How Do You Deal With The Corporate Bs Long Term?

I was raised by a step dad from 18 months old on. He was old school, and he rode my azz harder than my 4 siblings he had with my mom. I hated him with a passion, we were like oil & water.

He joined the army at 15, to go to Korea, asked him ONCE, what he did over there? Being a man of few words just said "I don't wanna talk about it!" I NEVER asked him again.

For years, he told me "you're never to old to get your azz beat" I'd laugh and tell him, "Anytime you're feelin' froggy old man, JUMP! , I ain't 15 no mo' and I'm bigger than you are now!.....(we had a fight in Mexico, when I was 15 lol)

@ 19 he told me "I broke your plate!" huhhh? Meant I had to get outta his house and grow up! Best thing he did....I actually, respected him once I hit 19-20, he was tough on me for a reason, and I feel he made me the man I am today. To always stand your ground, especially, if you're in the right. I tend to say what I think at the moment, and could care less, if it offends whoever's there, blunt & to the point @ hand.

he was tough on me for a reason, and I feel he made me the man I am today. To always stand your ground, especially, if you're in the right. I tend to say what I think at the moment, and could care less, if it offends whoever's there, blunt & to the point @ hand.

Stevo, you just made my day. Hell, you just restored my faith in humanity.

I haven't stopped thinking about this conversation for a minute all day. The world today is surreal to me. Everything that matters in life is upside down. Many people no longer value honesty, integrity, pride, grit, resilience, toughness, or character. I can't stand it.

I have no interest in playing along with the new rules in our society. If someone wants to know how I might feel about something, ask yourself what Clint Eastwood or Sylvester Stallone might have said in their movies. And if you don't like that answer, go cry to your mom about it. Maybe she'll care.

I'm actually the nicest guy you'll ever meet 99% of the time, but wokeness or weakness is not something I'll tolerate because I know the dangers of it. You can't trust weak, soft men. They're too easily corrupted.

I also don't take unfounded mocking too well, as you might expect. Banks ****ed me off by calling my ideas silly and stupid, but if you put 30 years into understanding something and you know what you're talking about, shouldn't that **** you off? What am I supposed to say, "Please, Banks, tell me you like me!!!"

I love Banks. That dude just says it like it is. Yeah, I had to give him hell after he mocked my outstanding analysis, but he understands that, and he's planning his reply right now. He's gonna make me look like a tyrant, but I'm alright with that. I gave him hell; he'll give it back again. That's alright by me.

Thanks again, Stevo. I got your message, and I appreciate it.

I see Rob. T got s***t canned for his opinion. So I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut on this one. Still enjoy interacting on here when I have time. Can’t say I agree with it though.

I thought he contributed well on this forum.

I see Rob. T got s***t canned for his opinion. So I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut on this one. Still enjoy interacting on here when I have time. Can’t say I agree with it though.

I thought he contributed well on this forum.

Bird-One, I’m not sure he was s**T canned. Sounded to me like he resigned of his own volition. But no matter what, I also valued his comments. He taught me a lot and was super knowledgeable. I hope he will reconsider and remain on the forum. Him leaving is a big loss for us all.

Brett, I like you man and have a lot of respect for you. You built this awesome website and continue to provide information and tools to succeed for tons of people who may be interested in trucking. I'm certain you worked your ass off on everything you've got on here.

That said, you sound ridiculous in this thread. Banks called your opinion/analysis stupid and you proceeded to give a laundry list of "accomplishments" (I'm sorry man, but your accomplishments are the things you've done, not the things you've qualified for as a teenager. not sure why you picked some random stuff from high school instead of actual accomplishments like building a successful website and I'm sure a host of other things) and then call him a "simple-minded fool who can't understand 3rd-grade concepts" and said:

In other words, I had more accomplishments as a pimply-faced kid in high school than you'll have in your entire lifetime.

I mean **** dude I get you're irritated but people are reacting the way they are because you guys were sparring and then you decided to punch him directly in the throat. Not to mention, people look up to you. You literally own and run this website and forum. So please spare us the bs of how none of us are real men and be a real man yourself and admit maybe you went a little too far instead of doubling down and acting like everyone else is just way too sensitive. You may not agree but it's pretty obvious you just lost your cool, no big deal.

