FedEx Freight Diary (ala Russian Rabbit)

Last week was a nice week. My barn has seen a bit of drama in the last two weeks, people being suspended, standdowns for safety stuff, the whole gammut. As a result, there has been no shortage of work to the point where even guys at the bottom of the list like myself have have premo pickin's outside of our normal bid.

I did end up running my bid twice last week, which again, is last in the lane. My bid sucks by way of my trailers not being finished until around 0430-0500 and then having a 222 mile drive back home through junk traffic, causing my to be within 30-45 minutes of running out my 14.

This however, isn't bothering me. While I initially planned on working the dock for a few hours to pass the time and make money while sitting there from 1230-0430, I've discovered how I am able to sleep in a day cab, finally. The key? Taking off my shoes lol.

I also decided that I'll enroll back in college to finish my degree and do my school work and stuff while waiting, especially since FXF will pay for it.

My tractor's air conditioning went out 3 times last week. Shop finally looked at the wiring to the compressor and found that faulty wiring was causing it to blow fuses within minutes of turning on the A/C system. With that being fixed and the collision mitigation system being replaced, my tractor is finally back to "off the factory line" condition at 198k miles and will be mine until next June, regardless of what bid I have. Even better is that my barn has been shying away from dispatching the linehaul tractors for city use since we have so many city tractors now, I only had a city driver use my tractor twice last week. ::happy dance::

 

Came within a few hours of my 70 this last week. Bummed because it prevented me from picking up an additional run to make it a 7 day work week.

 

This most recent stub was a great work week. A handful of senior drivers out for various reasons meant my run was frequently cut to bump me higher in the lane, which although at first didn't consist of higher mileage, put me in a better position to accept or refuse vias through other centers.

Sunday was also an anomaly; got a call at 1630 asking if I would be interested in running to the rail yard in NJ. The downside to those runs are that they are paid hourly (however, the O/T after 8 rules apply). So, I got to feel a bit like a UPS Feeder driver running linehaul at 5 under the limit the entire stretch of the trip, and not for purposefully sandbagging it. Traffic was generally alot more congested due to running daytime and into the twilight in a busy vacation month weekend. I'd love those rail runs to be a constant possibility, but pay wise it could be better and on better par with typical linehaul pay.

This rail yard in NJ was awesome. I had only been to one in MA before, where they were rude and had zero desire to move with any sense of urgency.

This yard however, had incredibly helpful employees, that were happy to help me figure out their procedures for releasing a can/chassis. Much to my surprise I found during my pretrip at the yard, they don't lock the container to the chassis. I figured it was just mind that wasn't locked, but a glance at the trailers on both sides were in the same configuration. A quick turn of a locking handle and running a 200# rated zip tie to secure the release levers to the handles is all they need though.

My gross was great, but the effects of increasing my 401k contribution and adding Roth IRA contribution to the mix are definitely visible when compared to the net. That's ok, happy to save more. FX Pension + 401k w/match + Roth Ira + FX Stock Purchase+ Social Security (if I'm lucky to get it, which I don't think I will so I save and invest accordingly) should help to yield a comfortable retirement.

Next month will mark my first year with the company, and I'll have a full week of vacation available. I'm going to save it to use during the wintertime if freight is slow. I'm also going to wait to use it because at a certain point (and I can't seem to find a clear answer on when) I'll receive a letter from the company informing me of an adjusted vacation rate due to being a mileage compensated employee. Drivers senior to me see a vacation payrate of over $42/hr, so I'd rather use it when my rate is adjusted as opposed to my straight time rate (which when I have the full week will be $29.48/hr)

Also forgot, looks like Ground is gearing up for another heavy holiday season. A couple of guys in my barn were asked if we'd be interested in running FX Ground linehaul during their peak season at our regular linehaul rates. As much as I wouldn't be thrilled to have Ground equipment behind me, I said I'd be in for a different change of pace. So if you see a Ground set during the holiday season driving 65 (as opposed to 70-75 on flat road) and in a Peterbilt/Kenworth/Volvo/International day cab with actual FedEx logos on it (notice, Ground tractors NEVER have the FedEx logos on them), that's not a ground contractor.

 

I may have been wrong, but to my experience, I have NEVER seen a ground contractor with a FedEx logo on their truck and was told it is not kosher with FedEx. I may be wrong or mislead on that notion. I can't recall seeing a contractor that didn't have anything identifying on the tractor aside from their required business info in a grey Helvetica/Arial font on the doors.

 

This is likely the scenario I’d think.