Need Some Opinions...

[unkut2003]

So many of you know I've had some trouble with my MVR and obtaining employment. (I have 2 speeding tickets for 1 point a piece, and a non-preventable accident but both were cited for 4 points.... Total Points: 6) Well today I interviewed at a company and the job seems fairly decent, but I've never been paid on revenue, so I figured who else to turn to but CAD, haha!

I should know by tomorrow morning if I actually have the position, pending a drug screen/background check/MVR report. Now I CLEARLY explained my tickets and accident to the bossman and owner of the company and they moved on as if it were no big deal. I was actually in the interview roughly 35-45 minutes after that, so this has my hopes high!!! Anyways, I'd be hauling the cardboard tubing used by concrete companies, and it pays 30% of revenue? And it is a self unload, well to the rear of the truck anyways. Unload pay is $25 per hr. on top of the revenue pay. They also said that when the construction business dies down, I'll be running shuttles, moving trucks, or other loads for Heinz.... but they GUARANTEED I'd have work everyday, Mon-fri!!! So.... my question is, whats the goods/bads or revenue pay??? I need the full rundown here. What am I getting myself into???

[century451]

If the drayage is 30 cents a mile your pay is 10 cents a mile.....if it is $1.20 then your pay is 36 cents a mile. Did they give you a guarantee or an idea of what the average revenue per load is?

[unkut2003]

If the drayage is 30 cents a mile your pay is 10 cents a mile.....if it is $1.20 then your pay is 36 cents a mile. Did they give you a guarantee or an idea of what the average revenue per load is?

They said I should be around $175-$200 a day??

[greg3564]

Be real careful. It sounds too good to be true. Think from our perspective that someone with your driving record, who couldn't get on LTL, is now being offered a "lucrative" job. I would question why drivers who have much more experience aren't being considered.

Just be extra careful. If you start noticing them to push you fudge your log books, putting unrealistic delivery times to force you to speed, docking your pay for performance "failures", etc. Good luck.

[redsfan]

The job may be too good to be true or it may not. I can tell you from experience that the big thing that is most likely scaring off experienced drivers are the words "self unload". I won't say all, but a lot of older drivers believe that they have paid their dues and should be highly compensated to just drive the truck without having to do any manual labor. This may apply with some companies, but with others it is sometimes required that the driver unload the truck. This alone will make a lot of experienced drivers hang up the phone and move on to the next company.

The company I work for is a very good company, been in business over 100 years, paid by the hour, never really slows down, etc... We still have a banner hanging out front 24/7 announcing "Hiring Drivers" and we can't keep enough drivers to fill all of our runs each night. We end up outsourcing 5-10 runs per day. The reason, about 60% of our loads are driver unload. This means you will take an electric pallet jack and pull a few pallets off at each stop. On occasion you may have to take a couple layers of boxes off of each pallet and restack them on another pallet. None of this is something that I would define as "hard work". Yet we have drivers leaving and some only making 6-700 bucks per week because they turn down runs where they don't get to bump the dock and hit the sleeper. Myself, I haven't made less than $1200/week in over 2+ months and have had a few weeks of $1400-1500 because I don't turn down runs.

My advice would be, give it a try, you might be surprised at how much money you could actually make. If it doesn't pan out, move on. Big deal, you'd probably be joining a list of drivers a mile long who have done the same thing.

[Fredog]

I get 25% and MOST of the time it works out better than mileage. we have some pretty high paying loads sometimes and I benefit from that,, example ..we have a run from Coffeeville Kansas going 500 miles and it pays the truck $2500.00 thats $625.00 for me. works out to $1.30 a mile, the load going up is 600 miles and pays the truck $1650. thats $412.50 for me, thats about .68 cents a mile. the drawback is when you have to deadhead a lot. but if you have good dispatcher, you should be fine, the bottom line, last week, I ran a total of 4000 miles and grossed $1800.00 so thats an average of about 45 cents a mile,
another good thing is it's self adjusting, when the rates go up, my pay goes up. all in all I am happy with it..

[unkut2003]

Well I went for the drug screen today!!!

Now these loads will be wriving concrete tubing made out of cardboard. When it dies down in the winter time, I'll be running shuttle runs, but ALL "local", or home every night I should say. The cardboards supplies are all taken to 90% dedicated stops, and 10% on-the-job construction sites. The tubing is fairly light, and compared to what I used to do, cleaning out a semi full of pop to various carrouts/gas stations/ect, its cake!!! I never did find out what the "usual" truck revenue was though... :? But the new boss said I should be about a grand a week and expect roughly 10-14 hr. days??? Depending on drive time, unloading time, ect.... But all in all it seems like easier work, equal or more money, more hours though, and a damn J.O.B. hahaha!!! With my crappy record, the wife said I should be happy for anything to get me through the next 2 years so my record will drop to 0 points..... then I can go where I want... 8)

[unkut2003]

Here's the company website.....


http://www.spartanwarehouse.com/default.aspx

[GMAN]

If a company has good paying freight you should earn more with a percentage carrier than one who pays mileage. If they haul cheap freight, then you may not do any better than with a mileage company. Personally, I have always made more money on percentage. Some people are simply not comfortable on percentage. They would prefer running mileage so that they know about what they will make from week to week. I had one guy working for me who said that he would rather run mileage instead of percentage even though he would make more on percentage. Go figure. :? :shock:

The problem with % is that when your company starts low-balling freight, your settlements grow lighter. Rate-cutting in the OTR truckload segment is currently going like gangbusters. This is for two reasons:

1) an overall decline in freight levels
2) the majority of OTR companies loaded up on new tractors to avoid the 2007 emssions standards.

So what you've got now is way too many trucks chasing too little freight. ECON 101 folks - if you increase the supply of anything relative to available demand, then prices are gonna drop like a stainless-steel anvil out of a 747 JumboJet.

With mileage, it doesn't matter what the rates are. Your money is as right as ninepence. Unless you work for JB Hunt who'll roll your pay back to the Bronze Age.

[Smooth]

Here's the company website.....


http://www.spartanwarehouse.com/default.aspx

Good luck to you , I've delivered to there warehouse south of columbus before by Obetz , seem like some decent poeple .

[unkut2003]

WOO HOO!!!! Well I just got the call.... I go to orientation tomorrow and get my assigned truck, gas card, paperwork, ect....ect...ect.... I should start on Monday or Tuesday at the latest!!! I can't wait!!!!

Now they roll 10 or so year old KENWORTH trucks..... so what I need to know is, how are the older KENWORTH rigs??? I won't know the specific model/year until tomorrow..... but it does have a sleeper and from what I understand it is mechanically sound! I just hope the thing has A/C, haha!!!

[Elmdor]

Here's the company website.....


http://www.spartanwarehouse.com/default.aspx

SPARTTTAAAAAAAAA!!!

haha sorry

I drove an older Kenworth in school a couple of times and we had one for about 3 weeks a year ago as a sub truck while mine was in the shop and the only thing different I noticed was they seem to have a longer turning radius. They don't turn as sharp as if you were in say a Freightliner or an International.
Ohh and who ever designed the interior of a Kenworth must have been switch happy too. My truck just has one switch for headlamps. A KW seems to have separate switches for headlights, marker lights, clearance lights, and side markers.