And I for one would love to get back to the topic at hand. I've been meaning to respond to this thing all week and haven't had time.

I see Rob. T got s***t canned for his opinion. So I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut on this one. Still enjoy interacting on here when I have time. Can’t say I agree with it though.

I thought he contributed well on this forum.

No, he quit. I haven't canned anyone.

be a real man yourself and admit maybe you went a little too far instead of doubling down and acting like everyone else is just way too sensitive. You may not agree but it's pretty obvious you just lost your cool, no big deal.

I went too far, and not just a little. It pissed me off when he called my thoughts silly and stupid, so I let him have it. Then, I continued with my thoughts, which proved to be valuable.

I may be a relic from the old world, but I've always taken the same approach throughout my life. I give back 10 times what you give me. If you're kind and respectful, I'm the kindest and most respectful dude you'll find anywhere. If you come at me, I'm coming back ten times harder. I will return overwhelming fire. If you don't like that, stick with being kind and respectful, and you'll have no problems with me.

Banks and I talked it out for a long time and covered a wide variety of topics with no problems over the past few months. This one time he slipped and took a couple of shots at me, and I hit back hard like I always do. Now, I'm happy to continue this discussion, preferably in a respectful way.

You guys always know what you'll get with me. You'll get valuable insights into all aspects of this industry, with thorough explanations backed by a long list of facts. I tell it like it is, with no sugarcoating, and always with actionable ways of handling anything.

I have 30 years in this industry and a lifetime of experiences that allow me to give people a much better understanding of how things work, on a deeper level than most people would take it.

I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to help people. I love it. I've run this website for 17 1/2 years, dedicating 1/3 of my entire life to this project, and helped millions of people over the years. I'm immensely proud of that.

I've given this community everything I've built over the years for free - every last bit of it. The only thing I've ever asked for in return is to be treated with respect. I've never asked for anything else.

Now on the topic of pay for OTR and regional drivers, I mentioned that trucking companies can only afford to pay their drivers a certain percentage of the revenues. Well, if they pay by the mile, that's a pretty simple calculation. They know what their average revenue is per mile, so they give the driver a percentage of that.

For instance, if the company averages $2 per mile in revenues and they want to pay their drivers 16% of revenues:

2.00 x .16 = .32

So they would pay 32 cents per mile. Simple.

Now, some of you want your pay broken down by the duties you perform, instead of being paid by the mile. You want to be paid for each thing you do:

• fueling
• detention time
• layovers
• breakdowns
• driving time
• paperwork
• loading or unloading
• tarps, chains, straps
• pre-trip inspections

Here's the challenge. You're the new person in charge of driver pay at ABC Company, which has 350 trucks. They want to pay their drivers about 16% of revenues, but they want every duty broken out individually. The above list of duties must all be assigned a value.

Your job is to decide how to pay our drivers for each duty. You can do it anyway you like. You can pay hourly for a duty, or just a straight amount. For instance, the pre-trip inspection can pay $25 per hour for as long as it takes, or you can pay $10 for each pre-trip inspection. Your choice how to handle it.

Come up with a payscale that's fair and that keeps each driver's pay very close to 16% of revenues. To help out, here is the weekly timesheets for three OTR drivers pulling a dry van:

Driver 1: John

• Revenue to truck: $4200
• Target pay (16%): $672
• 2100 miles (35 hours) drive time
• 5 pre-trip inspections - 2.5 hours
• 4 times fueling - 1 hour
• 17 hours detention time
• 14 hours layover
• 8 hours breakdown
• 5 hours paperwork
• 5 pickups
• 5 deliveries
• 3 times strapping cargo (1 hour)

Driver 2: Sarah

• Revenue to truck: $5800
• Target pay (16%): $928
• 2900 miles (35 hours) drive time
• 6 pre-trip inspections - 5 hours
• 5 times fueling - 1.5 hours
• 8 hours detention time
• 6 hours layover
• 12 hours breakdown
• 8 hours paperwork
• 3 pickups
• 3 deliveries
• 2 times strapping cargo (1 hour)

Driver 3: Michael

• Revenue to truck: $6800
• Target pay (16%): $1,088
• 3400 miles (35 hours) drive time
• 6 pre-trip inspections - 2 hours
• 6 times fueling - 3 hours
• 3 hours detention time
• 0 hours layover
• 0 hours breakdown
• 3 hours paperwork
• 2 pickups
• 2 deliveries
• 1 time strapping cargo (30 minutes)

So how would you break it down so that all drivers earn very close to 16% of revenues, and their pay is fair compared with all other drivers?

