Continuing To Learn The Ins and Outs of Trucking

It’s been a while since I posted. About 20,000 miles of been a while. 😀 My experience since switching carriers has been mixed but mostly good, but with some significant negatives, as well. 

So first the good – I’m with a quality company run by quality people. My driver manager has been with the company 20+ years and worn a lot of hats. I don’t think there is anything about the business he doesn’t know. The VP of Ops is the person I first met in the company when I was in CDL school. His door is always open and good guy to go to for advice. A former driver, so simpatico.

I’ve had a lot of good routes and seen parts of the country I’ve never seen, other than from the air. Just this week I have been in VA, KY, IN,IL, MO, IO, NE, WV, AND NC. I’ve never driven through so much flat land or seen so much corn.

Since I’m still a relative newbie I continue to learn constantly. Working with schedules and deliveries has become second nature. I’m much better at all backing maneuvers than when I started, particularly with backing to docks with tight turning spaces. The normal workflow is easy enough to master.

The not so good centers around my carrier’s route structure and some other aspects of their business model. The first is that the vast majority of our business is live load and unload. Word to the wise if you are new – find out how much of a prospective employer’s business is drop and hook. I didn’t know to ask this when I first signed on. One of my regular shippers is a quick load – about 30 minutes. Average is about two hours on each end. That eats a ton of clock and you usually (most carriers) don’t get paid detention time until over two hours. My worst was five hours, which cost me an extra night out. 

Another negative, which is really a two edged sword, is brokered freight. I don’t know how much of this is a result of freight just being slow right now and how much is my carrier’s norm. One edge is that brokered freight is always live load. If you want to change a delivery or pickup appointment it usually means our guy has to go through the original broker rather than the shipper or receiver directly. Big time sink and frequently unsuccessful. I have gotten around this some by calling the shipper or receiver directly, but often can’t even get a human on the phone, if I can even find a number. All in all this is a BIG negative versus hauling for your own customers. In fairness, given the current lull in freight, brokered business beats no business, but our backhaul deal is the biggest negative of my carrier for me. Example: I arrived to today’s receiver just past midnight last night. Was able to back to the single dock and sleep there, close enough to open doors and back to the dock at 0600 without coming out of sleeper birth mode. Unload took just over five hours! At least I slept a good part of it and got detention pay past the two hour mark. BUT I STILL DON’T HAVE A BACKHAUL. This is what will cause me to leave if there isn’t a drastic improvement.

So if you are looking for your first gig or looking to change, dig beyond driver reviews online. Find out everything you can about a carrier’s route structure with emphasis on backhaul, especially if home time is a priority.

So that’s the latest from the road for me. Lots of beauty out the windshield. Keep trucking and cherish every day.