Good night from...

pilot in otay mesa. made it with 20 minutes to spare oon the 14 hr clock. decided to bobtail here instead of getting an mt is being dark. thought pilot would be full byt now but there quite a few spots open.

 

Ok so he's an O/O .. you get to Denver early Thursday and you will be there until Sunday. And in Denver on a weekend ... might catch a load late Sunday ... But you could be there until Monday.

You're running team, so let's say a modest 700s mile a day ... Thursday, Friday and Saturday would be 2100 miles. At $1.31 a mile accounting for deadhead, that's $2751 in gross revenue. And assuming he's clearing at least $.38 (excluding maintenance account) a mile that's at least $798 net revenue to the truck.

So, he's getting his B service at Swift for $225 including a DOT. He can do the same thing at the TA either Commerce City or Wheat Ridge and had it done in a 2-3 hours on Thursday for about $325.

So in order to save about $100 he gave up at least $2751 in revenue and $798 in profit - and that's conservative. I'm sure he has his reasons for his business decision

 

seems kinda stupid to me, I know if i was an o/o I wouldnt use Swift mechanics to do anything to my truck, most of them seem like idiots and they take 10 times as long compared to hitting a TA/Petro


well the shipper ended up taking 5 hours to get me loaded, the Knight driver I chatted with for a couple hours had it even worse, he finished at the same time but was there for 8 hours, what irritates me is that I saw another Swift back into a dock 2 hours after me and he pulled out a hour before me. Because they took so long it put me right into the horrible rush hour and it took me 4 hours to get to Tejon pass which im stopped at now since I was about to run out of hours, I should of been at my stop seeing and preparing for my daughters party tomorrow but im not. Will get up early and finish the 140 miles to go and get there a tad before everyone arrives. My DM thought this would of been a quick fast load for me, I will let him know that shipper isnt too kind when it comes to loading times.

Ohwell stopped here at the Pilot and decided to splurge and get Dennys since I didnt eat today, I was going to make some food while at the shipper but I kept putting it off since I figured once I fired up my stove and heated something then they would be knocking on my door. The build your own chicken wraps dennys has for $4 is pretty good and a good value for the price.


Side question my freightliner has the newer style mirrors where you cant mount an antenna or anything, I also guess the cb antenna is built in somewhere since I have no external antennas anywhere, anyone have a good suggestion on how I could get a decent antenna mounted somewhere? or if I even can somehow, same with a satellite antenna since I keep thinking about finally getting satellite and I have been told the magnetic small antenna isnt that great.

 

lol lol lol lol lol

 

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Don't forget the $0.05 cents the O/O gives up when having a student on the truck lol.
Let's use 5 again and say 5% deadhead and 5% overage for House Hold Goods miles otherwise known as Zip Code Miles or in industry talk 'Short Miles'

So 700 miles paying the O/O $1.35 minus $0.05 equals $910 bucks. 5% deadhead is 35 miles times $0.81 equals $28.35 + $910 = $938.35 per day in lost revenue.

But if we apply 5% zip code miles to the rate $910 / 735 = $1.24 and the true deadhead rate is $0.77 things begin to look much worse. This is just the beginning of the month, later all miles after 11,000 will be reduced rate of additional $0.09 cents per mile. Producing 22,000 miles in the month the O/O mentor gives up an additional $990 bucks in monthly revenue or roughly $460 reduced settlement for the final weeks of the month. So it can be wise to pace the truck along nice and easy steady, keeping deadhead to an absolute minimum and being very proactive to turn down all loads that don't pay accurate miles otherwise the O/O can be buried alive.

 

Scottie .. that's why I used $1.31 for revenue ... works out to 5% deadhead ... also only 700 dispatch miles ... actual is irrelevant for the revenue calculation.

Besides we're looking at opportunity cost here. Even a half assed team, with a student, should be able to run close to a 1000 miles a day.

As far as the student pay ... again I used $.38 net. That's beyond conservative. He should be netting close to $.44 per mile after student pay and allocating $.10 for maintenance ... but then given his business decisions, who knows. By all account the guys seems to be a decent trainer. But as an O/O it appears he may be one of these who has had to resort to training in order to make it.

And I wouldn't even worry about the overage charge - and you never should, it all comes back to you at the end - at the rate this guys is going, over mileage will never be an issue.

 

Home Sweet Home. Computer is at tghe Geek Squad. It was actually cheaper to get mine fixed than actual new computer. Even the techs told me that it would just be better. I get to keep what I like and keep Windows 7 instead of getting 8 They also said that my computer actually better than the ones that I was looking at. Had to pay an Extra $100, expediate fee. They also said, this virus is nasty.

 

Fort Wayne, IN at the J.

Delivered to General Mills at around 2200, and the only mt was a T trailer, so I bobtailed out.
Just as well since parking is nill this time of night.
There were several Swift drivers camping on the access road to GM, but I went to the J instead. I like/need my coffee when I wake up.

No pplan as yet, and I don't think the other Swifties did either, so I set my PTA out 12 hours so I could relax a bit. With the time change tonight, it will be a 13.

 

Can anybody give me an idea of how the holidays go at Swift? I am starting soon as an experienced driver and would like to plan on working through Thanksgiving if possible and stay out until Christmas. Is there generally freight to move or is it likely I will end up sitting?