Sounds like it is time for a heart to heart talk with your FM, face to face with a manager involved if needed!

As I have written many times before! Your FM can make or break you!

1) It is possible he may not be getting any options, because he/she does not get along with the load planners!

2) He/She may just be new enough, that they have not been able how to figure out how to data mine the loads out of the systems.

3) the worst option, He/She is lazy, and just does not care about making the drivers on his board successful!


Try to get some more communication out of your FM, gentle calm persuasion. If nothing comes of it within the next couple of weeks, request a new FM, explaining the facts carefully and truthfully of why you are making the request.

The Northeast runs usually paid pretty much the highest in the country, but they are also the biggest pains to deliver and pick-up! Start asking for loads that will take you to the middle of the country - sometimes this will be a longhual load - on Monday, then work your way back to the house.

How are you doing with your bonus points? Idle time, on time delivery, getting your truck washed - you know, all the stuff that adds up at snap shot time to get your percentage up? 23% to 28% makes quite a difference in pay!

Whatever you do, do not let a FM ruin your work ethic! OH, and do not run illegal just to get home! They will eventually catch up with you, and worse, if there is an incident during that time - it could ruin your career and life! Lawyers love that kinda stuff at trial time!

 

You have a bad/non-communicative FM and nothing is going to change for the better if you don't have a talk with him and your team leader or get a new FM.

I've never been offered any option on loads with TMC. I just always trusted that my FM was doing his job and getting me the best loads possible.

I've made good money with them (as advertised, about 1k/week) up until about 2 months ago, running a little dirty, but mostly clean. In that same time, my hometime has been mostly crappy though, I've only been home early enough 2x in the last 3 months to be able to do anything on Friday night.

I've just had it with them... nothing I do is enabling me to make the money I used to make. Unload early... doesn't matter, I'll wait 2 hours almost every time for my next dispatch.

Unload a little later (1000-1200), and about 1/2 the time i'll be preplanned before I even send my empty macro in... tell me which makes more sense?

The only problem with this strategy is that you've moved your truck to reach your unload destination, and there is very little you can fudge on with your logbook(if such things concern you).

I've been running with very little concern for legality in the last 5 weeks, just to seen what kind of a paycheck I could squeeze out of the system, and to see how long it would take before safety/logs got on me.

In those 5 weeks I grossed a little over 1k once, 750-875 3 times, and about 650 in a week that I had a 1 day breakdown.

In a typical week I broke my 14 hour rule 3/5 days, drove more than 11 hours 1/5 days, took less than a 10 hour break or 8/2 split 3/5 days, and backlogged, fudged, or outright lied on my log 5/5 days.

Someone from the log dept finally called last week to ask what was up. I told them I couldn't make the money they advertised running legal, so I was just doing a little experiment, and as it turns out, I couldn't even make that money running balls-to-the-walls illegal. They told me I would be routed to a terminal for log class (lol) if I didn't shape up... which is funny, because I could teach the log class, and how to lose your shirt with TMC running legal.

 

I'm going to try talking to him tomorrow. See if that helps. He did say when there are options he will give them to me. He also told me to give it a few months and it will get better. From that comment I took it as though I'm going through an idoctrination with him. I can understand the speed of strapping/chaining and tarping getting better, but the things I'm referencing I feel could be better now.

Thurs. morning is the worst and when the stress begins. This past Thurs. he sent me from Lynchburg, VA to Liverpool, NY. Putting me 300 miles from home on Fri. morning. Same scenario as the previous week. I had to run illegal starting Thurs. evening to make it to Liverpool to be unloaded at 7am Fri. morning so I would have time to do the bounce, get loaded, strap, tarp and drive home.

I know what you mean about not running illegal and I HATE doing it, but I'm just trying to get home to have time to get things done, visit with girlfriend, etc. before heading back out again. Same old story as everyone else.

I haven't gotten a snapshot yet and have no idea how it will come out given all the things that are considered. Just trying to get a handle on the basics right now.

Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. It's good to have this forum to get a feel for how it works for other drivers.

 

LennyD,

Sounds more to me that your fleet manager is not a trustworthy as you thought! During my time with TMC, my FM, all but once, had load and destination options!

As in general,

Between LennyD, Dakota1 and a few others, these are reasons I do not suggest linehaul to any newbies. Yes, the home every weekend sounds great, but without experience in routing, time management, load securement and how to deal with a non-responsive FM, a new driver gets burned out quick!

Long Haul for the first 6 months, get the basic experience, and then switch over to line haul if that is your desire! You also have the ability to get your percentage up without killing yourself!

For the more experienced drivers that could be in the .36 to .38 cpm or more range on mileage, your FM's should be offering a switch (if not, ask now) in the next couple of weeks for the winter. Go back and average you miles, including bounce, the last 8 weeks (a good FM will already have done this) and compare percentage to mileage! More than likely you will find the mileage will pay more, especially during the winter months when the rates fall across the country! When I switched from percentage to mileage, may pay jumped significantly. On top of that, all bounce miles are paid, unlike giving 150 miles away on percentage! Just another trick of the road! The big bosses do not want you to know about!

 

On Longhaul I rarely got offered a choice of loads. My FM would sometimes run a load past me if he thought it would be 1) tight timewise or 2) going the wrong direction from home, or 3)a choice between two really poor loads, or 4) A really great load going away from home. If I turned down the first load I would wait for the second one.

 

FYI guys, there is no more longhaul, or, at least it hasn't been offered to the noob drivers (at DSM orientation) for at least the last 2 months.

I'm also pretty sure they aren't currently hiring anyone outside of the linehaul bondary.

I ran longhaul my first 6 months knowing the physical demands of this job coming from a van driving job I had for a year. I didn't want to load/unload everyday because I knew it would burn me out quick. When I got closer to my 6 month mark with the company, the long runs really started to dry up, and I found that I was mostly running linehaul freight with 1 semi-long run thrown in per week. I was also making about the same as I did running 2-3 loads a week, so I switched to linehaul to get more hometime.

I really don't care anymore though, I've exhausted my efforts at making things work with them, and the downhill slide just continues. I'll be leaving soon for local work that will pay a little less, but i'll be working much less (still 50-55 hours a week), i'll be home every night, I won't be throwing tarps for $10, and I won't be sitting around all day at a steel shipper wondering wtf i'm doing giving my time away for free while TMC pockets the detention money.... and don't even get me started on detention pay. While they might not collect on it at all shippers, they certainly do from some, or even a majority. They claim their profit margins are so slim. Do you really think they are sending their trucks to sit idling for several hours in 100 degree heat, so they can haul a $400 load of steel while their "slim" margin melts away in the form of burned fuel? I call BS. I've never got a dime in detention money, not once.

 

I actually got detention pay three times. I think it amounted to about $100 total when you added those three times together.

I had a very good week last week since everyboday and their brother bought lumber at Home Depot's to finish their projects last weekend. We were crazy busy. Now there are positives and negatives to being that busy. The positive is that I made more money last week than I have since I started on dedicated. Sometimes I made more on longhaul if I got a really long run from say Wednesday to Monday to start they paycheck off with a bang. The downside to that is that sometimes loads were not ready on time at the Distribution center since they were trying to do 50 loads per day instead of the 35 we have averaged since Independence day. Another upside is that I learned from the last two holiday weeks (Memorial and Independence) how to handle my Fleet Managers. When I properly communicate my available hours and capabilities I got loads to fill the gaps. There is an art and science to managing the company to fill your needs. In every single situation that has disappointed me in my 1.8 years with TMC I have analyzed how I could possibly have prevented the issue. Most of the time it results from me not forseeing potentilal problems. And if I, using my 11 hours of driving or 3 hours of detention, cannot predict problems and alert my FM to them then how am I to judge him for not catching something that he missed. He has 30 to 40 trucks to manage, so he can't possibly do all of their thinking and planning for them as well as me. The way a relationship with a FM works is this: When I tell him what I need then he does his best to meet those requirements. When he tells me what he needs then I do my best as well. If you wait for your FM to decide things for you then you are usually stuck with them. When I first started at TMC I asked for medium length runs that were easy so I wouldn't fail. Finally I realized that I could get a load delivered just as fast as anyone that ran legally. I would do what was necessary to deliver the freight on time and legally, most of the time my FM would get the arrive, depart, and empty macros, and I would communicate otherwise only if necessary. I figured that every minute that I bothered him with was a minute that I was causing someone to wait for load information. We talked for 20 minutes the day I transfered to the HD dedicated and that was more than we had talked on the phone in the previous month.

