Interview gone bad

We have not one, but two failed owner operators here. They owned their truck and leased it in to someone so I guess they're a lease operator. But whatever.

One guy can barely tie his shoelaces, his mom took care of the finances (he's 62 and never married) until she passed away. After she passed away he didn't know what he was doing and was going to lose everything for back taxes. So he sold his truck and trailer and now works here.

Other guy just had a spending problem. He claims to have made great money, but his wife loves casinos and lottery tickets. He blew the engine and didn't have money to fix it, went bankrupt, lost all but his house.

It's amazing to me how they love to tell the owner of this company what all he's doing wrong. He's been in business for 30+ years, and doubled the fleet size in 2010 when everyone was going bankrupt. And he's debt free. So he must be doing something right.

 

I was told earlier about a guy who only wants to haul for 1 broker.
He will ok, long as nothing happens in life to that broker I guess, but he does a ton of deadheading back to get in that guys load area, whereas I may sit a day vs that 500-700 mile dh, and wait for a load.

He tells me i’m doing it wrong, I just shrug, my trucks are paid for, just owe on two trailers.
Really need a third trailer, but I don’t want to spend the money, almost had to, but the drop/hook i was going to didn’t happen.

Everyone tell you what you do wrong, I had people tell I’d never make it, and one i know of, behind my back made the statement, “I hope he loses his truck.” when i bought my first one in like 15.
I’d been driving though since 2000, but i’ve proved him wrong, he even actually had the nerve to ask if I’d hire him before,
My answer never changes, “Not hiring at the moment.”

 

How did this picture of @gentleroger get leaked?

 

Funny thing about being in business for yourself….
When times are fat, it’s easy to make money.
When times are thin, the dead wood shakes out and cannot fathom why they went under.
They’re unable to see the errors of their ways because there’s no contrast frame they can see to identify their short comings and where they went wrong.
I spent 17 years in the sawmill game, and that pattern repeats itself every 3-5 years.
Prices for lumber spike, guys that don’t have a clue about business buy a mill and expect to make a mint in a week.
Those same guys are selling their mill within a few months because they’re not profitable and they lost their ash.
Trucking is a unique monster in that if you’re tied to a single mode without flexibility, you’re in a tough position.
The most successful o/o’s i know have a couple different trailers they own, like van and flatbed as an example, so that when the bottom falls out of one, they can shift to the other and keep rolling.
It’s uncommon that the bottom falls out across the board in both modes they serve, but it does happen, like now.
The pandemic crap cratered everything initially, then when the pseudo free money was dumped into the economy, everything spiked again, and making money was really easy.
Lots of idiots bought trucks way over market price because of it, resulting in obnoxious notes to cover each month.
It worked because freight rates were sky high.
Then the markets turned, and things got really tight real quick, and now we’re seeing the results of their stupidity.
Over leveraged, killing themself for a pittance each month, just to try and stay alive.
We’re seeing bottom of the barrel rates for most everything right now, and profit margins are very thin.
Niche markets are still doing fair, but nothing like it was a year ago.
And i don’t think we’ve hit bottom yet.
The worst is yet to come, and i suspect it’ll be very ugly.
Good luck friends.
Stay safe out there.

 

No, they don't - Pass

 

Nothing like someone who went broke wanting to do everything the same that they did before.
Then B&&^% about you not knowing what to do.

 

The amount of times over the years I've had to patiently (and sometimes really impatiently) explain to a carrier that as the entity paying them, I'm their customer, and my customer isn't is depressingly high. You'd think it was common sense.

It usually goes something like this:
"The customer said..." (at a shipper who's not paying the freight)
"...Who's paying you?"
"What?"
"Sir, I just asked a simple question. Who's paying you for this shipment?"
"Uh..."

It's not hard to see that mindset carrying over.

 

Most drivers spend 99% of their day, every day, solo so they are experts on everything and nobody but them has any competence on anything. Often they don't listen to anything, they just pause while you are talking, and then say what they were going to say if you had said nothing. It's an occupational hazard of dealing with solitary people.

Maybe ask these people right at the start "If I ask you to to do A, B, and C in a specific way are you going to do it or are you going to do what you want to do instead? I'm not looking to work with people that think my requests are ONLY mild suggestions. Don't answer until you have time to think about the answer."

 

That isn't how I did it with my truck.

But your truck was repo'd/gave back/went broke