Location:
Huntington, TX
Driving Status:
Experienced Driver
Social Link:
Old School On The Web
No Bio Information Was Filled Out. Must be a secret.
Posted: 1 week, 2 days ago
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Excellent work Kearsey - Congratulations!
Posted: 1 week, 3 days ago
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5 months in, wondering if trucking is still for me or not.
If you are really paying attention here, you will notice both of those issues were resolved with effective communications. That is key for success in trucking. I learned how my DM needed me to communicate, and how important it was for them to be able to trust my ETAs and PTAs. I had to be on top of my game for all of this to work. As long as I did things in a manner that was effective, I was kept moving and making money. Do you see where this is going? I was responsible for my results. It didn't make much difference who had their name on my truck doors. I made good money at Western, but it was because I figured out how to make it work. My poor income at first never was because the company sucked. I had to figure out how trucking worked. Once I did that, it was all gravy.
You've had two jobs already in five months. You are still struggling. It is untenable for you to be sitting idle as long as you have while waiting on a truck part. But it's a rookie thing. Any experienced driver would have simply insisted on moving into another truck so he could keep working. A rookie is going to lay the blame on the company. I understand that, but you have got to figure this stuff out and move forward. You made this statement...
I truthfully am not much of a trucker at heart, never had been, but I'm smart and I work hard.
If that is true, then it shows you need to put some heart into it. Or it might show that you aren't as smart as you thought. That's not me trying to be mean or snarky, or anything like that. Please take my advice and put your brain into this. LEARN how trucking works. LEARN how you can make a huge difference in your pay by just understanding how things work. LEARN how to cooperate and communicate with dispatch in a meaningful effective way. It's all in your power to do. I promise there is a lot of help for you in the recent book I wrote. I'm taking the risk of sounding like I'm just here to promote something, but I honestly want to help people figure out trucking. That's why I spend so much time here in this forum, and why I bothered to write a book that will only appeal to a very small market of people.
There is not a reason in the world you can't figure out how to accomplish your goals by trucking. You just got off to a bad start. You first thought you had a bad company, now you think you got a bad job. Start afresh with a regular OTR job, and take to heart the things you have got to change so that you can succeed at this. I know you can do it, and I hope we get to hear your success story some day soon.
Posted: 1 week, 3 days ago
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5 months in, wondering if trucking is still for me or not.
Hello Ray!
You are obviously struggling and wanting help. I hope I can give a little. My Book covers so many things that rookie drivers struggle with. When I read your post, my heart just went out to you. I recognized so many of the things I struggled with at first. Trucking is hard to understand at first. It is a relatively simple career to succeed at, but most of the information available to us as new drivers is worthless and self destructive to our careers.
You really got my attention when you said...
Western sucked hard.
Any driver who is struggling at trucking could say the same thing about whatever trucking company they were working for. I teach new drivers to look at their paychecks and learn something from them. If all we learn from our lousy pay is that the company we work for sucks, then we are missing out on a great opportunity to learn how to make it in the trucking career. When we are getting really low pay in trucking, it should point us in a direction that causes us to learn how to take steps to increase our pay. We are responsible for that dollar amount on our paychecks.
Please, hear me out. I too started my career at Western Express. I too could have agreed with about 95% of the other drivers I came in contact with at Western - this place is really bad. I refused to do that. I knew I had nothing to compare it too, and I knew I was so green that I didn't even know what I didn't know.
Here's what I did... I determined I was going to figure out how to make it work. Every time I ran into a problem, I started trying to come up with my own solution. It was always hard getting hold of my dispatcher while at Western. They each had a lot of drivers they were overseeing, and they didn't have time for needy drivers who were always calling in for help. That was my first decision. I decided I was going to come up with my own solutions and live with the consequences. I started paying close attention to things. When something didn't work right, I tried to come up with more effective ways of doing things.
Here's a couple of examples of problems I overcame.