Without even digging into the math, you can probably see just how hard this will be. People report a variety of time spent with layovers, breakdowns, detention time, and more.

Not only that, but keep in mind that paying people hourly for certain tasks means they will milk the clock. How will you deal with that? What do you say to the guy who sits for hours at the customers pretending he's waiting to load or unload? You know he's milking the clock. Are you gonna call every customer to find out exactly how long it took your 350 trucks to load or unload daily? Are you going to accuse your drivers of milking the clock? How will they react to that, even when you're right?

Once you implement this system, you will find that drivers on average turn far less miles than they did before, but they're turning in huge amounts of time for detention time, and "suddenly" half the trucks in the fleet break down regularly. Wow, imagine that.

Paying by the mile incentivizes drivers to turn as many miles as possible, which is what everyone wants. Paying an hourly wage creates a reverse incentive where drivers will look for ways to make money sitting around doing nothing instead of driving.

So your fleet will turn far fewer miles on average than they did when paid by the mile, and your company will pay out way more money for accessory pay than ever before. How will you handle that?

There's a lot to consider.

Davy I know I'm a little late to the party on this one but I've been thinking about it all week and following it. I wish I could come up with a really great reply but I just don't have one. I think the particular things you've mentioned in your post are fairly consistent from carrier to carrier like others have brought up. Sure, it's easy to find carriers that pay hub or practical miles but the trade off (unless it's just a great paying job) is that the mileage pay is usually lower at those places. In the end the pay is the same. I know from talking to you personally that HHG and paying the shortest route are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to your current frustrations with Knight and that plays into this whole thing as well.

It sounds like you may have already found a solution by just going back to your previous DM but if you didn't I think you need to just figure out exactly what you want. Personally, I've enjoyed several perks working for smaller large carriers (like 2-300 trucks instead of several thousand trucks) -- things like faster trucks (sometimes), no fuel routing and fuel solutions, less restrictive idle policies, less "safety" equipment in the trucks, more reasonable safety directors and policies, more flexibility in general, and other perks. I've also been paid hub miles and practical miles at multiple carriers, since that's something you specifically brought up. That's just my experience. If you worked for the same companies I've worked for you might have a totally different experience and for what it's worth I encountered angry disgruntled employees at almost every company I've worked for. I think a whole lot of it just comes down to what you want. Once I left my first and only mega (Swift), I got so spoiled working for other carriers I never want to go back to a mega again. Nothing really against Swift and I appreciate them for giving me a great start to this career, but I most likely wouldn't enjoy my job nearly as much if I were to go back to them.

I do think, just knowing your situation from talking to you personally, part of why you're so frustrated right now is that you're trying to get a result from Knight right now that they just will not give you because it's simply not part of their business model. You want 3000-3500 miles a week when they simply can't provide that consistently to most of their drivers. They could certainly keep you running if they really wanted to but they seem like they just want to "spread the wealth" per se. It's probably easier to just keep everyone doing 2000-2500 miles a week instead of having a few guys running 3500 miles a week and everyone else doing 1500-2000. You know this about them so part of your solution has been to charge detention and layover for everything you possibly can. It's a great idea and it's worked reasonably well so far but from what you've told me a lot of that pay isn't strictly provided for by the company's pay policies. They've been tightening down on extra expenses and that includes your extra pay. I think you're barking up the wrong tree if you want Knight to just give you the miles you want or pay buttloads of detention and layover. Neither are really going to be an option for long as long as we're in this recession.

