It's been very quiet in the KLLM forum

Thanks for all the Help RoadToad

 

RoadToad69....

So bad...even her Qcomm knows it.....



HAHAHAHA!!!!!

RT

 

How is KLLM financially?

 

Two birds with one stone-

It is theoretically possible to get to all lower 48. I have been to all but Minnesota, Maine, North and South Dakota and Montana.

KLLM is financially solid...at least as solid as any of us can be in this economy. In fact we just picked up a large contract with Pilgrims Pride recently. Fresh Express is another big client for us. We're not going belly up anytime soon.

RT

 

Miss RoadToad--You Sure About That ??????

 

Yes, I am. There are always the negative rumor mongers who will try to make you believe the sky is falling. The fact is that the information is out there should one care to find out for themselves.
I've been scr**ed too many times in the past by blindly believing what people tell me. I'm now a well practiced skeptic and always investigate the facts for myself.
No trucking company is booming right now and the ones that are still afloat have all had major cutbacks- decreases in pay, cuts in benefits (increase in health insurance premiums to drivers, cutting company matching on 401K's, etc), cracking down on waste (idling policies enforced stringently, etc), cutting bonus programs, etc. KLLM is no different in that regard. One of the major differences here though is that while companies are making all these cut that are affecting mainly thier drivers while the admin continues to enjoy thier pay and benefits untouched....our CEO put himself on the line with everyone else and took a 20% pay cut.

HOWEVER- our freight is steady, we continue to run good miles, and we are still getting our bonus for running through the holidays this year. We continue to enjoy company paid tolls, company paid PrePass, reimbursement for scale fees, company paid reefer fuel, company paid/reimbused lumpers, no hassle detention and layover, company paid hotel rooms for company drivers while thier trucks are in the shop, hazmat pay, additional drop/pick-up pay, quick...no hassle repairs. We take all of that for granted but go talk to drivers from other companies...few of them have it as good as we do.

Yes. We are financially solid. I stand by that.

RT

 

KLLM should be doing better; they cut us back .02 @mile and are pushing their rent-to-own/sharecropper/ lease purchase program, they then can get the driver to pay them for hauling their freight.

 

Not sure what you are referring to here. I am a lease driver and I take home more now than I ever did as a company driver.

You want to talk about indentured servants...talk to an FFE lease driver! OMG!! FFE makes them pay for EVERYTHING...tolls, reefer fuel, PrePass, QComm.
If you want out of an FFE lease you have to pay them 10 weeks worth of truck payments first.

RT

 

Yea, she's not BSing about FFE's lease. I came from over there about two months ago now and though I wasn't lease I sure heard enough b****ing around there about people being broke. I was even pitching one myself as a company rat because I was not receiving my pay checks.

As to what was said about paid toll's and everything supplied etc. I only had one problem and that was with Marten and scales. The load had to weigh over so much in order for them to reimburse for scale ticket's. They want you to use the trucks load scales as much as possible but if it's under the policy weight then you just paid for that scale ticket out of pocket and will never get it back.

I asked another dude that started with KLLM not to long ago and came from Prime as I did but haven't gotten a reply yet. But from what I see, I think my question is pretty much answered. See, not only an inverter (if they don't have TriPak's?) but I'm acustomed to pulling out the cabnet behind the seat and setting a "dorm room" fridge in that has a small freezer to help save money on the road. Will they allow this? Another thing is music. I have two amp's and a box with two 12" sub's that fit's perfectly on the floor infront of the bunk in a freightliner that way I can make that cracker jack box sounding POS factory system sound pretty good once hooked up change the settings on the CD deck to use the factory speakers as tweeter's and the sub's for bass. I did this at Prime, Marten and FFE. Prime didn't give a #### about what you do as long as your not tearing anything up. Marten and FFE forbid it but I did it anyway, I just kept the shop guy's out of my truck and if something went wrong I waited to get off the yard and get to freightliner to get it fixed. Because if I'm not rockin' loud and proud then I'm not truckin' in which case I'm not a happy truck driver because of s****y sound quality. Question is, how does KLLM feel about it? If they don't mind cool beans if not then it's just something I would have to keep on the DL for the duration of being in a company truck.

I have a child that will be due in March so I figured I would hire on as a company driver till then, letting me get the feel of the company before leasing and let them know I will need to take a couple of week's off during that time when my daughter is born and turn the company truck in during that time so when I come back I can go straight into lease instead of lease right off the top and having a truck payment pulling me in the negitive while it sit's not making any revenue for the period of time. To me it doesn't seem they would have a problem with this.

Last but not least is dress code. Never had a problem with it till I went to FFE. No piercing's, no short's, clothing containing any logo's such as budweiser, etc. When I left the yard I would put my jewelry back in but I would forget to take it off from time to time when I got back to the yard and it would be the same people chewing my ### every time. I thought this was a place of work where we could do as we wish as long as it wasn't extreme or lude. Other companies didn't give a #### about it and find that a lot of customer's really enjoy my presence when I show up for a P/U or drop because I keep a good customer attitude and sense of humor which they really seem to like and even lighten's their day when it's not so good. With the exception of a handful that are just all around ########## and treat you like #### for no appearent reason along with being disrespectful. That's when I make way back to the truck and change shirt's into one I have that say's "You only get as much respect as you give" to make a statement. A few of them have noticed that I changed my shirt and it changed their prospective. I've even had my dispatcher's calling me up saying that there was a big problem but the customer was giving me a good report because of the way my attitude was is trying to solve the situation and they would really like to have me back there again instead of another one of the same company drivers that gave them hell. Only in the event that a customer keeps on with the BS is when I start getting pissy with them. I'll do the same with a dispatcher.

I do my job well but I don't tolerate BS. A see a big problem with trucking today is a lot of people get in there with the same mind set of working a normal job in an office or something where they have to do what they are told not understanding that the driver is the captain of that ship. What the captain say's goes making you the driver the real boss. Not the dispatcher. We are the source that bring's in the money. So if a dispatcher want's me to do something illegal I don't want to do and threaten me, I have no problem reporting them to safety. If everyone else is going to be on their side about it then I get the DOT involved. If they try or do fire me over it I'll put their ### in a sling. I may have only been driving a year and a half but I know my way around the BS that most driver's let companies walk over them about and that's why the ##### about getting fired or some BS put on their DAC. You have to stand for somethign or you won't stand at all, letting a company walk all over you. I play fair as long as they do.

Sorry for getting off topic and ranting but I believe there is a lot of truth there. But if anyone can answer those questions for me, it would be great.

Also, RoadToad, can you take a picture of a blank logbook page for me? I'm just curisous as to what they look like if they have the holes punched out or not. I went to Marten and I could run loose leaf but I much rather have them in a 2 or 3 ring binder rather than a clip board box clamped together. Over there they didn't have the holes punched like Prime's so I couldn't find a binder to would fit them so I ended up taking my Prime logbook binder and modifiying it to fit their pages by cutting the center ring off and using the top "notebook" type binding edge at the very top edge of the pages that tears off. Thanks for the info.

 

Do the company trucks have APU's?