dr_lizardo

Hello everyone. I've been getting frustrated with the way Werner manages its over the road drivers so I've asked to be transferred into a dedicated account, doing family dollar stores up in the northeast, based out of Rome, NY. Most dedicated accounts are only open to drivers with some seniority but you can get a dedicated Family Dollar right out of school because you have to touch the freight. When I was at swift I talked to a guy who did Family Dollar and he said the heaviest boxes he was dealing with were bleach, about 30 pounds. Swift pays better on that account if memory serves but at the time I left I was seeking a 48 state job that didn't suck, which I didn't find unfortunately.

I have been really vexed with the way Werner manages my time. They profess to care about their drivers but they have only a single consideration in anything, and that is to get freight moved. The past couple of days I've had just a few hours our of my 70 available, and they push those to the firewall, at really inconvenient times. Yesterday I was out of hours in the early afternoon so they had me starting up at 1am the next morning. But the 5.25 hours I had available weren't enough to get the load done, so I phoned in about it and they took it off, and today I got a load I could actually do. Miracle of miracles.

One thing that is really disagreeable about Werner compared with Swift is that Werner doesn't tell you how much of a window you have for a pickup or delivery time, they just want you to do everything as fast as possible so you'll be available for the next load which might possibly exist when you're done with the one you're on. So you're always feeling pressured and rushed, even when there's no good reason for it; you might have a 24 hour window to drop the trailer and take out an empty, but they won't tell you that, generally. Sunday they were pressuring me about my getting a load to procter & gamble in Pineville Louisiana later than had been originally scheduled, and there was another load right out of there after I dropped off the one I brought to them, but P&G wasn't in nearly as big a hurry as Werner was, and the load wasn't ready until three hours after I got there. If I had been as early delivering the original load as they had wanted, I wouldn't have any hours left on my 14 per day to have moved that load at all.

Since then I've just been back and forth to and from P&G in Pineville. I feel like a local driver who just doesn't get to go home.

Anyway, I called about the family dollar account and they had an opening in the northeast so I asked to get headed back there, and asked for a little home time. At this point I can't really say whether this maneuver will save me any aggravation at all, but from what I gather the money you can realistically make is markedly better than what's at all likely over the road, about a thousand bucks a week. Home every weekend. I hope the way that it works is that I will have a set schedule from week to week that will allow me to know where and when I have to be at places, so I can know when I have to sleep or if I can otherwise chill. I don't KNOW that it's like that but it might be, and if it isn't it's still better money and home time. The dedicated drivers average 1900 miles a week so it's not like I won't ever be seening any place.

Anyway, I've been mostly in Louisiana since the weekend but these two photos happen to be from last evening in mississippi. Second time in a few days that my wanderings about have taken me past equine species who have been friendly enough to appoach and have their noses petted. The fellow in the photo below was the stallion of his herd and rather an attention whore who wouldn't let his mares come up to see me, which all of them did. I had a similar encounter with some horses up in Illinois a few days ago, but most of the horses were too shy to come up to me.

I could be out riding around Louisiana right now and I gues I might yet do a little bit of it, but it's bloody hot and muggy with thunderstormy clouds wandering about and that weather doesn't entirely agree with me. I'm also in a funk about dealing with werner. Hopefully the dedicated account will better agree with me.

Weird thing is that this is the second time I've decided to take on more work in the hopes of escaping from certain types of BS. I hope I can still remain a butterfly if I have made a decision that would more characterize an ox.




Couple of days ago I spontaneously coined the word "shituation" thinking it would be a singularly useful word, widely applicable in the trucking industry. Unfortunately later that evening I had a good use for it. These 120,000 dollar trucks use ridiculous tiny delicate keys. The first day I got my truck I bent the key in the door, so I immediately had the shop make me a duplicate. So two nights ago I broke the original key trying to unlock the truck but unfortunately the duplicate was inside the truck. So after 30 minutes on hold with Werner Breakdown the told me "try calling a locksmith." I guess regular truck mechanics don't do locks. So I borrowed the phone book and none of the locksmiths would answer and the one who answered wouldn't drive forty miles to help me but suggested calling their other branch 50 miles away maybe someone there would help me. So the truck stop staff gave me a number of a guy who had a tire service and he came out, tried unsuccessfully to open the door with a wire, and when he couldn't do it, he suggested calling the sherriff's office. The sherriffs wouldn't help but they gave me some phone numbers of other local locksmiths, and I was able to get one of them to come out, and he was able to get my door open.

So never coin a word that could be dangerous if applicable.

Love and kisses

JBL