Long Haul Trucking

Well done. Finished. Complete. If you were a dispatcher at Clark Transfer, would you get an attitude about a driver that was at the load out late, going to a warehouse the next morning that didn’t care if they got their stuff back today or next week. Okay, give him the “don’t be late” speech. But while you’re at it, tell him how to drive and how he should have done this or that. Keep in mind this driver is in his home city, not across the country. He sold his trailer and his truck is for sale and he’s pretty much tired of your crap anyway. So, get the attitude, talk down to him and treat him like crap for nothing and expect him to drive for you and be happy. How’s that working for you?

If I was a dispatcher, I wouldn’t have done something that stupid. Drivers aren’t employees and even if they were you don’t treat them like that and expect them to hang around when things get better. Drivers are a dime a dozen right now, so keep treating them like it and see how long they stay when others pay the same or better.

I’m done with Clark Transfer. Give me the lecture about being late, but not like I’m your dog and you think I’m going to bow down and be grateful for a job. Not me. Our bills are paid with Cindy’s paycheck except for the truck. I just spent $1600 on the truck for simple stuff the other day. I’m tired of spinning my wheels, using up log books like they were TP and working hard (when there’s work) for someone that thinks they can treat me like crap and I’m supposed to enjoy it? Nope, not me. If Cindy wasn’t working, I’d still be looking to go elsewhere. Too much bobtail and driving around empty, which pays less than loaded on top of the on butthead manager that all the drivers complain about, but nothing changes.

So, I was a little late. I didn’t get out of Dana Point till 9:30pm and it’s California, the speed limit is 55 for trucks. 300 miles to Las Vegas, I stop at 2am and sleep, probably a little long, but I was a half hour away and it’s a warehouse. I get there at 9am instead of 8am and I’m unloaded in a little bit after they round up some people from across the street. No they weren’t waiting on me. I have to explain that three times and hear how I had the entire day off and I should have driven straight through. I was up all day and the one time I took a nap, they called me about some crap that wasn’t happening for three days that they could have emailed to me. And then I have to hear how fast I drove from when I checked in to the warehouse? Bite me. Speed limit in Nevada is 70. If it was a show I would have drove another 30 minutes and been there last night, but for a warehouse with no parking, I had to park somewhere, thirty minutes away is close enough.

I have an offer for some part time work or just drive regional. If I make the truck payment, fine. If not, that’s fine too. The trailer is almost sold, I can stay home anytime, I wanted to try and put away just a little bit more (but that’s like two steps forward and three steps back) and this idiot calls me while I’m ten minutes from home to give me a bunch of crap about nothing?

Our schedule was that I was going to drive till Fall, then it changed to June, now it’s today. Probably for the better anyway.

While I was getting my truck worked on, I met a driver getting his clutch replaced ($3100) and he asked about Clark Transfer. He had already heard they treat their drivers like crap so didn’t drive for them. So, I’m not the only one, no matter what the office says. And two other Clark drivers quit just last week.

In case you missed the update in Transitions:

Did you know it’s against the Truth in Leasing Act from the FMCSA (DOT), CFR 49, 376.12 (g)  for a company NOT  to show their driver the proof of how much a load pays if that driver is getting paid by percentage? The problem is that most drivers won’t rock the boat because they want the job, so a lot of these companies get away with whatever they want.

Why would Clark Transfer take a load to lose money on that moves me in the opposite direction?  That’s the mystery.  I can understand taking something that goes in the right direction, it’s done all the time.

After being ganged up on by three dispatchers for asking a question and their response was so defensive you would have thought they had their hand caught in the cookie jar. After being told I was the only driver that questioned their generosity and how I didn’t trust them (you don’t establish trust with someone by just saying “trust me”, especially where money is involved, but maybe that’s just me) and how they didn’t want drivers to know what goes on in the office (?) and how they deal with their customers. I think I was shown the number of what this load paid. If that was it, these people at Clark Transfer are idiots.

This is a whole lot different than having a real open office where money wasn’t hidden. I could ask my boss what anyone or any driver made and he would not only answer it, but showed it to me. Having my dispatchers email and working with them as a team instead of for them as an employee or worse.

