How Do You Deal With The Corporate Bs Long Term?

Pianoman hits some pretty good notes in his comment. Balanced and reasonable thinking, in my opinion.

In the “for whatever it’s worth” department, I’ll describe my recent efforts to “test” the waters outside my current company.

Within the last 6 months, I went after two jobs that I thought would better my situation, (and not be just a lateral move), with Johnsonville Sausage and with Walmart. I was turned down by both companies. Neither company provides any specific reason for denial, but I assume that my approximately 2 year old speeding ticket was the disqualifier for me. Other than that, I have a great record, so far, and have been highly productive for my current company. So that one mistake I made has proved to be tremendously damaging to my career in terms of moving to a possibly better job.

So I could focus on that negative in my life and be unhappy with my current job, or I can focus on making the best of what I can where I am now. Really, I have little choice, so why choose to be miserable when I can look at the positives?

My job is, in my opinion, better than average. I’m getting about all the miles I can handle, have great equipment, great company support that is just a phone call away and the company is very hands off to drivers like me who get to know their job and just do it without causing problems. In this regard, the company culture is well structured for me. But is the company itself perfect? Well, no company is perfect. Heck, the United States of America is far from perfect but I never consider moving to a different country thinking things will be better elsewhere.

I also have been doing a little experiment. I’ve been researching other companies that seem interesting, but other than the two I mentioned previously that rejected me, I have been realizing that they all are just a lateral move, even if I could get hired. Just variations on a theme, so to speak.

My conclusion is to try and make the best of what I have now until something clearly better presents itself. I will say that in my limited experience (only having worked for two companies), I agree with Pianoman that the mega companies are not what they are cracked up to be on this site sometimes. Driving for a smaller company with about 300/350 drivers has been a much better experience than driving for Schneider. (Disclaimer: Individual results may vary, lol)

So back to the original topic. Davy, is Knight the only company you have driven for? If so, you may want to try something different to see if it better suits you knowing that no company will be perfect. Some people need a larger sample size before they can really evaluate what they like and what they don’t like.

Banks, you've called my comparison between CPM and salaried workers "a silly comparison," and you've also called me stupid.

As Bruce pointed out, I never called you stupid. If anything you've insulted my intelligence on more than one occasion by saying things are too complicated for me to understand.

The bottom line really is simple: Getting paid by the mile for OTR and regional drivers is the best way to pay drivers for all involved. It's fair because you get paid for

As many here have already pointed out, it's best for the company. I think it's funny you'll cheer for managers getting fired and say it's great for employees because men get paid blah blah blah, but with this industry "that's just the way it is". When does the fight for change start here? No advocating for the people behind the wheel? Are you going to continue to sell this idea that nothing can be done because throwing people a few bucks for tasks or sitting at a customer for hours on end will cost too much? I agree with bobcat. True colors showing.

My true colors have always shown. I treat you how you treat me. I've carried on many long, complex conversations over the years without any insults or fighting whatsoever.Banks could have made his points without the "silly" or "stupid" comments, but he chose not to. He wanted to make it personal. Ok, let's do that. It's not what I prefer, but here I am if that's how you want to play it.

I welcome anybody to go to the Union thread and tell me if this true. I'm willing to bet that nobody feels, but Brett, feels this way.

Ya know, it's funny how many people are offended nowadays by a man who is willing to stand up for himself and those he loves.

It's the Internet. Nobody is offended.

I mean, look at the Kyle Rittenhouse situation.

Here we go on a tangent that has absolutely nothing to do with a drivers compensation.

Turned out the job just sucked in general

There's no fixin' that! All you can do is move on like you did.

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.

I'm glad you shared that. It demonstrates my point. They can't offer more pay than their CPM rate because that's the maximum percentage of revenues they will pay you. So they offer to change the pay scale for drivers who don't like being paid by the mile, but your paycheck doesn't get any bigger. You're still making the same amount of money, or less; they're just dividing it up differently on paper.

It's kind of like giving a little kid a nickel after he complained that his dime was too small. He's too simple to realize he didn't help himself, but he thinks he did, so he runs away happy. Sometimes, you're just better off appeasing small minds.

Paying by the mile is the most straightforward way to accomplish three important things:

1. Give the driver a consistent and predictable percentage of the truck revenues

2. Pay the driver based on the amount of work he gets done

3. Incentivize the driver to turn as many miles as possible

I can't emphasize enough how powerful it is for a trucking company to have drivers who want to turn big miles. With motivated drivers, you have a powerful workforce that will drive the company to bigger profits and a better payday for everyone.

