Staying OTR

Topic 14990 | Page 1

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Phoenix's Comment
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Before we began this journey, my husband and I discussed the rewards and ramifications with our daughter (17 this summer) and made certain we were all on board and all on the same page. However, about a week after we finished the school portion and went OTR with a trainer, our daughter was abandoned by the "responsible adult" staying in our home and a whole group of stresses began for our family.

We started looking into different options available to us within the company and decided to apply for a dedicated Wal-Mart account local to home. From the lane description and compensation details it looked like we'd get home for resets every week and make a few hundred dollars more.

Well, it's just about time to move into the dedicated account, so we've been communicating with a career counsellor to make arrangements and get our ducks in a row. But..

Things are settled now at home and since we've really been enjoying traveling the 48 states, we have been seriously considering staying OTR.. until this morning when our DM called.

DM: this recruiter keeps messaging me about you guys. Are you planning to move over to dedicated?

Daryl (my husband): Well, that was the plan but we're not so sure we want to anymore.

DM: That's really too bad because I'd like to keep you on the fleet. I really like you guys, you're awesome and I feel like we are starting to work well together - that we're beginning to be on the same page. Of course, if you do go to dedicated I'll support you, but I want you to stay on my team.

smile.gif Our decision was unanimous at that point. After hearing that from our DM, and hearing from the career counsellor/recruiter that OTR has more mileage potential than the dedicated account, 3cpm better pay, and we enjoy it so much, we messaged our DM and let him know he's stuck with us. We're staying over the road!

OTR:

Over The Road

OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.

Over The Road:

Over The Road

OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.

Dm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

CPM:

Cents Per Mile

Drivers are often paid by the mile and it's given in cents per mile, or cpm.

Big Scott's Comment
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Hope everything works out for your family. Best of luck in all things.

Phoenix's Comment
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Hope everything works out for your family. Best of luck in all things.

Hey thanks Scott!

Last Shadow's Comment
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Phoenix, if all the stars are in line go for it, I only wish I could do that now but we have young children at home, so mama has to stay home, but she really wishes that she could come OTR with me since I started driving OTR, best of luck to you guys, ....out

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Hope everything works out for your family. Best of luck in all things.

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Hey thanks Scott!

OTR:

Over The Road

OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.

Brett Aquila's Comment
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Hey, if you guys keep doing a great job those opportunities will always be there. You'll be able to move from division to division anytime you like.

For anyone new coming into the industry, this is only one of many reasons we encourage people to stick with their first company for a minimum of a year and hopefully well beyond. Once you've proven yourself to be safe, hard working, reliable drivers you will be given opportunities that most drivers won't get. You'll be given strong, steady miles, you'll get home on time, and you'll get special favors from time to time that most drivers wouldn't get.

Everyone comes into this industry thinking, "Oh, I'll just get on with one of these 'starter companies' for now and then move onto something better." But it's these 'starter companies' that have a huge variety of freight, beatiful equipment, great finances behind them, various divisions to choose from, and a long list of dedicated accounts that most people don't even know exist.

So before you consider jumping ship for an extra two or three cents per mile, remember you're going to have to start from the bottom and work your way up. You're going to have to find a dispatcher that you work well with and earn those top miles you were getting at the last company. And you're not going to have any leverage when it comes to landing a position in a dedicated account or getting special favors from time to time like extra days off or an upgrade to a newer truck.

Dispatcher:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.

OOS:

When a violation by either a driver or company is confirmed, an out-of-service order removes either the driver or the vehicle from the roadway until the violation is corrected.

G-Town's Comment
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Great job on the kudos from your DM. It takes a while to find the right groove when things start to fall into place. Happy for you both.

Dm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.
Phoenix's Comment
member avatar

Thank you, Last Shadow! Hang in there and perhaps in the future she'll be able to come with you. In the meantime, if your company has a rider policy maybe she could go along for a ride or ten. I remember riding along with my Dad when I was young...maybe that's how it got in my blood lol.

Thank you Brett!

Everyone comes into this industry thinking, "Oh, I'll just get on with one of these 'starter companies' for now and then move onto something better."