The whole thing was just odd. Why so defensive about something so simple and why take a load that after paying me and 200 miles of the PA turnpike, then for me to go empty 600 miles (and paid a little), why take a stupid load like that in the first place? This is not a stupid company, they’ve been in business since 1959, Clark Transfer concentrates on the office making money, that’s what’s so odd about this. They didn’t do me any favors, I could have made the same and they would have paid less for me to just sit there, why?

I was ready to just be fired right there, but that’s not how trucking companies operate. My planning report has one good load on it, if you want to call a buck a mile a good load so if that changes… I’m sure they’re going to take it personally, pout and get back at me for having the audacity for questioning their benevolence and their unquestioned obedience by everyone else. It’s already coming up on the “bad” season, so how much worse can it get at Clark Transfer?

Transitions are going on for everyone. I know more than one person that has been laid off, fired or are having to make tough decisions about keeping their truck or their house. People are helping their families and receiving help from their families all at the same time.

Here I sit at a grocery warehouse, waiting to haul 44,000 lbs over the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania 200 miles to deliver tomorrow afternoon, two hundred miles. I should be grateful I have a job, I should be grateful for the load the company got from a broker where they’re losing money (huh?), I should be grateful for what the company does for me and shut-up.

Why would the Clark Transfer take a load that pays less than what they are paying me? When Clark Transfer takes a brokered load I’m supposed to get a percentage. Lately the brokered loads have (they say) have paid less than the regular spot pay they give us, so they give us the greater of the two. How do I know they’re being so generous? I don’t. It’s their policy NOT to show the drivers the invoice on a brokered load. Even though this is going the opposite direction and I’m driving more miles empty (less money) I’m doing this load because if I don’t, I lose out on any layover pay because they offered me a load, but there’s not forced dispatch. But according to many of the drivers, don’t refuse a load or they will make you sorry you did.

Clark Transfer is a great company, but I should be grateful right? They have gone back on so many things they said at the beginning, not really gone back, they’ve rearranged what they said and how they interpret the contract.

Out of all of the crappy companies I’ve worked for I’ve never wanted to do this before, usually I just go on and mind my own business.  Have you seen Wal-mart sucks.com? Paypal sucks.com ford sucks, every major company has a sucks.com, why should trucking be exempt? Even though it would take time away from sites that make money or could make more money plus, it would take away time from school,

Since I do SEO (search engine optimization) pretty well (really, really well), I could make ten sites that just push their site off the front page of the search engines. I’ve already looked at the SEO of their site, it’s non-existent. When drivers are looking at a new company to drive for, what do they do? They go to the internet and look up that new company’s name. Hopefully, I can get to drivers before it’s too late.  I’d be gone and blacklisted anyway and not looking for another trucking job so why not? Honestly, I’ve got better things to do, but this keeps sounding like a good idea, I can’t help it.

What can a company do when sites like that come up? They can call the company that controls the domain (hey that’s me- waynes domains.com) or the hosting company (hey, that’s me too and I know the guy that owns the server I’m on), plus it’s a first amendment thing, so not much.

So, if they are being so generous and losing money on this load, why don’t they prove it and show me the invoice that shows how generous they are? You would think they would want me to be grateful at how much they’re doing for me.

I have to go in this warehouse now, bow down (or bend over) and be grateful to some dumb-*** shipping clerk. If I’m going to do stupid things and go out of business, that’s my fault, I don’t need any help going out of business from anyone else, I’m perfectly capable of failing on my own.

I know a lot of drivers and owners are doing a lot worse for a lot less, so I am grateful for what I have, I hate when someone tries to force me to be grateful to them. Kind of like respect, something that’s earned, while the more you demand, the less you get.

Update:

The point here, before I was interrupted, was that I’ve transitioned from being a business partner that worked together with complete openness and transparency with the office making money together, to a company driver with a truck payment.

I left because Bohemian didn’t have customers, they got leftovers from other companies and brokers, which was working good until a few years ago. Without customers, the leftovers dried up.

Update 2:

Did you know it’s against the Truth in Leasing Act from the FMCSA (DOT), CFR 49, 376.12 (g)  for a company NOT  to show their driver the proof of how much a load pays if that driver is getting paid by percentage? The problem is that most drivers won’t rock the boat because they want the job, so a lot of these companies get away with whatever they want, the policy that Clark Transfer depends on; Drivers not rocking the boat.

