putting a driver in a truck vs getting a teamate

One tiny thing my Spouse exhibited to me was a lack of precision, let's put it that way. She would know very well where to put that tractor to minimize the labor necessary to fill the fuel being exactly where the caps need to be.

It's such a tiny thing but I made it a big deal. Unnecessarily. Spouse was good about it and eventually after being clubbed about it by her, I was able to just shut up and let her stick that truck where she felt it ought. I was trying to micro manage. It's not good.

The big challenge of managing is trying to make sure someone has the information 5000 miles away to effectively function as the agent of the company in whatever local problems to loading that come up. Too many times we show up at a address knowing nothing more than that. Only to run into questions that rapidly expose that we are people who know nothing and now have to consume dispatch and their bosses asking THEM questions.

Why the shipper did not call directly is beyond my understanding. They enjoy having people call or answer with the least effort.

IF you have a use for a team, then I say good luck to you and hope it works out. DO give them a half day once a week to recover and tend to things that are not tended to when running. You can at least do that for them. It will keep them happy for you.

 

It's not wise to pick the best of the litter and stick them in your carefully configured equiptment which probably has a little more horsies than most company generic stuff. It's better as the other Poster said to season the newbie a year or three on their own time and expense learning the trucking. If they made it this far then perhaps they have something that most in his or her class did not.

 

the thing (about a student driver) is there are many students that are in thier 40's, 50's, and maybe even 60's.....a student these days isn't necessarily an 18 year old....and too do not forget, the OLDER student, might have a mortgage to pay for, over a single person....which mean they NEED to work

 

Usually it's the older ones that run really well than the 21 year old. You can send them into Nevada and they will stay focused on Business most of the time.

 

then i guess in the end, a team driver will be a BIG NO,,,,????

that may very well be the BEST business decision you can make.

 

Remember that freight comes and goes.

Once all the orders from retail truck building soaks into the Nation (We are talking hundreds of thousands of tractors on back order upwards of 9 months) freighting might as well enter a slowdown economically in about late 2019 to 2020. Barring a natural disaster, serious attack or flat war. The economy is straining and it's going to tear and be slow a while. You don't want to buy a truck and then find that you cannot properly run it.