"Professional Driver"? More like "Professional Sitter" lately

[Malaki86]

What a freaking change in the past 2 weeks:

Week 1, run my freaking tail off. 6 days after leaving the house, I had to take a restart because I was out of hours on my 70 (3,170 miles total)

Week 2, do a short run (113 miles), deadhead 130 miles or so, pickup the load, go another 200 or so, hit a bird. That forced another restart while waiting on the repair/glue to set. After that, deadhead 232 miles to pick up a load that won't be there for another 24hrs. Instead, sit there for 2hrs while they find me something else. Picked that load up and headed for Kitchener, ON. Arrive there yesterday @ noon and sit until 8am for a load today. Drive 130 miles to pick up a load that won't be ready for 7 hours after I got there. (1,500 miles total)

[MichiganDriver]

Good place to ask this I suppose... Do you get paid for deadhead miles?

[Mr. Ford95]

Good with the bad, good with the bad.

[Malaki86]

Ya - we're paid the same for all dispatched miles, loaded or empty. My longest deadhead was 880 miles (Calgary to Winnipeg).

[CleeIB]

As a non-trucker, I ask out of curiosity: how typical is it to get paid for deadhead miles?

[Malaki86]

For company drivers, it's pretty typical, especially when you're paid by the mile. Those driving on a percentage basis, it's less common.

[MichiganDriver]

Well Mal, I spent my first 4 1/2 years in this business as a company driver for a manufacturing company. They paid me an hourly wage for each and every stop (even when I was hanging out at Penske getting maintenance done). It wasn't a lot of money ($10/hr) but at least I was getting paid.

Then I spent 3 weeks at a company that was probably more typical - no $ at all for getting loaded/unloaded or hanging for repairs. I was getting 2 cpm more than at my first job but making less.

Tough business is all I'm trying to say, tough business. Imagine expecting a man to work and thinking you don't have to pay him for his time. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[Malaki86]

Wow - the planners *almost* did something right today:

I'm delivering in Somerset, KY tomorrow morning @ 8am. When I parked this evening, I called dispatch to find out what it looked like for a pre-plan. She got right on it.

I received a pre-plan about 15 minutes later that picks up at the same location I deliver to in the morning. The problem is that the load picks up @ 5pm. I've picked up there before and when they say 5pm, they MEAN 5pm. Ughhh. Wipes out my 14hr day yet again.

[CleeIB]

Thanks for the info, Malaki86.

It sounds like you guys are subject to the same nonsense and bungling that we desk jockeys put up with, only ours doesn't involve large payloads and potential fatalities (usually)!

[Mr. Ford95]

2 totally different lines of work but the same BS happens at both, ain't it funny in a non funny way? My wife complains all the time about some of the same junk I put up with and she works for an online bank company.

I guess the question is, how far is the load taking you Mal?

[Malaki86]

The load I'm scheduled to pick up later today (the one I had to wait just under 10hrs for) is 627 miles. They did do the right thing and schedule me a load from Kitchener, ON to Laredo, TX after this one is complete. That load is 1,724 miles. Helps, but I still hate sitting. Not to mention sleeping all last night, working/driving less than an hour this morning, and now having to run all night.

[Mr. Ford95]

Well at least you got to sleep/rest up so you can hammer down on the next 2300 miles. Fresh hours, let'er roll.

[Malaki86]

LOL - yup - hate this overnight driving, though, especially in the freaking rain

[Malaki86]

Ughhh - Don't you hate when your plans get screwed up by someone else's incompetence?

When I finished the p/u @ 7:30pm, the shipper said they would fax & email the customs paperwork. Well, at 10:30pm, I call in to see if the load had cleared yet. About 2 hours later, I get a message that I needed to resend the fax because they hadn't received it yet. I get this message when I'm about 1.5hrs from the border. Faxed it over 2hrs ago and still waiting for the clearance. So, screw it - bedtime for Bonzo here. It'll get there sometime tomorrow afternoon.

[mitchno1]

f..k stick to logs you no wat you up to untill the asians get unstuck like now ,bloody foriegners and thier money problems .our little country gets shafted

[golfhobo]

It sounds like you guys are subject to the same nonsense and bungling that we desk jockeys put up with, only ours doesn't involve large payloads and potential fatalities (usually)!

So... does that mean that when someone screws up and you sit for hours unable to do anything.... that you don't get PAID for it? Somehow, I doubt it.

Just sayin'

[Malaki86]

I've gotta say - after I spoke to my DM about this, I'm doing anything BUT sitting. I'm bumping my 70hr clock solidly now. I'm scheduled to deliver tomorrow morning @ 9am and when I do, I'll have in the neighborhood of 15 minutes left on my 70 (gain 8.5 @ midnite). My 7 day week will have a tad over 4,000 miles dispatched (4,145 to be exact).

Sometimes whining DOES help LOL