headed to orientation Tuesday

I can see the lack of experience making it harder to succeed for many. And I have a hard time calling people stupid. However, I have no problem with calling people lazy as I feel (in many cases) it is the latter reason that many people fail in all walks of life. There is a ton of information available to anyone that is willing to sit down and do a little research. Best and worst paying lanes per region for the last week is available to everyone for free along with load to truck ratios and avg. pay per region. The free load boards (yes the mercer and LS boards are leftovers) can give someone a good idea of where loads are going or maybe more important, not coming out of. And reading and heeding many of the post in these threads may be of help too.

i do agree with Dirty in the fact that IMO the #1 reason people probably fail at mercer is a lack of desire (lazy) and poor planning. I just finished my last load with my previous company 12 hrs ago. Completing 7326 miles over the last two weeks with electronic logs. Now I come to Mercer and and for the next few weeks/months I am going to ask for advice from every Mercer driver/office worker I can get to talk to me. I am sure I will make a few bad choices but I will chalk them up to learning experiences. However, I really hope to learn more from those that have come before me that are willing (and maybe not so willing) to share what they have learned with me.

 

One word of advice. Forget miles. Running lots of miles dont mean Jack. When I empty out this load tomorrow I will have only ran 1200 miles on the week. But after fuel, tolls and deductions I'll be holding just over 2200 dollars in my hand. Don't let that string work ethic guilt you into shooting yourself in the foot.

 

I tend to agree with spyder, I think its many times a matter of experience, and simply not knowing or never been shown a different way of doing things.

the problem I see mostly is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. the ones is hardest for is the guys who have always gotten paid on a mileage deal. they tend to equate miles with money and will take loads with miles no matter where or how much they pay, its basically a habit, and a hard habit to break.

but dirtyjoe you are correct , in its like anywhere or anything else you do, common sense and desire and initiative are three keys to success.

funny thing some guys have it and simply don't know how to put it together, that thread would go a long ways to helping someone out at the start

 

amen brother, I read that on the 7300 miles in two weeks and my butt puckered up, lol I rarely ever do over 2000 a week loaded and empty. this weeks tour for example , home to va, va to la. the reload for ga all total 2150 dh and all it will be and revenue of 4075.00. will keep around 2500 of that. rest for fuel and truck escrow. being as I wont pay over,2.50 a gallon for fuel on these runs helps

 

What happened to F2F?

 

apparently it wasn't utopia