Again, obviously there's more going on than just some basic gripes about HHG miles and such but I think either way, until you figure out what exactly you want from your carrier and this industry in general you're going to have a hard time enjoying any carrier for long. Maybe just start with 2-3 things you want and if you can't have them at your carrier find a carrier who can provide those things for you. And if it's just a gripe you have about the industry in general, you're probably best off just trying to focus on the things you enjoy in this career and trying to find a more productive means of fighting the problems in trucking, one that won't involve you coming to hate your job. This is still a decent career and one that most of us still find enjoyable. Don't let these frustrations rob you of everything you enjoy about it.

I went too far, and not just a little. It ****ed me off when he called my thoughts silly and stupid, so I let him have it. Then, I continued with my thoughts, which proved to be valuable.

It happens. I just did a similar thing with my best friend this week over something relatively small and it just blew up. He lied to my face about something in an effort to make me feel better about it and it just really stung my pride that he thought I was so dumb I wouldn't know he was lying and so naive that I needed him to protect my feelings. I think I'm quite a bit smarter than he is and I made sure he knew it. I was right that he shouldn't have lied to me and his dishonesty hurt the friendship. I could have rightfully ended the friendship completely just because he lied to me but when I got over myself I realized most of my anger didn't even stem from the mistrust he created but more from my pride being hurt.

Here's the challenge. You're the new person in charge of driver pay at ABC Company, which has 350 trucks. They want to pay their drivers about 16% of revenues, but they want every duty broken out individually. The above list of duties must all be assigned a value.

Your job is to decide how to pay our drivers for each duty. You can do it anyway you like. You can pay hourly for a duty, or just a straight amount. For instance, the pre-trip inspection can pay $25 per hour for as long as it takes, or you can pay $10 for each pre-trip inspection. Your choice how to handle it.

Come up with a payscale that's fair and that keeps each driver's pay very close to 16% of revenues. To help out, here is the weekly timesheets for three OTR drivers pulling a dry van:

This is, to the tee, EXACTLY how my last company approached pay. They offered me two different pay options from the get-go. One was 60 cpm flat rate paid out as HHG miles. The other was 50 cpm plus $20 for every stop including first and last. There were some extras like tarp pay, fuel bonus, detention and layover and breakdown. I don't remember how those all worked out. I took the second option knowing they would end up coming out about the same time. Turned out the job just sucked in general. Lots of overweight and overlength loads, border crossings, and crappy loads like crushed cars and scrap metal made up the majority of my loads. They didn't pay extra for any of these things and my average length of haul was easily under 1000 miles so I was often loading and unloading every single day. I went to them and asked for more pay and the owner offered to restructure my pay any way I wanted. Apparently there was only one other driver in the company turning more miles than I was. Unfortunately they were willing to do just about anything other than straight up offer me more pay. I stayed a few more weeks and then left. Before I left I tried one more time to negotiate for higher pay and they told me they just couldn't do it but the payroll guy told me with all bonuses and everything I was averaging about 59 cpm on all miles driven.

Where I work now I make 59 cpm plus a couple extras here and there but in the end I'm making a few hundred dollars or so extra each week. Has nothing to do with the pay and everything to do with the fact that I'm just set up better at this company to run way more miles. I don't think I've pulled a load under 1000 miles at this company and I'd guess about 90 percent of my loads are over 2000 miles and I've gotten quite a few 2800-3000 mile loads. As an added bonus, no pun intended, they pay extra for oversize and overweight loads and Canada crossings.

On the business side of the equation regardless of carrier size shorter loads pay better in the end. More work for a driver yes indeed.

Generally the longer the run the less per mile it will pay the company. The shorter the run the more per mile it will pay. Just the way it is.

Another variable is the freight lane. They do not all pay the same and they can change weekly.

Overdimensional should pay more just like hazmat should pay more. That will depend on the company/customer relationships. I have hauled non haz mat stuff that paid better than some haz mat loads just because of the company/customer relationship.

Drivers always want more miles and companies want the loads that will make them the most profit.

One common thing I have seen many times with lease operators is they look at loads for the dollar amount it is offered at. They look for the bigger numbers instead of looking at what the load is paying per mile, what lane they will be in when empty. I have always looked at the total cost of doing the load and ability to reload quickly.

Some folks can not see the forrest for the trees sometimes.