HOS For New People

Let's be clear about one thing. You don't get paid for what you produce. You get paid what the market dictates. If a company makes a shirt that will sell for $30, they aren't going to sell it for $18. If the cost to produce that shirt (labor, materials, etc.) is $8, they aren't going to spend $15. Similarly,if your company could find a comparable driver (safety record, on time performance,etc.) that worked for 60% of what you currently make....see ya!

You call that being clear about something? That was a confusing bunch of mumbo jumbo that didn't help clarify anything.

Let me take a shot at being clear about something.......you do get paid for what you produce in this business. The more freight you move the more money you make. It's really that simple.

For what it's worth, if the pay were equal, I'd rather be working in the elements than sitting behind a desk.

"Let me take a shot at being clear about something.......you do get paid for what you produce in this business. The more freight you move the more money you make. It's really that simple" - Brett Squilla

The subject of the post is how to get your side work as a flatbedder out of the way (not burning up your HOS) so that you can get to the part of the job that pays the "real" money. In this aspect the job is like being a server at a restaurant. Out of an 8 hour shift a server can spend as much as 2 hours doing side work like prepping table set ups,b bussing tables, prepping salad, etc. This work gets paid at the "tipped employee" minimum wage currently at $2.13/hr. Let's say that the other 6 hours spent actually waiting on tables comes out to $10/hr. So you say what's the big deal, you lost out on about $16 so that you could make $60. Well as someone who's been poor I'll tell you. $16 buys a pound of ground beef ,box of Hamburger Helper, cheap cereal and a gallon of milk! People have kids don't you know! Same reason we accept detentention pay,tarping pay,etc at a lower rate. You are not getting paid for your performance when it comes to side work.

Why? Because it's what the market (drivers) accept as the price for our services.

Thank you for all the replies. Yes I am still with Maverick and I believe they have treated me very well overall. Brett is right that my own stinking thinking is a problem I have been working through. The idea of putting down 15 min for no tarp and 20 min if tarp will solve the 70 hour problem. But it will create another problem as if I don’t get faster soon at this I may not be able to get proper rest either. I spent probably about 5 or 6 hours just getting loaded and securing a load of slinky’s in the pouring rain Friday. Simply because I was uncertain of what I had to do watched a video for 6 mins then did it. I was at a shipper that does not allow you on the trailer. This is my first load of slinky’s and I have 15 of them going to NC from CT. Once I got rolling it was rush hour through nyc. Got as far as bordentown NJ for a 34 now made it to emporia va today. I have been thinking maybe glass or reefer is a better fit but have to give flatbed a fair chance in my head. I have mixed feelings about the pay in general because I’m used to being paid for my time at work not just half or less of the time.it really is a change in mindset as well as lifestyle.

You are not getting paid for your performance when it comes to side work.

Yes you are, even if it isn't broken down that way. The side work is included as part of the job duties. They just don't break the pay down by every individual thing you do. They lump it all into mileage pay. The faster you get your work done and the less time you use of your 70 hour clock the more miles you're going to turn and the more money you're going to make.

Getting more work done in less time means making more money. Simple as that. You can try to overcomplicate it with unrelated examples or free market theories but that isn't helping.

I have mixed feelings about the pay in general because I’m used to being paid for my time at work not just half or less of the time.it really is a change in mindset as well as lifestyle.

You're 100% right, Kevin. It is a complete change in mindset and lifestyle. Forget about the time you're putting in and start focusing on how to save time and use your time more efficiently. Focus on miles, miles, miles. That's how you make your money now, and there's a lot of money to be made in flatbed. You'll get there. It takes time.

I think it's worth staying the course for a while with flatbed. Nothing is nearly as fun when you're new to it and you don't really know what you're doing. The better you get the more money you'll make and the more fun it becomes. When you get to the point that you know you can handle any challenge they throw at you as good as anyone out there it's a great, great feeling and it pays really well also.

I completely stand by what Patrick said:

You need to leave your hourly pay mindset behind or go back to a factory. We get paid for what we produce. If you can't discard the 40hr week paid by the hour mindset, you WILL ultimately fail at this. This is why I love this job. The slackers who like to sit there and suckle a clock get to starve. Those of us that are creative hard workers, we get paid.

I love that. He's dead on. Over the years I've watched so many drivers make themselves miserable because they couldn't evolve their thinking beyond that hourly mindset. They mumble and grumble and gripe their way through every day instead of focusing on increasing those paychecks any way they can.

I think one thing that screws people up is that old phrase, "Time is money." I hate that statement because it's not complete. Time isn't money or we'd all be billionaires. We all put in tons of time. There are a lot of wealthy people who put in the same amount of time as people living at poverty level. The difference is in how productive you are with your time. The phrase should be:

Time spent productively is money

That's what it's all about. How much value can you produce in a given amount of time. In our case the value we're producing is in moving freight. Everything you focus on needs to revolve around moving more freight. Obviously there is more to moving freight than just driving. There's a lot of other things that need to get done in order to make that happen.

