Apparently I'm My Own Worst Critic...
Topic 33217 | Page 1
Great job Pianoman, I can't wait to start making .31 a mile at my new job ! LOL
So I still need to make a thread showing what I do but I'm lazy when I'm off work so I'll get to it eventually lol. Anyways, I've been working this job for a little over a year and I recently made a thread talking about how even now in our "busy" season we're not as busy as I would've expected and I complained to dispatch that I wanted more work. Literally later that week I saw my paycheck for the last pay period and realized I had been doing better than I thought. Well after that convo I've been helping out a different division doing the same thing but hauling for one of our oilfield customers and occasionally still doing loads for my regular dispatchers (it's been weird but I've been working with two different dispatch teams and half planning myself lol) and while it was great at first, I was again getting frustrated because there have been lots of days I'm only doing one load a day and ending my day with several hours still left on my clock. I haven't complained though and after doing some looking around I settled for the fact that I have a great job and unless I significantly change my lifestyle and go on the road I'm not going to do much better than where I'm at.
ANYWHO... to finally get to the point of this post... so far I've made it seem like I'm doing ok but not amazing right? That's how I felt. Until I looked at my YTD gross income so far this year and decided to figure out my average weekly gross income. I was shocked. Apparently I have averaged over $2k per week so far this year, which is great for the amount of work I do and the schedule I have and where I live. I fully expected my average to be around $1700 or so per week which still is pretty good. I'm well aware there are lots of people who make more than me so believe me, I'm not trying to brag. I was just very pleasantly surprised and realized that I tend ignore the good weeks where I've made alot and focused on the weeks where I didn't make as much. The other really nice thing is I have the best schedule and home life of any trucking job I've ever had. I have every Sunday and every other Saturday off (unless I choose to go in on one of my off Saturdays), we have great equipment, 100% employee benefits paid by the company, 401k, weekly guaranteed minimum pay, and most holidays off. It's pretty sweet.
Idk, I guess the grass isn't always greener on the other side lol
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.OWI:
Operating While Intoxicated
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.
That's the kind of surprise I can live with. I guess you thought you weren't doing as well as you actually are bc you've had more down time than expected.
I had a day last week that lasted a total of barely 3 hrs. I only drove 30 miles. Most of my time was spent waiting for my trailer to get loaded. Then it was a 2 mile trip to drop and hook at the consignee. That was it. I got a full day's pay for that. And I had 15 hrs before I had to pick up my next load. I felt totally unproductive.
Consignee:
The customer the freight is being delivered to. Also referred to as "the receiver". The shipper is the customer that is shipping the goods, the consignee is the customer receiving the goods.
Drop And Hook:
Drop and hook means the driver will drop one trailer and hook to another one.
In order to speed up the pickup and delivery process a driver may be instructed to drop their empty trailer and hook to one that is already loaded, or drop their loaded trailer and hook to one that is already empty. That way the driver will not have to wait for a trailer to be loaded or unloaded.
Apparently I have averaged over $2k per week so far this year
I remember when I used to do that.
So far this year, I'm around $10k less than this point last year.
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So I still need to make a thread showing what I do but I'm lazy when I'm off work so I'll get to it eventually lol. Anyways, I've been working this job for a little over a year and I recently made a thread talking about how even now in our "busy" season we're not as busy as I would've expected and I complained to dispatch that I wanted more work. Literally later that week I saw my paycheck for the last pay period and realized I had been doing better than I thought. Well after that convo I've been helping out a different division doing the same thing but hauling for one of our oilfield customers and occasionally still doing loads for my regular dispatchers (it's been weird but I've been working with two different dispatch teams and half planning myself lol) and while it was great at first, I was again getting frustrated because there have been lots of days I'm only doing one load a day and ending my day with several hours still left on my clock. I haven't complained though and after doing some looking around I settled for the fact that I have a great job and unless I significantly change my lifestyle and go on the road I'm not going to do much better than where I'm at.
ANYWHO... to finally get to the point of this post... so far I've made it seem like I'm doing ok but not amazing right? That's how I felt. Until I looked at my YTD gross income so far this year and decided to figure out my average weekly gross income. I was shocked. Apparently I have averaged over $2k per week so far this year, which is great for the amount of work I do and the schedule I have and where I live. I fully expected my average to be around $1700 or so per week which still is pretty good. I'm well aware there are lots of people who make more than me so believe me, I'm not trying to brag. I was just very pleasantly surprised and realized that I tend ignore the good weeks where I've made alot and focused on the weeks where I didn't make as much. The other really nice thing is I have the best schedule and home life of any trucking job I've ever had. I have every Sunday and every other Saturday off (unless I choose to go in on one of my off Saturdays), we have great equipment, 100% employee benefits paid by the company, 401k, weekly guaranteed minimum pay, and most holidays off. It's pretty sweet.
Idk, I guess the grass isn't always greener on the other side lol
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.OWI:
Operating While Intoxicated
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.