At Swift, they hired mostly out of the schools...SEI, or MIT..something like that. but these guys would be in the shop maybe a few days and the "tool guy" (snap on) would come by and just show all the shiny new "gadgets", and the credit line started at $2500.00...just like FLATBED said...now they complain about not having any money to take home on payday!
Thanks Otherhalf for being a truely fine Mentor to your students. It seems Swift made a bad decision when they did you wrong. Hopefully you will get back into the mentorship role again some day.
For the record, I think the best advice I've heard on the subject is "the last thing a newbie needs is a lease." Spend a couple of years figuring this driving stuff out before you hook your future on a truck. For one thing, you need to be able to operate the truck efficiently for it to pay. Is it the dispatchers fault - no. The load planners and dispatchers on the lease side are serving up freight to the operator who needs to decide if he can do the job. Is it Prime's fault - I don't think so, but opinions will vary here. The possibility of great financial success is also matched by the possibility you will fail. You don't get the one without the other. IMO, Prime takes the position that if you're going to step-up, you are going to do what's necessary to be profitable. The company isn't a social welfare organization, but they do offer you the tools to succeed - unlike many of the companies offering the lease or lease/purchase deals. Its also possible to do everything right and still not make it - but that is the razor called capitalism. Sazook... its the same QC format you see except for the detail page with the settlement data. You get a series of QC pages describing the generic parameters of the load - trip no., dispatched miles unloaded and loaded, reefer temperature and mode, and the like. An individual QC page describing the location of each shipper and receiver that may or may not have pertinant notes, customer code, appointment time, load number, PO numbers, weight, piece count, etc. There is a separate fuel routing page with fuel stop info (that can be modified via one of our macros) and the accept/decline page. If you're going to decline, you need to have the conversation with your FM. You need to do the planning - figure if you really have the hours to do the load, check the routing yourself - GPS doesn't count, you need to be looking at a Rand McNally *PRINTED* atlas, and if you're going to use a GPS - program the thing and make sure it matches your fuel route. Also you need to download the detail pages for the route into each shipper and receiver and read the notes. Then... I do a sanity check on the fuel (it has been hosed at times,) and check an online map of the local roads at each stop. I look for something to give me notice that critical turns are coming up, and a look at the satellite pic of the area. Also its helpful to note alternate routes into and out of the area in case of detours and/or a missed turn. That may take an hour - so you have to be aware of your time, because you can get loads that require a very abbrieviated look at it - time/hours to do it, a look at the shipper - go! Everything else still has to be done, but there are times that it has to be pushed off until you're at the shipper being loaded. None of this is really different for a Lease/Op, except you need to consider whether the load is going to make business sense for you.
Ok I can't believe nobody else asked this question, so here goes...Where did he get this "real good" ##### at? I need to mark it on my atlas. /end sarcasm.
Update, he's doing better with the trip planning, but is still wondering why he is going farther into the hole. After reviewing a settlement with him, I found that he actually turned a profit, but went farther in the hole due to his advances and the payments on all the shiny gadgets he had to buy from the company store. Of course, the day after I told him he actually made money when he cut thru everything in his settlement, he was at the CB shop getting his radio worked on.
