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.
I only worked on percentage once and it is just what you described. I will never work for a company that way again. Coyle Trucking in Eighty-Four, Pennsylvania pulled the exact same stunt and I showed them the same regulation. They don’t care. If you don’t like it leave. They’re making more money from the drivers that accept this illegal activity as common business practice.
What a business would not like to pay employees whatever they seemed fit?
I chocked it up to my own stupidity for getting into the situation with them and left at the first opportunity I could get. Of course, they got a free ride until I could figure that out.
The reason I never attacked them on the Internet, which is so easy to do, is that I couldn’t find a way to absolutely prove that they did it. Who says Wal-Mart.com isn’t sponsored by Target.com is some way? I have a feeling that what comes around goes around and I just move on and let them bask in their own misery. I’ll hear of them shooting themselves in the foot as I have other companies that have wronged me. At some point, they’ll get squashed by honest folks.
The owners of Coyle Trucking had to showboat their owner’s show trucks and motorcycles to make themselves feel better about their ill-gotten gains.They had to hide in fear behind a little window inside their fortress to make sure no driver came after them. They had the shame of being cowards and theives. I have no fear of them or anyone else because I know I’ve given everyone a fair shake. I felt that a full website against them would only keep me bitter and be a constant reminder that I had been walked all over.
I agree, it may not be worth the time, but it wouldn’t be anything bad or libel, just my experience, I report (and other drivers I know here), you decide.
I am thinking that website stating the regulation and a listing of companies claiming to pay from the gross could be useful. It would really be useful to find a lawyer that could successfully sue if there is such a thing.
It has amazed me that the scam works as well as it does. It’s so blatantly wrong, but so accepted. I fell into it hook, line, and sinker. I went to work for Coyle with just being told I would be paid off of the gross. They made it sound so normal that I never had a contract to sign or anything. I’m thinking that an owner-operator would have the amount in the contract.
I have to wonder if the financing companies care. They get trucks back all of the time and this would have to be a root cause in many cases.
When a driver goes under taking loads that pay less per mile than it costs to run the truck, you really can’t fault the company. The company always tells them that there is another run that pays well to make up for it on the other side, of course there rarely is. A few times of this should prompt that driver to leave the company. When a driver is working from a fictional set of numbers, that’s just fraud.
I suppose a website like this directed at the facts could make you feel good that you might foil one more person from getting involved with the scam.
I’ve thought of all the trucking scams out there and often wondered if anyone would even pay attention. When a person gets into trucking, they tend to let dreams get in the way of facts presented to them. Even when they are switching companies, they have high hopes and want to believe that the company they are going to is going to be the answer.
Right now, all that I see are standard complaints about trucking companies. Many of the appear to be written by the wives of truckers. Many have a valid complaint, but then they throw in things that are baseless like, “They wouldn’t let him come home and he’d been out for 2 weeks!”. Then they say, “Don’t go to this company.” I probably could find complaints like this for any company. What the Internet needs is something useful and solid for a driver to make a decision with.
I’ve got a feeling you’ll come up with something useful and original.
Sounds like a worthwhile project to me. Protect the drivers that come in behind you from these bastards. Some might argue, trucking companies are all the same and at least you know what this one is doing, but when is this vicious cycle going to end? Stand up, speak out!
To quote what people claimed to be the 1st black president, Bill Clinton,”I feel your pain!” (Because he caused it to begin with!) a company with big orange trucks forced me out, but I’m not allowed to speak about the particulars. I’ve burned through 26 weeks of unemployment with nary a call back from at least 2 potential employers each week! When I talk to friends still driving for jobs I’ve left I find this once proud profession has lost its sheen. One company from Chattanooga,TN with a name that’s a synonym for a contract believed in the Bible when it came to literature in its depots & foul language on the Qualcomm, but not to HOS. Mr Cook, their Safety Director told me once when I voiced a concern of a load not being safe to run, told me,”A lot of bad things happen to drivers!” The lady in charge of Driver Advocates told me when I asked if she could get my Driver Manager to obey the HOS she said, “If we could get robots to run these trucks we wouldn’t need you damn drivers!” & “You ought to be glad you got loads to run! When people complain they can sit for weeks!” But it’s no rosier running for % of load with O/O’s making barely more than money to live on the road! But for all of you that are also upset with previous employers, but don’t want the terrorists win (Walmart,Target,Shoppers, etc i.e. China) follow this link and win a prize if your tale is the best at Glassdoor.com {http://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm} also a good place to research your potential next employer! Check out OOIDA.com somebody who advocates for drivers! On their site is a lease calculator so you can see if you’ll make money.