Detention discussion

What is the question? I might know the answer if not I will ask my wife when she gets home she know everything! Also, this link might help if not I do not know

 

i am so glad i am out of that segment of trucking. running dedicated has been my way now for oh, the past 15 years or better. sure though, it is a salaried job, sure though i make the same pay weekly, but we at my warehouse, work alone, delivering to one specific customer (their own freight), and as a result, all our trailers are pre-loaded each night, and off we go. we pick up "return" freight at our stops along the way.

certainly NONE of this nonsense of detention times or pay, which I DID have to put up with, back in past jobs. at many employers, 1 to 3 hours had to be "given" to either the shipper or receiver, was the norm, once i bumped the dock.

oh sure, 1 to 3 hours of MY TIME, waiting for zero pay? do we all know the way it worked as well back then?

before that time clock ran out, they worked your trailer, what a bunch of BS too, right?

do we need more government intrusion?

i don;t know, but until someone gets involved, ya'll gonna be giving away free time, and possibly lose valuable time on the driving line as well.

 

I learned several things in my time behind the wheel.

1. I can speak for myself.
2. Even as a company driver, I still captain the ship.
3. I can negotiate my own deal.
4. If you negotiate your own deal, do not tell another driver.

Why?

I'm going to tell you a secret an old timer told me long ago: Drivers are, for the most part, stupid.
Not dumb, stupid. I made a name. They office jockeys know that I never drop the ball. However, a no name driver will think that just because we are at the same company, he deserves the same deal. 3rd string players dont get the same deal as the starting lineup.

Hence, the clamor for more government by the people who are unwilling to build a name through hard work.

Had a situation many years ago. Was at Food Lion in Lakeland FL, had 4 pallets of cooking oil. Got there on a Wednesday. Sat all day Wednesday and Thursday. I'm raising hell with my travel agent. Then I find out theres no detention. Friday afternoon, Food Lion tells me that it will be monday. I fired up the truck and rolled 500 miles to the house and cleaned out the truck and drove it to the yard. That Monday, i started my new job. I hate starting a new job, because you always start on the bottom. BUT, I am not going to work for free.

 

Had two recent detention problems that really pissed me off.

1. Drove to shipper at night, shut down for 10 hour break. Wake up next morning and after talking to security and making a bunch of phone calls find out I had been given the wrong address by my company. Actual shipper is another facility across town (2 different facilities for same shipper). I arrive at the real shipper 10 minutes late disqualifying me from detention, product hasn't crossed the border from mexico yet, had to wait for 10 hours for my load and no detention. Company screws up the address and then uses it as the reason to deny detention.

2. At one reciever, my company required a signed in/out ticket from receiver in order to pay detention. This is not the normal procedure, but a specific condition for this receiver. I arrived 1/2 hour early and was stuck for almost 5 hours after appointment time before I could leave. Signed in/out ticket was a complete lie exploitation of their own slowness. Receiver said I arrived 2 hours late and got unloaded in 1 hour. I arrived early but they had no doors available, so I had to wait over 2 hours for a door. They did unload me in 1 hour, but I had to wait 2 another hours for them to count it and give me back my paperwork

 

Most people that look at the detention problem look at it backwards. Government rules or intervention is an example of that. However, doing nothing about it is a example too.

Detention happens only because mega-crap companies are will to offer your work for free. Mega-crap companies offer your work for free, because they can get drivers to work for free. Because mega-crap companies do it, O/O have to do it to a certain extent to compete.

Since, I have been around trucking, the detention situation has only gotten worse. And it will continue to get worse; since when does anybody turn down a freebee. The only way that will change is when drivers get paid by the hour. As long as their is a loophole in the system for which to exploit drivers, that is what is going to happen.

Now some will claim pay by the hour is unnamable;I say get out of the 19th century.
Some will claim that drivers will exploit pay by the hour; I say to the office trolls "manage your business. " Some will claim that the pay by the hour will discourage the quality driver; I say the A gamer will flourish when paid by the hour.

In fact all the BS will end. Trucks will get repaired, turnover will reduce, the training game will end, government subsidies will curtail, regulations and enforcement will diminish. Right now the tax-payer is subsidizing this industries piece-work pay shenanigans and that is all their is to that. Now flame away.

 

toomanybikes,

how much do you spend on tin foil each month? There is no way less than 10 companies can control how detention is done at the 10s of thousands of shippers and even more recievers in the United States when those companies comprise a fraction of the 3 to 4 million drivers on the road. I don't drive for a mega, my company has 200 trucks. Think I'll evtr get detention? No I won't. Is it because of the megas? No its because my co negotiates pre loaded trlr's.

 

Knew a driver many years ago,was at a customer picking up product,getting the royal screw around.Shipper would stop loading him to load-unload other trucks,went on and on for hours.Then they went on an hour lunch break with my friends trailer still half full,left their forklift in his trailer when they took off for their break.He pulled away from the dock,closed the doors,and drover 500 miles to his home terminal,half load and forklift.Dropped the company trailer there and quit.Would loved to have seen the look on the dockworkers faces when they came back from lunch!

 

Megas control most of the freight in this country. http://www.ccjdigital.com/report-co...outsource-more-than-40-of-contracted-freight/

You want to compete in this market you have to compete on their terms. The office trolls at the mega's will bend over backwards and eat #### for some of the big shipper's in the industry. That would all end if they had to pay drivers and the ### kissing was costing them real money.

You want to check you tin hat; it might not be blocking all the radiation.

 

I got a chuckle when you said your wife knows everything and don't you forget that either,lol.