I’ve been researching other companies that seem interesting, but other than the two I mentioned previously that rejected me, I have been realizing that they all are just a lateral move, even if I could get hired. Just variations on a theme, so to speak.

I'm glad you're really taking the time to assess everything. So many people look at one or two factors that make one company different from another and make the leap, not realizing until a few months later that they did themselves no favors.

This also returns to the theme that trucking is hyper-competitive and it's incredibly difficult for a company to differentiate itself from the competition. Differentiation allows you to charge more than someone else because they can't provide the products or services you can. That's worth more money.

However, most trucking companies of similar size and scale have similar offerings for their customers, which means their revenues and pay will also be very similar.

One glaring exception to this rule would be private fleets, like Walmart or Sysco. They don't have to compete with other trucking companies for freight contracts. Walmart doesn't make money hauling freight; it makes money selling goods. So, it can afford to pay its drivers more than pure trucking companies would because it has a completely different business model.

Driving for a smaller company with about 300/350 drivers has been a much better experience than driving for Schneider. (Disclaimer: Individual results may vary, lol)

This is definitely one of those "correlation vs causation" type situations, where your better experience does not stem from the size of the company, but rather from how the company is run. Not to mention, your sample size of one (Schneider) is a little too small for good scientific results.

There's a phenomenon I've noticed over the years that is pretty interesting. Start with the premise that new drivers make a lot of mistakes. They're inefficient, somewhat unreliable, and clumsy. We all are at first. It's a difficult job to master. It takes time.

So a driver starts out at a mega carrier, and naturally, our first company doesn't give us the best freight. They don't pre-plan our loads; they don't do us a bunch of extra favors, and they don't give us freight from their most important customers. So the loads you get are quite limited.

You improve dramatically as a driver during those first 6 - 12 months. After one year, you're 1,000 times better than you were in the beginning, and you find a new opportunity at a different company.

Well, right away things are going well. They're giving you tons of miles, doing extra favors for you, and giving you better quality freight from their best customers.

Well, of course they're willing to do this because you're a much better driver than you were at your previous company. You're not late for loads, you don't scratch the truck, you're not homesick, no one needs to hold your hand, and you're not running out of hours after 2400 miles because you mismanaged your logbook.

So right away, you think, "Wow, this company is way better than my first company!" but you don't realize that's mostly because you're a way better driver than you were at your first company! That first company had to keep you on training wheels, the second company didn't. Now you're finally getting all the perks a top-tier driver gets. You would have achieved that at the first company as well, but you left just as you were becoming a top-tier driver.

Now, obviously, some companies are better run than others and, therefore, can pay better than others. I'm certainly not saying all companies are the same. But I don't think slightly smaller megas are better than large megas. At least I can't think of a reason why that would be. I think many of the improvements stem from the fact you are just way better drivers now than you were in the beginning.

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:

It's doable. At the very least, drivers should be paid hub miles and not practical miles. At some point in the past, practical miles made sense. It was efficient to pay center zip code to center of zip code when you had to look at a map or an atlas. Today, it's easy to know how many miles are between point A and point B, even with the preferred route. There's no excuse for this other than trying to keep rates low and profits up.

Come up with a payscale that's fair and that keeps each driver's pay very close to 16% of revenues

Regarding hiring a person to handle all of this, that's also not necessary.

The pay structure made sense a decade or two ago, but with the advancements in technology is not hard to do. Today, paying drivers for work done is as a simple as a few key strokes. If a company can track mpg for every truck to issue garbage fuel bonuses, they can do this. The difference is that paying the driver doesn't benefit the company. Getting an extra 100 miles on a tank of fuel does so they figure it out.

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)

That's 32 CPM on straight mileage pay. Must be 2010, so I'll use pay rates from 15 years ago. Did you make these rates deliberately low to make me look crazy?

5 pre-trip inspections - 2.5 hours. Flat rate of 5 dollars per pretrip for every day on duty driving. 5 pretrips doesn't take 2.5 hours.

4 times fueling - 1 hour- 7 dollars per fuel of at least 80 gallons. Protections in place to prevent abuse. That makes it 3 fuels for 2100 miles, max.

17 hours detention time shipper or consignee should be paying detention, which would bring up revenue substantially. At some point appointments and drivers time should be respected. Even you have to admit that sitting somewhere for 17 hours is absurd. Stay on duty for all 17 hours and watch heads explode.

14 hours layover- layover is off duty. Nobody gets paid for being offduty.

