OK, What Do You Make Of This

Sorry, this another in my paranoia series, but I'm wondering what people think about this: I had a crappy week last week, paycheck-wise, the worst since I started (some of the details are in the thread about the overweight load). Now this week, I started this morning with a load that's barely 300 miles, then tomorrow I have an appt for a live load at 10:30 although the "Ready" field says 0800 today (what does "Ready" mean, anyway?), and then I'm driving 240 miles and dropping that loaded trailer at a DC that's open 24/7, except that my appt window says I can't drop it until 1700. Has anyone ever heard of that? It seems designed to make the 240 miles take my whole day. Then I have a load back toward home, but then it'll be Friday morning and I'll bet I'm not going far after that, which will make it another crappy week. I know you guys keep telling me I'm paranoid, but I wonder if I've gotten on my manager's bad side. If things keep up like this I don't think it'll be worth sticking with this job, so it's got me kind of anxious.

First.. breathe. Holiday weeks can suck for freight and it might depend where in the country you are at the time.

Second. . Do you call the customers to ask if you can load unload or drop early? I do it all the time. If you read the "prime reefer" thread you will see some of my tips for getting more miles and being available more. I've showed up days early for a load and gotten loaded. As far as live loads.. I'd say 90% of mine are live loads and unload so that is not unusual.

Appt times for drops can be to insure there are empty trailers for you to take.. or making sure the lot is not full.

Everything Rainy said. And don't always rely in what dispatch says about drops. Call the customer. Or just go there and see if they'll take it, especially if it's a drop.

I had a Walmart drop a couple weeks ago and my dispatcher said I couldn't drop it more than an hour early. I went straight there and they took it about 10 hours early. Since Swift had a mini-terminal in the Walmart DC lot, I got to take a 10 hr break there too. You never know unless you either ask the customer or go there physically.

Thanks Rainy and Paul. I hope you guys are right. It's just strange, I've never seen an appointment window for a drop before (of course I've never been to this DC before, it's Dollar Tree in Berwick PA). And I'm definitely showing up early for my load appointment, and driving straight to the receiver (and I'll just sit if I have to). Unfortunately it's not a matter of getting more hours because I already have my next assignment after that, I just don't like wasted hours. I'm in a "home every week" position so I use as much of my 70 as I can then take a weekend reset, so I'm not used to sitting any length of time.

Thanks, I feel better knowing that none of that sounds strange to you guys.

...it's not a matter of getting more miles, I meant.

Paul found out the easy way: just go in to drop it. The guard will either give you drop instructions or tell you to come back for your appointment.

For most trailer drops like Walmart you can mostly just go in, drop, and grab an empty.

If you have a live load/ unload, take care. Some are sticky about appointment times, others you line up and it's first come, first served. Once you know your customers you'll know what to do.

Yeah, I wish I had made a couple phone calls today and found out what was up. And actually it *could* have meant more miles this week because the next assignment has nothing stopping it from being done early, so I might have been able to finish everything earlier. Thanks for the tips, that's what I'll do next time for sure.

Kurt you said that a load is getting you by home, are you going on sometime? I have always found that when I go home my miles take a hit because, my DM is trying to get me home. As for an appointment for a drop I used to get them all the time when I ran reefer for Swift. Depending on the receiver we could not drop more then 12 hours early some places allowed us to drop 24 hours early but not many.

Kurt you said that a load is getting you by home, are you going on sometime? I have always found that when I go home my miles take a hit because, my DM is trying to get me home. As for an appointment for a drop I used to get them all the time when I ran reefer for Swift. Depending on the receiver we could not drop more then 12 hours early some places allowed us to drop 24 hours early but not many.

Well yeah, I'm on "home every week" and that does limit the miles I get per week to only like 2000-2200 or so. My concern this week is that I have a load that gets me near home on Thursday night, and my home time begins Saturday afternoon, so they may not send me out of the area again this week. The assignments I have add up to about 1000 miles, so that's going to make this week suck. It is a short week because I started this morning instead of Mon morning, but I've done that in the past and they still managed to get me normal miles for the week. I have trouble buying the "freight is slow" thing because again it's never affected me before.

I can see having a drop appointment for a reefer. But maybe it's like Rainy said, maybe they just don't want too many trailers there at one time so they don't want it dropped before they're ready. I'll find out tomorrow, I'm going to ask when I get there.

2 days could be another 600 to 800 miles. I know when it's time for my home time they might get me in the area a few days early but then I go and make pickups and relay the loads off.