use to pay detention pay, if you sat at a shipper/ receiver for 2 hours+ up to 8 hours. They do not pay that anymore either.

They will try ever way they can to get you to lease a truck.
The glory and freedom of being your own boss. Making the big bucks and owning your own truck, being your own boss.
The negatives of this.
Break even point is rather high. If you take any days off in a week you will owe more than you make. So will have negative pay checks.
They really do not want you to ever own that truck, just to pay for the payments, over mileage, fuel and all upkeep and repairs. Then when you turn it in to them they can pay it off and run it for a while, then sell it for a profit.
Also no matter how good the average settlement looks, 16% of your gross needs to be saved for quarterly taxes.

Central does not really mind having some good company drivers that stay a few years, but they would rather not.
There business model is to pay as little as possible to move the greatest amount of freight.
They will only hire students from there schools to further this. A student pays 3,000 for the school, and they also get government money for retraining and hiring out of work people. They get allot of income this way, and it covers allot of there payroll.
Also they get lease operators to cover the rest of the company driver payroll. Since they only pay the lease Ops .85 cpm or so, and the trucks they are in cost the company nothing. Most of Centrals freight pays at least 1.50 per mile. So they make a profit of .85 cpm on all loads the lease drivers pull.
This more than covers all the company drivers payroll, and much of the logistics staff pay.

I would say this is a very good business plan as long as they can get people to lease the trucks. They will not go out of business, because the profit margin is so high.
So for a starter company they are very stable, just do not plan to be working for them for more than a few years. Some decent company's will hire drivers with 1 year OTR, many others require 3+ years OTR.

Ok, I have had my go off on a tangent moment for the day.

On another tangent, I noticed that a driver discovered the 0 idle secret that I posted on here several times the last few winters. I am glad that someone is using it. Nice little trick to get an idle bonus and not pay for fuel, also keeps you nice and warm all winter long. You do not have to turn the key off for it to work, as long as you do not set the temp in the sleeper with the icon control. But it really does not matter.

 

Minor point, they still pay detention and layover pay. I sat for 2 days at New years but instead of $50/day it's only $40/day after 24hours. I get detention pay all the time, up to $96 bucks

 

Oh, cool.
I thought I saw a post from someone a month or so ago that they had dropped all that.
I was Kraft for a long time, so we did not get stop pay or detention anyway.
But the pay and miles more than made up for it.
At least they did not screw you over totally.
Heartland got rid of allot of that stuff. I still get multi stop pay, short haul pay, and detention pay, but it is like pulling teeth to get it.
As the guy who did my orientation said about the heartland cares program, "heartland cares allot less than they did a year ago".
This program use to cover stop pay, detention, layover, emergency's etc.
Now the terminal managers are watched closely when they give it out, and if they give out too much in a month they are in trouble. My terminal manager tries hard, and I can tell that he cares about the drivers, even though he really does not know what it is we do. But he is up against the politics of a large company, and this is a hard battle for him to fight.

 

Its different for L/Os (Glorified company drivers) They get detention $30.00 an hr up to 8 hrs, Layover they don't pay as we found out after the NC fiasco.

 

OK I'm going to ask my two questions of the day (second day solo, first under load) because I just realized how close I'm going to be on my home time load.

ICON: WTF? Does this thing have a mind of it's own? Can someone give me a detailed procedure for setting it for thermostat and maintenance mode ('09 Volvo)? And the lowest the thermostat goes is 65?! I'm hot blooded and in a sleeping bag!

Out of route: Is anyone gonna have a conniption fit if I go 15 miles each way out of route to do my 10 at home, or if we have to say it this way, "at the truck stop near my home"?

Happy truckin'

 

been a while

so i have been at the central refrigerated school in riverside, ca. i have some good news and bad news, good news first i got my cdl so party bad news is my laptop was stolen so it will be almost 28 days from Wednesday till i can say anything because ill be with my trainer so if you want to say anything email me Simmonszacreative@gmail.com i can check my email on my phone so see yall otr

 

Not sure about the icon thing. As far as going 15 miles out of the way home. They shouldn't say anything. 1bad goes atleast that far most times. I think policy is 50 miles out of route before they charge you. Just make sure that your are back on your truck the exact mintue your 10 runs out to check the qualcomm. Don't wanna miss a load that may have good miles because you were late. 1bad trys to get back to his truck at least 30 min before his 10 is actually up. Hope that helps.

Been a hard day here today. Was taking the trash out last night and fell down the deck steps about 20 or so of them. Think I royally messed my back up again. Can't wait for the doc to open Monday. Really don't want another er charge. But OMG the pain. Gonna grab the heating pad and head to bed and see if I sleep better tonight. Be safe out there!

Oh yeah 1bad update. Picks up in Il in the morning heading to NC supposed to have hometime wed and thurs for Hope's b-day. So not ready for her to turn 12!!!!! She's still my baby though even though she hates me when I call her that.

Good Night all!!!!!

 

Setting the ICON is easy as pie once you get the hang of it.

With the motor running turn the cruise control OFF then back on

hit the clutch, put it in gear, then take it out of gear

Then you can turn the key off or you can go to the back and turn it on in the back for comfort mode (which builds idle time) or you can use the bunk heater with the ICOn just in engine mode as described above.

If you flip your sun visor down, the instructions are printed on it

 

Well Good news, I am still employed !! Haven't ran off anymore scales so i guess I still have a chance at making it as a Truck Driver. I will be in Conley today for truck repairs caused by the running of the scale last week.