My first trip with Clark Transfer, bobtailing (driving with no trailer) almost 1100 miles, pickup a trailer, take it to the theater in Minneapolis, load it. Drive to Detroit, unload, drop trailer, do something else.

Being associated with Broadway shows is kind of cool, kind of like delivering to a cool tradeshow or the time we delivered generators to the Superbowl. I know who and what I’m carrying, but I don’t have the time or even the ability to see what I delivered when it’s all setup. All I see is crates, boxes and equipment.

I’m one of several trucks loading out and going to Detroit. I don’t know how many and I’m pretty sure we don’t convoy to Detroit because everyone has different time schedules. The trailer probably won’t have graphics, partly for the expense, but partly to keep people from messing with them when they are sitting empty in some trailer yard.

From what we were told at orientation, because of how a show is disassembled and reassembled, the first truck out is the last truck in and the last truck out is the first truck to be unloaded.

The offices in the headquarters are filled with posters of Broadway shows, some signed and some with pictures of the custom painted trailers.

Unless I’m actually on tour with the show, I’m only associated with the show momentarily, but it’s still cool. It doesn’t matter what show I have from now on, everything I have will be on time no matter what.

This is my new company, Clark Transfer, Inc. A trucking company since 1949, just that fact alone is incredible. A company with actual customers. That’s going to be a switch instead of working with all of those brokers. A 3% turnover rate when the industry average is over 100% a year.

I’ve hauled a lot of tradeshows, performances of various kinds and a few plays in-between all the store fixtures, pad wrap and general freight. The secret to dealing with shows of any kind is absolutely being on time. Hurry up and wait and wait some more. It’s always funny when a general freight guy is at a tradeshow complaining about how long it’s taking and he was there long before those other people were. Everyone around him just starts cracking up. You’re not in line, you’re waiting for a lot of different things, they try and move tradeshows in a certain order, if your booth is in front they don’t want your stuff in the way while they load the rear of the floor.

I’ve done a corporate event that required a few trucks going in to Times Square in the middle of the night, unload one at a time on the sidewalk. Timing was fun, if you got there too early, you drove around the New York City block, too late and you have 30 union guys standing around collecting double time.

There’s No Freight Like Show Freight

I don’t think these Broadway shows and other performances are going to be that new to me. So far everyone has been more than nice and I like the way they do business. For example, their Headquarters building looks like they’ve been in the same building since 1949. It’s a little rough on the outside and the inside is functional and not too nice. A few of the freight companies I’ve been to, their buildings were more like castles, the inside and the offices were extravagant, all done on the backs of the drivers, while their trucks looked like crap. No those aren’t my Socialist tendencies showing, you can be modest and still be successful, while not rubbing your employees faces in the extravagance they earned for you.

I know they use email for their dispatches, weekly direct deposit and the owner operators are supposed to have their own fuel cards of some sort already, they will give advances on a comcheck if needed. I don’t know how they do their logbooks, but hopefully I can continue using my Drivers Daily Log program.

I still can’t get over a trucking company that’s been around since 1949 and it’s not Schneider, Werner or one of the giant companies out there. Their history page is really interesting, the intention was to share Broadway shows with the rest of the country.

From what I’ve heard from not only the people I’ve talked to, but my friend that’s been there for awhile, is that new owners have a hard time adjusting to the difference in general freight and show freight. It’s not just stuff any more, it’s stuff that people are waiting on and need to have there on time, no matter what. You’re meeting crews, equipment and keeping a schedule, in-between all of the sitting around and waiting. For drivers that are used to driving 3000 miles a week, sitting around is hard to get used to. But it’s not how much you drive, it’s how much you make. Get over the -  if you’re not moving you’re not making money mentality and you’re halfway there.

If an owner operator team or solo is really interested can run Canada and doesn’t mind New York City and the Northeast, let me know and I’ll try and answer any questions you may have from a drivers perspective before you call the recruiters. Plus any driver reference will mean more than just calling cold. Plus if there’s still a recruiting bonus, I want to make sure you’re the kind of driver that understands this kind of freight and  will stick around for over a year and yes, I want credit for showing you this company you would have never found on your own. As of this writing they are still hiring, owner operators only. Email me at my regular contact page.

Update: First impressions can be deceiving. Read my other Clark Transfer posts or just go straight to where I quit at Driving for Clark Transfer.