Prime Inc. PSD Covid Edition

Just wondering if at the end of the day if lightweight reefer and flatbed are a big difference in pay or not.

Flatbed is now 48 CPM. as far as money in your pocket I ran 2,400 miles my first week of " real" flatbed loads. I had a lot of difficult securing on those loads and some long unloads. This last week I got 1,800 miles Thursday to Sunday. 2,100 including deadhead to hometime location. I'm on home time starting tomorrow. So while the CPM maybe less the miles are there to offest the rate. Plus tarp pay.

Got in touch with dispatch, signed me up for flatbed but there is about a dozen person wait for trainers on flatbed. Have a feeling dispatch didn't want to sign me up probably thinking I wasn't serious. He had to go to Steve Tassin to make the request so I probably should have reached out to him to begin with. Had I known there would be a wait I'd have made the call sooner. Oh well, live and learn.

Got in touch with dispatch, signed me up for flatbed but there is about a dozen person wait for trainers on flatbed. Have a feeling dispatch didn't want to sign me up probably thinking I wasn't serious. He had to go to Steve Tassin to make the request so I probably should have reached out to him to begin with. Had I known there would be a wait I'd have made the call sooner. Oh well, live and learn.

Fleet managers don't want to lose drivers.... They get paid by our miles. Especially if you are safe and good. Good luck and hang in there.

Interesting that they are paid on an incentive basis as well. My trainer made it sound like our FM didn't care at all if I changed divisions since I was going company anyways. There's a lot to the behind the scenes stuff I wish I had a guidebook for. The job itself isn't too bad other than the training or rather my trainer possibly. Teaming is pretty awful but the job itself and life on the road isn't really that big of a deal other than the boredom and crappy food choices, for me at least. Once I'm solo it won't be the worst job I've done by far.

My trainer finally gave up I think on me driving for him after tnt and pushing lease. He showed me his quickbooks breakdown but it was one of those, "Here are the numbers, but I'm going to scroll faster than you can read them. But you see how much I'm making!" He didn't offer to let me sit down and really analyze them. Then again his numbers are padded from training, and also having 1 driver beneath him leasing under his llc which I have no idea why someone would do that but I don't know what it entails. He was showing me payroll and he is bringing in 1900-2300 a week for 7-10 weeks at a time and then random lump sum payments of 7-8k a week. Didn't get clarification on that but by the way he moans on and on to people on the phone about selling personal items and covering tax liabilities each quarter, my BS meter stays pegged.

Not sure where the money goes with some of these people. Not trying to be judgemental but there is a weird duality I see. All these lease ops brag about taking home over 100k a year after all is said and done supposedly but then are broke and needed higher freight rates. All while supposedly living otr full time or never going home or having a family/kids/spouse. I'm not getting rich during tnt and won't being solo either but just seems strange to me. Even with 10 dollar happy meals at truck stops there isn't much of a place to spend money. With primes home time policy, I don't know why you'd pay for a place for housing and a personal vehicle if you're single like most of the people I've talked to. Just makes me wonder where it all goes. At least the area I grew up around, a company driver making ~1k a week net would be firmly middle class and not have much to worry about if they lived frugally but I suppose expenses scale with income for most people. For me personally I'd be pretty annoyed if I had a mansion and a Ferrari in the driveway but worked 24/7 for a month or two only to get to enjoy it a couple days then go back to work. Different people I suppose. I got really off topic there.

I don't know why anyone would go otr unless they enjoyed the lifestyle or were trying to go debt free and save money to pay off a house and living expenses and then get a local job. And of course the Volvo drivers trying to get citizenship in the us and bring their family over here.

Seems like a lot of people I've encountered are out here miserably shackled to materialism and debt and the only way to service it is to work their life away. I've met very, very few whole openly say they just love the lifestyle. Just some vicarious observations since we're once again sitting at a truck stop doing nothing lol. Also, since it is a diary I figured I would mention I've lost almost 20lbs since orientation about 3 months ago. I was about 205-208 starting out and just scaled in at 187 with clothes and shoes and all. I have a highly sensitive stomach so truck stop and fast food makes for rapid and rather energetic elimination of anything I eat lol. I'm also what you could call a fussy eater, I can only eat subway so many times in a week. Barring "training" and teaming and that nonsense, the food situation is the worst part of the job by far followed by the boredom in a distant second place.

As far as selection and getting food OTR , these trucks can go to the majority of WalMarts for shopping. Plenty of selection coast to coast.

I always have plenty to eat. I got one of those galanz microwave convection and air fry ovens. I eat steak chicken pork you make it plus you can make a cake on it ( haven’t tried yet) plus I have a crock pot and a little George Forman so I eat well and shop Walmart’s and some of the quick stops in Wisconsin are mini grocery stores. Cheese curds a plus lol.

As far as working for a lease operator it can be more money and bonuses and time off depending on what they want to offer and you can still be a company driver (from what I understand somebody correct me if I’m wrong on this) .

As far as selection and getting food OTR , these trucks can go to the majority of WalMarts for shopping. Plenty of selection coast to coast.

Yeah I'm sure it will get better for the food thing once I go solo but my trainers truck has 1 small cabinet for my stuff and no fridge or anything and he doesn't go to Walmart with his truck except for extremely rare circumstances. He's terrified of getting booted at Walmart or towed and also won't drop and lock trailers at truck stops or prime terminals to bobtail. He's pretty afraid of getting off anywhere but truck stops, customers, or prime terminals. Which leads me to another question too. He says that prime will withhold mileage payment if you route outside of qualcomm gps route. So say you take a wrong exit and don't turn around but it is only a 20-30 mile detour back to your route or there is a bad storm or traffic and you route yourself 50-100 miles around it. In this case prime would supposedly give you a hard time about getting your paycheck. I'm pretty certain this is a complete lie but figured someone here could answer that. I'm sure they don't want you wasting fuel and they won't pay you for anything more than dispatch miles but that seems not only illegal but extremely unlikely.

I'm new at this so my experience is pretty limited. But with my fleet manager I haven't heard one peep regarding my route. I generally follow my Garmin because the navigo likes to take me on longer routes. I have gone out of Route by 10 20 30 miles before and have never heard any comment from dispatch

Seeking some input here, I've kept quiet and not really been the sqeaky wheel to anyone other than requesting flatbed but an issue with my trainer is getting a bit out of hand. See, he uses **** jugs during his 10 hour breaks while I'm driving and since he urinates while in a moving truck there has been some spills. And I guess the last one was of a decent amount because the smell in the bottom bunk is so nauseating I've had about 4 hours sleep in the last 2 shifts. The mold from it is also really starting to smell. It's to the point where after laying back there for 5-6 hours my throat has been irritated to feeling like I've swallowed glass. I can't sleep on the top bunk from the movement but try to anyways. I've been reluctant to ask for a new trainer because the couple few I've met out here seem far nastier but I'm getting close to nodding off constantly during my shift. We were getting so much sitting time I could sleep on the top bunk sitting still and manage because the smell is far less up there.

Advice?

Ask for a new trainer immediately.