8 hours breakdown breakdown pay wouldn't count against revenue because it's unforeseen. Driver should get paid for it, but it's an unexpected expense all the way around. Counting the drivers pay is like counting the repair against the revenue of this specific shipment. Nobody does that.

5 hours paperwork...

5 pickups

5 deliveries

3 times strapping cargo (1 hour)

An allotment of 13/hr for on duty not driving. How long is the driver spending at the shipper and consignee before detention pay goes into effect?

Keep in mind this is 2010...2 dollars per mile and a pay rate of 32 cpm.

Driver can make 25 cpm (not a huge dropoff) and detention pay, which the company will also profit from.

Still 16% and the driver gets paid for everything they do. It's not impossible, but corporations try to make it seem like none of it can be done. I still think it's interesting that UPS employees, auto workers and all these others deserve much more and CEOs are greedy and evil until we get to trucking. Then it's "that's how it is".

The problem is that this industry is a race to the bottom.. Customers want the lowest bidder and companies want the highest profit, so the employee pays them both.

Don't be shamed into thinking that it's wrong to get paid for ALL of the work you do and convinced that it makes you a "terminal rat". And at the other end of the spectrum, if you're happy with the relationship you have with your employer then stay. I'm not paying your bills. It's a personal choice and there's nothing wrong with either.

Seems like this thread has branched into two separate discussions:

- Are companies that pay HHG and little to no activity pay screwing their drivers?

- megas vs smaller companies

To the first point:

Banks said (emphasis added):

The bottom line really is simple: Getting paid by the mile for OTR and regional drivers is the best way to pay drivers for all involved. It's fair because you get paid for

As many here have already pointed out, it's best for the company.

At some point appointments and drivers time should be respected.

Customers want the lowest bidder and companies want the highest profit, so the employee pays them both.

Banks hit it on the head three separate times in two posts just now: it's TIME. That's our currency as drivers and our most valuable commodity. The company cares about profits. We care about our time. I completely understand why the company doesn't give a rat's ass about my time. It doesn't matter one bit to them whether it takes me 5 hours or 1 hour to tarp, or 17 hours in a dock as opposed to 3 hours. In the second example, the only reason they might care about 17 hours vs 3 is that now the shipper is holding up their equipment in a dock when it could be out on road making money for the company. But as far as the driver's time in that scenario, why would the company care? I'm just an asset sitting in another asset and unless I start *****ing and moaning or unless they're breaking some sort of labor law they have no reason to care that I'm wasting my time unpaid sitting in a dock.

I 100% agree with Brett that it makes sense for the company to pay their employees by the mile. It makes finances more simple when you take out all the complications and variables that aren't tied directly to revenue. Companies, especially OTR, charge shippers by the mile so paying their employees by the mile makes the math simple and keeps things pretty consistent on the billing side.

HOWEVER, it doesn't make sense for the employee to be paid by the mile and only by the mile. I, like Davy, very much prefer to be paid by the mile. I like that I'm rewarded for my efficiency and skill with cpm whereas I'm punished for it with hourly pay. The problem is, these variables exist whether the company wants to pay the employees out for them or not. The bigger problem is that if detention doesn't exist or layover or the company refuses to pay the driver out for it, the company has even less incentive to care about long load and unload times or delays. The driver takes all the liability and the company somehow gets out of its responsibility to pay its employees fairly.

I wish I had more time to comment on this because there's so much more to say but I have to get to driving. I'll say this... Brett, again, I like and respect the hell outta you for doing everything you do and have done for this community so I don't want to come across like I hate it here. I've made lots of friends on this forum and I enjoy getting on here nearly every day. I also still enjoy the job and don't drive around with a scowl on my face all the time. But, that said, I think the reason this thread has gotten heated multiple times is because it seems a lot of us are getting tired of what feels like the Kool-aid being shoved down our throats that the megas are fantastic to work for and that HHG miles and a glaring lack of activity pay for many activities are standard procedure and "that's just trucking." Personally I don't really care whether I'm paid for little activities like fueling and so forth if it's taken care of by my cpm. I don't have many gripes about cpm because most of the time it actually does a decent job encompassing most activities and delays. But that's the issue. It's not good enough by itself. That's why I firmly believe ancillary pay like detention pay is absolutely necessary and it shouldn't just kick in after 3 or 4 hours. It should kick in after an hour and it should be full pay. It hurts me to sit there for 4 or 5 hours so why should the carrier get off scot free? This is exactly what Banks means when he says "the employee pays them both." We're tired of hearing the carrier's side from you about how it makes sense for them to pay HHG. We know! Trust me, we're painfully aware each and every week as we look at our settlements and see a $30-50 discrepancy between what we should have made and what we actually made. The problem is, WE DON'T CARE!!

