How's Everyone Doing in LTL Right Now?

How's everyone been doing these past few weeks? Freight levels on my bid are still kind of up and down, I'm running it anywhere from 2-5 times a week. My barn has been busy enough that they needed me to pick something off the extra board almost every time I've been cancelled, so I guess it's good to know there's enough work for everyone.

Our spring bid should be in early May, but I've been hearing rumors it might be pushed back to June. It's not ideal but I'm hoping the delay will give time for freight levels to bounce back so more bid runs can be added.

 

Freight levels here in South Texas are steady enough to keep everyone working.

 

We usually run 500 bills on the P&D side. Right now we are doing 190-230 a day. This is not a trend in our area, it's just esoteric to our company.

I say this with confidence because the rival company that picked me up last week is as busy or busier than usual.

Do yourselves a favour and google your company name and select the "news" tab and see what comes up.

I did that with mine and realized that the bridge is burning and the ship is sinking. 10 people below me quit. The only reason I am still with my company is because 8 people OVER me also quit and I was dumb enough to stick around to fill in the gaps as they left.

 

So, when do we find out where you're going?

 

R&L Carriers picked me up. @MACK E-6 old supervisor is going to be my new boss presumably. He is also out of the Baltimore area

Taking a $16k pay cut a year for the first year or so. But at this point I rather be employed at $60k a year than unemployed at $76k. Also, their equipment doesn't look like it was leased from a Swift driving school. Like none of the dashes have electrical tape to cover up the fault lights and there were zero bungees, tuct tape, or cargo straps holding up panels, fairings, or the smoke stack.

 

Obviously nothing but prima donnas over there. Next you'll tell us that the engines hold oil and the tires have tread on them! (Buncha spoiled rookies these days, I tell ya...)

 

This is a true story.

I ran extra board (or casual/unassigned) in local Columbia for a dude that went deep sea fishing. Every night I added half a gallon of coolant cause my truck was not leaking; but flat out pissing coolant.

I wrote it up for the entire week and everyone just ignored it.

Then the following week I was done with it and red tagged my truck.

Here comes fudging Jeff the super mechanic. He reviewed my DVIRs and he literally told me that the reason my engine block was overheating is because I didn't have enough coolant.

This wanker stood on top of my steer tire and put me in my bloody place as he was dumping a gallon of coolant into my reservoir while straddling my steer tyre (this bloke was short)

As he was pouring it in, I saw red pouring out the bottom. He then berated me on driver error this and that

I was like bro, what the crap?!?!. It is coming out the bottom.

"Lemme stop you right there. What's your name? 'Shane'? Guessing you are a good driver

Well I am Jeff. So how about Shane stays fo being a good driver and Jeff sticks to being a good mechanic.

Passive aggressive way of staying in my own lane.

 

Oh and it gets better. I was like ok matey. Let's play it your way.

He took my DVIR, signed it off as fixed and flung it through my open cab door like a frisby before stomping off.

I went back to dispatch and my travel agent was at his computer screen. He looked up at me and asked if Jeff fixed my truck. I explained the whole thing to him in detail and I remember his head dropping and shanking it three or four times in disbelief.

"Did he sign off on your DVIR?"

- Yup

"Ok then. Do what you can"

He then pulled up my workflow and deleted all of my pickups.

I then headed to Augusta Georgia. It's 87 miles out. It was 100% predictable what happened next. Each hill I climbed, my temperature gauge climbed right with it.

I got to my first stop at Carolina Pottery on Washington Ave (this is a real stop ,you can Google map it). I backed into their dock and my entire dash lit up like a Christmas tree and the warning buzzer was going off. I already knew what happened before I had a chance to pop the hood. The milage to Augusta outlasted my coolant leak and I was OOS. She cooled off enough to where I could pull out so I wasn't blocking their lone dock.

I called up my dispatcher and he already knew what I was calling about.

"You on Washington on your first stop? I'll get a wrecker to you in about two hours. Take a photo of your DVIR and text it to me. Those muppets that worked on your truck are going to eat the towing fee".

I marched my happy broke down arse through the lot and found myself a nice Thai restaurant and took all the time eating while I waited for my wrecker to show up.

I ended up with 4 hours of OT while only making one delivery.

 

How about Jeff learns to be something resembling a mechanic and we'll all be happy?