[Bumper]

Originally Posted by Mackman

Thats the way it should be

And dont worry about missing your union dues payment, we will take double on your next check........

[Orangetxguy]

Originally Posted by Snowman7

It's unbelievable how stubborn all you guys are! :roll:
Why cant we just talk about each others jobs rather than trying so hard to convince each other that ours is the best? I dont doubt for a minute that GMAN, Orangetxguy, Lebron, and Belpre all do well in their respective fields. And as for the union bashing we're not any different than you guys are. We want the best pay we can get just like you. Why do you sit waiting for $4 a mile when you have $1.50 there for the taking? The same reason I wont work for $12/hr thats why. And if I were an O/O and you a company driver we'd both be the exact same way. And I dont care about killing the cash cow. If he dies I"ll find another job! No problem! And lazy? Please! Do my job where I hook 4 sets/8 trailers every night, or DoubleR in foodservice, Lebron doing P/D, I dont think any of us are lazy or we wouldnt have our job or the motivation to get a good job. Well Mackman might be lazy, ITS A JOKE! I'M JUST KIDDING! You guys who have done well in OTR are the exception to the rule, congrats. By the same token good local jobs are hard to come by which makes us the exception to the rule also. We all do well in the field we want to be in. We should be sharing how we did it with those who are interested instead of bickering over who has the better way. Face it, 75% of all trucking jobs suck anyway so lets help those who want to know what else is out there.

Snow...I wish I did make $4.00 per mile on everything I haul. I don't..so I have to be pretty damn picky right now. Weekend before last, in order to get home for some down time, I took a "Dog" load, that I would not usually accept. I only took it to get home...and that is why the rate was a "Dog". The shipper's knows that trucks want to get home. That was why the "Dog" rate. Had I not been out on the road since June 27.....I woulda tossed that crap off...and given my dispatch an ear full....and he knew it when he offered it...which was why he included an apology with the qualcomm offer.

A company offering crappy wages isn't always hauling cheap freight. They offer cheap wages because they know someone will be desperate enough to TAKE the wage.

When those drivers stop accepting that...THEN things will change.

I only make a decent living because I work hard. I don't say NO just to spite my face. It is all dependant on each drivers attitude. You won't take $12.00 an hour...I would take the wage...if there was something else on the table with it. If there wasn't, I am not afraid to name my price.

When I say $24.40 an hour to work local...I know that I am worth that much..regardless of the "Locale". My driving history and my work record support that wage. I turned down an offer from ABF here, because it was a BS offer...and they knew it. I have laughed at countless offers from companies with the means to pay my rate. When they countered to me that their offer was "The prevailing wage", I told them to go hire the "Prevailing" driver then. I know what I am worth. THEY get what they pay for. They don't pay for me...they don't get me.

If I drive your truck, I am money in the bank. I know that when I leave the gate in a truck, it is going to re-enter that gate, in the same condition in which it left. The cargo is going to arrive at it's destination in the exact condition in which it was loaded.......I am money in the bank and expect to paid as such.

I am not afraid to tell a company so.


How many other drivers are willing or able to step up and say that?

Originally Posted by Snowman7

And lazy? Please! Do my job where I hook 4 sets/8 trailers every night, or DoubleR in foodservice, Lebron doing P/D, I dont think any of us are lazy or we wouldnt have our job or the motivation to get a good job.

Snowman, they don't understand because they've never done LTL. They think we just drive around town, bump a few docks, and then park under a shadetree and read the paper milking the clock.

All they've done is OTR...maybe some multi-stop stuff but never with the heavy pressure to get stops off like we do. I'd love to see one of these guys cover my route...22 stops in 8-9 hours (2.5 stops per hour) delivering to funeral homes, car washes, trailer parks, hotels, banks, conveience stores, schools...wheeling stuff into the mall then blindsiding off a 2-lane highway at rush hour. Then take a long-box down a residential street and hope you can get turned around.

Start your deliveries at 0800 and by 1200 they're giving you pickups and you've still got 8 stops to get off. One shipper closing at 1400, another at 1500, another at 1600. Gotta mix the pickups in with the drops and somehow find a way to make those delivery appointments. Bring back stops and you get written up. Keep bringing back stops and you get fired.

If these guys did my job, they'd be gone in a few days...which is why we won't hire OTR for city work...everybody quits or gets fired.

[GMAN]

Snowman, I don't sit around waiting for $4/mile freight. I never stated that I got $4/mile for ALL my loads. I do place a high value on my services. And I am a good negotiator. I will hold out for the rate I want or deadhead out to a good area. I had a truck running up and down I-5 much of the first quarter and wasn't getting nearly as high a rate as we are getting on the East Coast, especially the last part of the second quarter and going into the third quarter. As far as sharing is concerned, I don't mind sharing. I probably won't be talking about rates that I get. Those who don't or can't get the same rates, do not want to hear it. They assume that if they aren't getting good rates, that no one else is either. All it does is confuse people.