I noticed any time I called in for my dispatcher, I would get put on hold for extremely long wait times. Once I was at the office and realized how many phone calls they are handling. It was impossible for them to handle the volume of calls. I watched a dispatcher handle about ten or twelve requests sent to him on the qualcomm while he was handling one phone call. He was multi-tasking like crazy, but the phone call was taking up a lot of his time. Bingo! I quit trying to call and talk to my dispatcher. Electronic messaging was way more efficient at getting something resolved in a timely manner.
Another issue was waiting for a load. I noticed when I emptied out in the afternoon, I would always have to wait until the next day to get a load. This was usually anything like eleven o'clock in the morning or later. I would send in my empty call, and I would get no response. I'd have to park and wait until the next day. That is very inefficient, and it kept my pay really low. So, What could I do? I started planning my trips so I could get empty first thing in the morning. That always worked well. It actually accomplished two objectives, although I was only focused on the one.
Being empty early got my driver manager's attention early in the day, before he was neck deep in problems he was struggling to resolve for his drivers. That way he was able to locate a load and assign it to me. Now, the more important thing it did was get him accustomed to the way I did things. He began to realize I was always going to be empty first thing in the morning, and he could trust my PTAs I was sending him. He regularly had loads for me after I began operating in a manner that worked well with their system and way of doing things. You cannot go into trucking as a Maverick and expect the whole system to bow to your way of doing things. That never works. You have to figure out how it works and then fit yourself into the program. That does not mean you are a brown nosing weakling. It means you are smart enough to get it, and you like the way it works when you get it right.
Continued...
Posted: 2 weeks, 5 days ago
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Gov’t task force report on lease purchase
It's crazy we need a government task force to figure this out. I looked into this practice myself once. It didn't take long to see this is a game played by the corporation. It's the old stick and carrot lure.
I spent an entire chapter in my book exposing how the drivers who choose this path are getting short changed. There's no extra money for you to get by leasing. Even the ones who think they are doing well usually end up having an unexpected wake up call. Something goes wrong and they find out they are financially responsible for it.
It's a business with very tight margins. The way to make money is to be on the payroll outperforming the other drivers.
Posted: 3 weeks ago
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New article: Fight Over Truck Broker Contracts Awaits Trump's Next Move
The brokers have really been up to some shady business lately. I did a 3rd party backhaul a few years ago where the customer refused the load. Then I started getting phone calls from two different brokers wanting their money. It turned out it was actually a 4th party load.
The load was double brokered with 2 middle men cutting in on the money. We had no clue until there was a problem. There are oftentimes people willing to do a backhaul load cheap just to get their drivers where they need them. The brokers are aware of all this and take advantage of it without much concern for the effect it has on anyone else down the line.
Posted: 3 weeks, 1 day ago
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Congratulations Paul!
Yeah, I'd say if you have an offer, go with it. Try your best to stick with that first company for one full year. You will learn so much during that first year, and that kind of commitment will really help you get established in this industry.
Keep us informed how things are going for you. We can always help if you're struggling, and we really enjoy hearing about your progress.
Posted: 3 weeks, 4 days ago
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California Abandons Regulations Phasing Out Diesel Trucks
Well, that didn’t take long!
Trump hasn't even moved any documents from Mara Lago back to the oval office yet, and we have Hamas agreeing to release hostages, and California giving up it's imperical moral authority over the rest of the nation.
I guess Californians decided they'd like to keep shipping out produce, and enjoy having goods available to them when needed.
That's the first practical decision I've seen from them in decades.
Posted: 1 month ago
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Is Everyone safe? Winter Mess!
I'm back in Illinois tonight. There's still a lot of ice and snow at the truck stops. Thankfully, the roads are good.
Posted: 1 month ago
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Is Everyone safe? Winter Mess!
I will be in Delhi, LA tonight. I'm picking up my next load with stops in
Posted: 2 days, 17 hours ago
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P&D at 63?
Steve, I think you're just the kind of guy who could handle it. You're in decent shape, you've got a great attitude, and you probably know your limits.
I had a P&D driver who picked up freight from my sign business almost weekly. He worked until he was 67. We would hear him groan on occasion, but only because his body was starting to let him know it was wearing down.
To be honest, most of the time we loaded the freight, and I think that's common at most stops. It's not "no touch freight," but you won't touch it as much as you think.