Not only that, but one big way of making more money is learning to get appointment times moved ahead so you can get loaded and unloaded ahead of schedule. That's a huge money-maker in this industry. It isn't always possible, but shoot for that every time. Sometimes it's going to happen. Moving an appointment ahead even a few hours may ultimately lead to an entire extra day of running that week. Add that up over time and you can make $5,000 - $10,000 extra each year just by getting some of your appointment times moved earlier.

Everything you can do to turn more miles will mean more money in your pocket. Keep your focus on making yourself more productive. Your paychecks will grow as your productivity increases.

I'll say this man. you just started what a month, two months ago? it takes time to become efficient doing this job. It wasn't until I was well over 6 months before I started to "get it". In my opinion, it takes about 3 times doing a type of load like slinkys or anything else to understand how to get it done efficiently. I'd say just hang in there and don't give up. Once you get your big pay bump at 6 months you'll be making better money too.

"Take the bad with the good."

That's really what it comes down to.

At Prime, flatbed CPM rates include securement. That's why we get paid more cpm than the reefers, to account for the extra work involved. Sure, securing a load may sometimes take a couple of hours. But on the flip side, sometimes you can secure a load in 5 minutes. You don't get paid any extra for the hard job, but you don't get paid any less for the gravy job.

We do get paid for tarping, usually between $50-$100 per load, plus extra for multi tarping such as on a multi stop. Once again, some loads might take an hour or so to get tarped. On some others, you'll make $50 or more for 10 minutes of work. A lot of shippers even throw the tarps on for you, but you still get paid.

Granted, I'm not a big fan of tarping either, especially when I have to tarp an odd shaped, sharp-edged, monstrosity piece of equipment or something. Give me a shingle load however, and I'll throw two tarps in 15 minutes and walk away with $75 any day.

Take the bad with the good. In the big picture, it's such a small part of the job that it's practically irrelevant. Truth be told, even if they didn't pay for tarping I would still do this. But don't tell them that haha!

As you gain more experience, you will develop your own tricks and tools to become more efficient.

This is my first load of slinky’s and I have 15 of them going to NC from CT

Nucor in Wallingford, CT. I've been there many many times myself. In fact, I'll probably be going there to pick up after I unload here in Long Island.

Trust me when I say you'll get better at it. I can usually secure and tarp a load of slinkies in less than 60 minutes now that I've had some practice at it.

Also, next time you leave there, forget the company routing that brings you down 91,95 and through NYC. Go north from Nucor up to 691, 84, 87, 287 and down that way. It only adds a few more miles, but save you hours. I even come in from that way sometimes, depending on the time of day. The 95 Corridor through CT is nothing to play with, in my opinion.

The learning curve in flat-bed is felt exponentially. I agree with CT. You've barely gotten started. Make that first year a goal. Things will be entirely different at that point.

Brett's statements on time spent productively are also just the medicine needed in this conversation. We do get paid for tarp pay. I remember as a rookie thinking this is not enough money for what we're doing. At this point in my career that tarp pay seems fair. The difference is now I can get it done productively so that the dollar amount comes out about the same as the amount of pay I'm getting while turning miles in my truck.

These are all very common problems that rookies face. Where we mess ourselves up is when we let these "rookie issues" take on the over rated idea that they are "trucking issues." That is when we take our eyes off the prize and start focusing on how bad the trucking industry is. We all know how that results. We've more than ample online statements from the disgruntled quitters who let themselves go down that path.

Heres the flip side to this...i manage my clock well and am as available for a load as possible. But...there are days im am more tired. Days i need to relax and do laundry. Therefore i ask for a 34, or perhaps only one day. "Please make.me unavailable until noon tomorrow". This does not count as hometime, and at the same time, my clock is saved to run again when i want.

Last week my trainee needed a recharge. we got into the terminal Friday morning, and left Monday morning. We still ran over 4300 miles and felt great going out with a full 70.

Some telling me they only ran 2000 miles but has no time left on his clock tells me he stays on duty all the time. Thid will lead dispatch to trust him less and give him shorter loads...which in my opinion is much more tiring. if you dont have the available hours for a 1300 mile load, you wont get one. Therefore you will be stuck with less tha 500s and get little sleep while at customers twice a day.

Experience will greatly reduce your load and unload time, which does effect your pay but don't let that frustrate you because you will become more efficient, making you faster and less tired. As far as the comment made about never doing flatbed because there's no money blah blah blah, I could bring that individual out with me for a day and prove them wrong lol.