And we fell into this category at the beginning. The more I read here and the more we experience on the road, the more I wonder how long we'll stay with England. It's a pretty good company when I look at the big picture and I imagine most companies have communication issues and mix ups. C.R. England has been very good to us, we just need to be more patient when things don't go as planned and we get frustrated.

Thank you G-Town! I was hoping that was a kudo from our DM , cuz it really made me feel good... and actually made all the stresses out here kinda worth it! Amazing how that works lol! smile.gif

Dm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.
G-Town's Comment
member avatar

Thank you, Last Shadow! Hang in there and perhaps in the future she'll be able to come with you. In the meantime, if your company has a rider policy maybe she could go along for a ride or ten. I remember riding along with my Dad when I was young...maybe that's how it got in my blood lol.

Thank you Brett!

double-quotes-start.png

Everyone comes into this industry thinking, "Oh, I'll just get on with one of these 'starter companies' for now and then move onto something better."

double-quotes-end.png

And we fell into this category at the beginning. The more I read here and the more we experience on the road, the more I wonder how long we'll stay with England. It's a pretty good company when I look at the big picture and I imagine most companies have communication issues and mix ups. C.R. England has been very good to us, we just need to be more patient when things don't go as planned and we get frustrated.

Thank you G-Town! I was hoping that was a kudo from our DM , cuz it really made me feel good... and actually made all the stresses out here kinda worth it! Amazing how that works lol! smile.gif

Phoenix, There are some excellent nuggets of gold in your reply. It reinforces what we try to convey to everyone passing through this forum,...your first company (aka starter) might actually be a long-term employer, just give it a chance to work and not look to jump every time things don't go your way. Second the relationship with your DM is critical to success and happiness. Great post!

Dm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.
Brett Aquila's Comment
member avatar
C.R. England has been very good to us, we just need to be more patient when things don't go as planned and we get frustrated.

Often times new drivers will also blame the company for things that are really "just trucking" no matter where you go. For instance, you get assigned a load and you head over to the shipper to pick it up but the load either won't be ready for two more days or someone already picked it up.

Stupid trucking company, right? Not necessarily. Trucking companies get their information from the customers. Did the customer mix up the load numbers? Did they mark the wrong load as "picked up"? Most of the time you'll never know.

Or your company sends you to pick up a load that delivers the next day but you don't have the hours to do it. You tell them that but they tell you to pick it up anyhow.

Stupid trucking company, right? Not necessarily. Often times they will have you pick up a load and then relay it to someone else. The thing is, your company made a commitment to pick up that load by a certain date and time. So you can get there to pick it up for them and then they'll find you a driver to swap it with that has the hours available.

As employees, most of us have had jobs over the years that are pretty steady and predictable. You go in and make pizzas as the orders come in. You stock the shelves when they get empty. You place a few screws in a piece of machinery on a production line. Most jobs are pretty much the same most of the time. They're rather predictable.

Trucking is completely unpredictable. You're at the mercy of so many forces. You have customers on both ends trying to agree to schedules. You have an entire fleet of drivers that have to keep moving. You have a small army of office workers within these trucking companies that each have to handle a different piece of the puzzle for it to all come together.

There's a lot of confusion, mix ups, and flying by the seat of your pants in trucking. Schedules change, people get sick, trucks break down, special circumstances pop up, and mistakes happen. When you're new to the industry you don't have a solid understanding of the complexities going on all around you so it's usually your company that gets blamed for everything.

Over time you realize that a lot of the baloney you deal with is "just trucking". It may or may not be someone's fault, it may just be bad luck, but whatever the problem is it's just trucking and you let it slide off your back and move forward. No big deal.

smile.gif

Shipper:

The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.

Phoenix's Comment
member avatar

thank-you-2.gif When I told our DM this morning that what he said made everything worthwhile, his response was that we are doing very well and seem to have a positive attitude in a tough industry and that we are killing it.

I really needed to hear something along these lines as I was beginning to stress that we weren't doing well out here for a couple reasons. One: that loads aren't always on time (out of our control mostly but as rookies there are time/routing management tricks we will learn that will help); and two: we sit a LOT at shippers and receivers and aren't getting very many miles for the most part. Now I will just focus on getting better and better and becoming indispensable to our DM. smile.gif

Shipper:

The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.

Dm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.
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