I also talked to my old longhaul fleet manager last week. I picked up the phone to call my current FM and my fingers automatically dialed my old FM's number. ( I subsequently decided I needed more caffine) He said that things were about the same on longhaul, and there seemed to be plenty of freight most of the time. So from this I gather that the Longhaul division does still exist, though I understand that there is a hiring freeze for that division currently. I did ask the Joplin shop to give me a longhaul division sticker when I was there in February, but they said that they were not allowed to put any more of those on, so I surmise that TMC may not plan to hire or even run outside of the linehaul area for the forseeable future.

Now I will say that my Home Depot division is superior to longhaul in many ways.
The first and most important is that I have a full 3 shift competent dispatch from Monday at 6am to Saturday at 6am. I can pick up the phone and have someone who knows my name and can solve my problems and answer my questions in 4 rings or less. Now 24 hour dispatch isn't usually necessary in linehaul, but a few more hours in the afternoon/evening would be nice.

Second is that even with poor directions there is always another driver I can ask about specifics for each store. Now I know that isn't possible with 2800 drivers on linehaul, but more complete information about directions and procedures would be helpful at all of our shippers and receivers. Perhaps have someone call drivers after they have been somewhere and find out if the directions were adequate. Incomplete information about where or not to park and things like that always drove me batty. Of course given that track record I could sometimes bluff shippers/receivers that I was told something that may or may not have been completely accurate.

Third is that in our contract with Home Depot they are given one hour to unload us. Any more than one hour past our appointment and we do get detention pay every time. Also if they have not started on us in one hour I call my FM. He takes three steps to the door of the Home Depot office and has THEM call the store to find out what the problem is. That gets things moving in a hurry.

There are also downsides. Things aren't always sunshine and happiness. There are days that I miss having 14 hours to do nothing but drive and stop for a good meal. I sometimes miss seeing new roads and facing the challenges of the unexpected. The way I look at it is that if this job was fun they might not have to pay me to do it. :wink:

 

I thought this was an interesting statement! Seeing as how I just talked to my old FM last week, and my original recruiter the week before to check on something!

Even though I am currently outside of the hiring area, my rehire status is still good on longhaul and if any openings came up on Texas Dedicated, could probably do that! My FM told me that Longhaul was still going strong!

 

I'm terribly sorry to hear that LennyD. I truly wish your career at TMC worked out. Maybe your local job will be better off. It seems to me that some people have good luck and some just don't. I know how it feels to try as hard as you can, and still get nowhere. I feel that way at my job now. Best of luck to you, and maybe you can still make TMC work. They truly are a good company.

Safe travels.

 

agreed, not going to run the risk of being called a TMC cheerleader, but I am making money, even got Friday off this week without even asking, so I am not complaining. I can 100% understand how you could get burned out at this job real quick if things weren't going great. I run into detention from time to time, somewhat rare, never seen a dime for it, just figured it was part of the job. my trainer and I waited 15 hours for a load of concrete forms at some place in NJ once. it wasn't any fun but we let it go, on to the next load. it's never going to be totally smooth sailing at any company. I am reminded of reefers and grocery warehouses. makes my flatbed look real attractive.

best of luck man, this company doesn't seem to work out for everyone. wish there were more fleet managers like mine for the rest of you.