(continued...)

Listen man, I love driving trucks and I'm overall pretty satisfied with my employment and rarely complain, but I hate seeing you consistently make excuses for the way business is done in trucking. The cognitive dissonance is surreal between this thread and the Unions thread. I followed the Trucking Truth way for years, working my ass off and sacrificing every conceivable minute to make as much money as I could. It worked. You know what else happened? I paid the consequences of sacrificing every conceivable minute to be the best I could and make top dollar. My only friends are fellow truck drivers and we almost never hang out because we're always working. I sacrificed my health--I went from being in great shape to having the trucker bod. I know I could work out most evenings but it's a little difficult when I'm burned out from working all the time. I ain't saying it's all bad. I'm just saying that my time matters whether the company sees it that way or not and I wish I hadn't spent the better part of ten years making excuses for the company and caring more about their profits than I did about my time.

Again, I don't hate my job. I just am no longer naive enough to think that if I don't fight my company (properly, not by yelling at our dispatchers) for every dime I'm worth they're just going to pay my fairly because they appreciate my hard work. A company run by decent people will often try to do right by their employees but sometimes things will slip through the cracks. It happens. Usually it just takes a quick phone call and it's resolved. What Davy is running into is that all indications point to his company being run by people that don't give a damn about the employees. They care about profit and profit only.

Which brings me to the other point this thread has branched off/devolved to:

Big companies vs BIG!!!!!!! companies.

I'm not going to say megas are evil and smaller companies aren't. They all exist to make money. Here's my problem with this idea that the megas are the best carriers to work for because they're the most successful: They're the most successful carriers because they're the best at knowing how to pinch every penny and eliminate the most costs. And ya know who most often pays the price when companies start pinching pennies? I'll give you one guess and it ain't the CEO.

The worst part is, Brett you're one of the smartest guys I know. You know every single thing I'm saying is true. You claim to be for the working man and a straight shooter. So why do you consistently back the big guys whenever there's an argument about this? Most of us aren't smart enough or have enough time to argue back and forth with you and most people who disagree eventually end up just storming off and leaving the forum or holding their peace and letting it go. It's a head scratcher for sure. It's part of the reason lots of people over the years have accused you of being in the mega's pockets. The premise is, "he's gotta keep the lights on somehow." I think you're a straight shooter as you claim so I don't think that's it. I don't want to insult your intelligence but I have to wonder if you've just been out of a truck for so long you don't realize what it's really like to drive for the largest carriers these days.

Case in point, you said this:

Now, obviously, some companies are better run than others and, therefore, can pay better than others. I'm certainly not saying all companies are the same. But I don't think slightly smaller megas are better than large megas. At least I can't think of a reason why that would be. I think many of the improvements stem from the fact you are just way better drivers now than you were in the beginning.

I can think of a few reasons why but instead I'll just give an example. I will say one reason I think it's easier to find a smaller mega that treats me more fairly is because there are a helluva lot more of them. I'm also not just concerned with being treated fairly. There also tend to be a lot of little perks and less annoyances and hassles at the smaller megas. Anyways, story time.

I started my career at Swift about 8.5 years ago and worked for them for about a year and 8 months. I did otr reefer for the first four months, then got on the dedicated Miller Coors fleet and did that for about 7-8 months. Then I switched to the local Target dedicated fleet out of Pueblo, CO, driving local and doing some yard hostling. I had a great experience there overall. After about 8 months on the local fleet I decided to look for a change. I loved my job but it didn't pay well (I was on track to make around $50k) despite me working around 50 hours a week or more. Simple math shows I was making around $20 straight pay. I also wanted a home weekly gig specifically and I wanted a faster truck (their trucks were still governed at 62 back then).

