How is work going for all of you?

How is work going for all of you out there?

The economy is in the garbage and work appears to be slow across the board. Everyone i know is struggling. Cross border drivers are telling me that there is a lot of time spent waiting for loads in the US. Local drivers aren't much better off either. Nobody appears to be hiring, even for me with nearly 8 years experience.

Just curious to know how everyone is doing.

 

We have slowed. Turned in 20 of our ocean trailer rentals, loosing three trucks. Hopefully short term pain. Thanksgiving is coming.

 

I live in Detroit and see that cross border traffic is pretty much non existent nowadays.

 

Well, glad I switched to dump a year ago. If I had tried to stick it out in LTL, would have been let go for-sure (company laid off tons of people, including my ace city dispatcher). Dump Trucks in Construction, is really all over the place with the weather and economic climate. I've been on huge billion dollar projects, that got halted mid day, and restarted 2 days later, over Carney mouthing off. Everyone and their dog is trying to do dump trucks now as freight collapses, and companies go bankrupt daily. Lots of old Bison trucks, with the sleepers sawzalled off, turned into end dumps. Tons of scrap metal going around trying to undercut. The excavation company my little 5 truck outfit contacts too, has set rates so that trick doesn't work. They hire between 90 and 130 truck and pups per day, and fire between 5-10. Those ones are easily replaced, sometimes within the hour. One of the Area Supervisors told me, he has 450 truck and pup contractors he can call, and have 3-10 trucks anytime. There is more unpaid work compared to Daycab (Fueling, Washing, Greasing, Yard to Site commute time). But that is just part third party life, the flip side is I don't share trucks, and we only work 5 days a week, I can get whatever tools/supplies I need/want no argument. The Excavation companies trucks, they have everything done for them (fuel, wash, lube, service) BUT they have to slip seat, and its MANDATORY 6 days a week (7 as needed, expect to work one Sunday a month). If you even ask for a different schedule, instantly fired.

So, is dump better than freight? I would say yes. Way less stress, no ELD's, no Driver Facing Cameras (yet), no paperwork/BOL's, minimal human interaction (huge plus, esp after doing Daycab). Even tho the hourly rate is better, the inconsistencies (esp with weather) mean you make less annually. Would I go back to OTR/LCV/Daycab? Never.

Couple really annoying things: 1) I have a lot of people coming up to me on the street, or running in front of me to flag me down, to ask for a job. 2) If you think cars on the road lose their #### around slow trucks, you should see them completely flip out in residential area's. 3) The illegal parking in construction zone's and residential area's, that are marked as haul routes, can really drive you up the wall (daily thing).

 

Just curious, is bison getting rid of their superbees yet?

 

Word on the street is, they're letting all their O/O's go by October (they have already laid off 50%), cutting the reefer and van divisions down, sold off Searcy (this already happened) and will be expanding the SuperB Hoppers.

 

Wow! Definitely not the answer I was hoping for. But I guess Richardson is propping that up.

 

that’s unbelievable if true most of the bisons i see are o/o or lease ops . It’s crazy when the big dryvan/reefer companies are getting out of their bread and butter for all these years for better paying markets because of so much competition now

 

It’s bad everywhere right now , i just heard one of our customers Crown royal in Amherstburg is closing their plant down in february to move to the states. This is after they bought 400 acres in sarnia to build a new warehouse but then abandoned it and built a new warehouse in Alabama . in my opinion it’s to get rid of the 160 union employees and because of the orange idiots tariffs

You need to get in to something specialized right now to succeed. Tanker , garbage like roll off or front load .things not affected by a bad economy . Anything but dry van or reefer . the real challenge is getting any one in those fields to hire you with no experience

 

Don't know about elsewhere but my small company and our dispatcher's (runs his own small trucking Co as well as manages ours) of about 12 trucks are running our butts off hauling ag commodities, and we're in the slow part of the year for us before beets start harvesting again in months or so. Pay per mile or hourly might not be as high as other gigs but I'll still clear six-figures this year m