[Orangetxguy]

Originally Posted by LeBron James

Snowman, they don't understand because they've never done LTL. They think we just drive around town, bump a few docks, and then park under a shadetree and read the paper milking the clock.

All they've done is OTR...maybe some multi-stop stuff but never with the heavy pressure to get stops off like we do. I'd love to see one of these guys cover my route...22 stops in 8-9 hours (2.5 stops per hour) delivering to funeral homes, car washes, trailer parks, hotels, banks, conveience stores, schools...wheeling stuff into the mall then blindsiding off a 2-lane highway at rush hour. Then take a long-box down a residential street and hope you can get turned around.

Start your deliveries at 0800 and by 1200 they're giving you pickups and you've still got 8 stops to get off. One shipper closing at 1400, another at 1500, another at 1600. Gotta mix the pickups in with the drops and somehow find a way to make those delivery appointments. Bring back stops and you get written up. Keep bringing back stops and you get fired.

If these guys did my job, they'd be gone in a few days...which is why we won't hire OTR for city work...everybody quits or gets fired.

LOL..You only think your job is hard. Driving LTL as a city pickup driver is just as easy as anythingelse. A guy simply has to wrap his mind around it. LOL...I also have only been doing OTR since 2004. Four years.
16 years of delivering gas in the seattle market will teach you some things. We had a driver at the terminal that transfered from Philly...wasn't a day he didn't wish he was back in Philly.

[Evinrude]

[quote="Bumper"]

Originally Posted by Mackman

Thats the way it should be

And dont worry about missing your union dues payment, we will take double on your next check........[/quote]


When I worked at the mill driving a fork lift I paid 2% union dues. Some pays were as high as $100. per week dues deductions. I wish they could they could take a $1000. per week.

[Roadhog]

This generalization is what is causing the riff.
Many of us here work hard regardless, and many of us here have experience in both Local and OTR.

I could easily describe all the picks and drops and difficulty of my typical OTR runs...and bumping the same tiny East Coast docks with a 270" wheelbase Pete and a 53' Reefer...sticking out 30 feet past most Local rigs.

I might even have to unload my own, just to get the job done so I can get the hell back on the road to cover my next stop...because some "union truck" which came in after me, is going get unloaded first.

OTR cover multiple picks and drops challenging the weight/per axle math and are hunting for docks in a new location where they've never been before on a regular basis.

There are different challenges, but schedules JUST as hard to keep, and with great odds to make happen. (some with fines if you are late) All the arguments I've read so far are justifiably so, but I can not see how one gets an Atta-Boy more than the next driver.

But it's how we like to communicate between each other. Notice I got in my union priority stab...and my 30' of superiority. :lol:

[Snowman7]

Originally Posted by roadhog

This generalization is what is causing the riff.
Many of us here work hard regardless, and many of us here have experience in both Local and OTR.

EXACTLY! There are definatlely some "lazy, greedy, union guys" just as there are some "lazy, greasy OTR guys" but that doesnt mean were all like that. We have to stop with the stereotyping.

I could easily describe all the picks and drops and difficulty of my typical OTR runs...and bumping the same tiny East Coast docks with a 270" wheelbase Pete and a 53' Reefer...sticking out 30 feet past most Local rigs.

I might even have to unload my own, just to get the job done so I can get the hell back on the road to cover my next stop...because some "union truck" which came in after me, is going get unloaded first.

OTR cover multiple picks and drops challenging the weight/per axle math and are hunting for docks in a new location where they've never been before on a regular basis.

There are different challenges, but schedules JUST as hard to keep, and with great odds to make happen. (some with fines if you are late) All the arguments I've read so far are justifiably so, but I can not see how one gets an Atta-Boy more than the next driver.

Were all very good at what we do and we want to be paid as much as we can get. Period. In that respect were all the same.

But it's how we like to communicate between each other. Notice I got in my union priority stab...and my 30' of superiority. :lol:

You just had to go there didnt you! :roll: :lol:

[GMAN]

Originally Posted by LeBron James

Snowman, they don't understand because they've never done LTL. They think we just drive around town, bump a few docks, and then park under a shadetree and read the paper milking the clock.

Some of us have done LTL and driven locally. Some of us have a good understanding of what it takes to drive local because we have done it. We just prefer otr.

Originally Posted by GMAN

Some of us have done LTL and driven locally. Some of us have a good understanding of what it takes to drive local because we have done it.

What LTL carrier have you driven for?