(continued)

Enter American Furniture Warehouse (AFW). This is the company that ruined me. I absolutely LOVED driving there and chances are good I wouldn't have ever left if I didn't lose my job (speeding ticket in personal vehicle). There were a lot of little and some big things that made it such a good experience and many of those things are just unique things about AFW that I liked and don't necessarily help the argument that smaller companies are better or whatever. Here's the gist of it though. I went from a company with

• slow trucks (60 on the pedal, 62 on the cruise) and couldn't even coast down a hill at the speed limit (limit was 68 I think?)
• full collision mitigation package (think emergency braking, i.e. slamming on the brakes for shadows and for people exiting the interstate in the adjacent lane)
• inward and outward facing cameras (to be fair, Swift disabled the inward facing cameras shortly before I left)
• idle policies with no APUs. In essence they'd bug you about idling too much but didn't even provide a way to avoid idling.
• strict fuel routing. If I went out of route no big deal, but I had to call in or send a message for another fuel solution.
• an unavailable dispatch team. This varied if you got on a dedicated account but there were many times I spent over an hour on hold to try to reach dispatch. They insisted we send messages on the qualcomm to avoid this, but I'd often not get a response back for several hours and not after sending multiple messages.
• HHG miles and lower pay in general.
• Macros for absolutely everything. Everything and I mean everything was done on the qualcomm.

There are probably more things but that's the gist of it. I'm well aware that many of these things aren't things that were "bad" about Swift, just annoying and inconvenient as a driver.

At AFW, I enjoyed

• 80 mph trucks. 80 on the pedal, 80 on the cruise.
• no collision mitigation package. No beeping, slamming on the brakes, etc. I could just DRIVE for the first time in my career. It was beautiful.
• outward facing cameras only.
• no idle policies whatsoever.
• no fuel routing. We could fuel at any of the big three chains and AMBest.
• dispatch was available with a quick text or phone call.
• Paid by hub mile and paid for every stop including first and last. I made more per mile AND got paid by the stop AND got paid for more miles. Huge win.
• I picked up a trip packet at the beginning of the week, filled it out over the course of the week, and turned it in when I was done. No macros.

Ok this was years ago and neither company does things exactly the same way anymore but as a whole, American Furniture was way way way more enjoyable to work for, I could enjoy just driving the truck, I got paid a helluva lot more and I got paid more honestly. It's not that HHG isn't fair...it's just not honest.

I've worked for a few other carriers since then also with 2-300 trucks and my experiences as a whole have more closely matched the experience I had at AFW than they did my experience at Swift. Usually faster trucks, no collision mitigation software or it's at least turned down somewhat, less restrictive idle policies and fuel routing, more accessible dispatch and management, etc.

The biggest difference in terms of the context of this whole conversation is that I can choose to work for a company that is not corrupt from the top down. I don't know much about Jake Jabs the owner of AFW, but I know he was very involved in the company for a long long time. I even met him and saw him multiple times at the store I worked out of.

The people I work for now obviously care about money but there's some sort of pay issue or I feel I wasn't compensated properly for an activity, even if it's not covered under their obligations on paper to me, I bring it up to them and they take care of it. There don't appear to be any corporate policies coming from the top not allowing the powers that be to add some extra money to my check if it's warranted. They make an effort to treat their employees fairly.

I don't care if the reasons are that they care about us or if it's because they've noticed it helps metrics like driver turnover--the bottom line is there is actually an effort there where at Swift I would get yelled at for calling in instead of messaging and I would get messages constantly about idling despite me sweating my ass in the summer trying to avoid idling as much as possible.

Sorry, that was an entire book. I'm turning into Old School over here except not nearly as well spoken lol. This conversation is alot more involved than "big companies bad, smaller companies good" or "HHG sucks and mileage pay isn't good enough." HHG does suck and mileage pay by itself isn't good enough but I understand why companies do it.

Qualcomm:

Omnitracs (a.k.a. Qualcomm) is a satellite-based messaging system with built-in GPS capabilities built by Qualcomm. It has a small computer screen and keyboard and is tied into the truck’s computer. It allows trucking companies to track where the driver is at, monitor the truck, and send and receive messages with the driver – similar to email.

Interstate:

Commercial trade, business, movement of goods or money, or transportation from one state to another, regulated by the Federal Department Of Transportation (DOT).

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.

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.

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

APUs:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

Sorry I just realized I screwed up the formatting on some of that so it's hard to read

But, that said, I think the reason this thread has gotten heated multiple times is because it seems a lot of us are getting tired of what feels like the Kool-aid being shoved down our throats

This is part of the reason I didn't respond to this thread sooner. I've noticed when ever this topic comes up, it is the same people more or less taking the same side of the argument each time. I've also noticed which side of the argument people take depends on what kind of work they do. It's usually split right down the middle of people who've done local vs those who do OTR.

I'm paid just over 79 cpm , plus $2.60 per trailer dropped or hooked, so hooking or breaking a set is worth $10.60. Plus we get, $3.50 to fuel, detention, and break down pay.

If you are hourly you punch in at the start of your shift and punch out at the end.