Aug 3, 2011
wow i was just looking at my last blog and it was almost a month ago.
our view of the portland airport.
Things have been going fairly ok with this dedicated run. I say fairly because we are not getting 4 trips per pay check. _seattle, la is 1 la to seattle it 2, etc. We are not getting our detention pay in seattle. We get paid if we are detained in hayward waiting for a plane, but not in seattle, just waiting for them to unload. on friday things really fell apart. They sent us a return load. On friday and saturday it is not from the shipper we work with all week, another driver has that load. So our return trip is different. They sent us one that was 40,000 and picked up 10 hours after we delivered. I denied that and told our dm why. 40,000 lbs means we can not get at least 7.0 mpg that is our break even point. Being that heavy makes us slow and we wont get home in time to spend any time at home. And it waste 10 hours. Need one that is ready when we're ready. She agreed and we were sent a load from ikea in san diego going to ikea in tacoma. It was preloaded and a drop delivery and only weighted 16,000. i accepted it. Duh!
After we delivered at lax.
la traffic
We sent in a message that we were empty and ready for our next trip info. Will took off for san diego, because it usually takes 30 to 45 minutes before they send you your information. Half way there, we get a mesg saying we do not have a preplan. I sent back a mesg telling them the plan number and that i accepted it at 9:30 am. We were told no preplan. Will pulled over and i called. Told again, No preplan. The guy told me that we were the 3rd to complain about losing a load. He said they were having problems with the qualcom. He said he would mesg the load planners and tell them we needed a load going to seattle. We waited an hour then decided to drive to the fontana termanal.
The whole time i kept sending messages. And yes they did get more and more sarcastic. Why? Because they were not answering me. I told them give us a load going anywhere. They told me there is no freight. No freight in california going anywhere.?? i told them i did not believe them. when we got to fontana i asked if they needed a trailer number there were lots of loaded trailers here, they must be going some where. I asked them what kind of dedication is this if its only dedicated one way? Even if there is a problem with qualcom there is still freight out there, just issue the load old school way. Before computers. You did go to school didnt you? When i told them we were going to fontana they informed me we were not going to get paid for those miles we were reloacting unauthorized. I said i was not asking your permission i was telling you were we will be, incase you were worried about still having a driver sitting on the side of the 405 in la. Obviousely i can see where your concerns are, not with the drivers safety but making sure we dont make an extra $12.35. That was the last message i received from them.
In the morning i sent a message that we were going to a hotel and would be available monday.
So 3 days off. Normally you would be jumping up and down to get 3 days off. Not when it cost you $200 for hotel, $25 a meal x 2 meals a day. $10 for hotel laundry room. And one bottle of brandy. Plus the money we lost by simple not working. Oh and we saw cowboys and aliens, so that plus popcorn and soda. (walking back to the hotel around 11pm was like seeing a second feature for free)
monday first thing i contacted our driver manager. Told her what happen over the weekend. We lost our load and sat 15 hours with no load issued so we dediced we werent going anywhere until you came in monday. Asked why no one at swift cares about the drivers money etc. She said she cared and i told her i know she does but since she doesnt sign my pay check someone else has to care. Asked her if we were going to be compinsated for our time. Since it was swifts fault we had no load? She'll look into it.
She asked what we needed for this dedication to work. I said we want what we were told, and what we agreed to. You told us 2 round trips seatac to lax a week. We compared the pros and cons. Pros: leslie wont get lost. (ok thats a major pro) 2 rt a week thats 4 days, maybe add 1 day for the turn around, and that gives us 2 maybe 3 days at home. No hotels, no eatting out, no laundry. Not having to worry and stress about what our next load is going to be. Kisses and hugs from grandkids on a regular basis. The cons: low miles only 4400 a week (we should be getting 5000 to 6000) paying the road tax to the kingdowm of oregon. That is what we assumed based on the statement “2 roundtrips a week, seatac to lax”
then after we agree, we find out there is one south bound stop in pdx where they take stuff off and put stuff on. Also find out there are 2 north bound stops. One in hayward airport and again at pdx.
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| at lax |
bay bridges. have to pay a $18.00 toll to get out of town
The delivery times are screwy. We arrive in seattle around midnight, but they are closed and open again around 6, but our appointment time is at 5 am? So around 8 they give us a dock and we wait to be unloaded. They are done around 9 or 11am. Acorrding to swift rules we are to get $30 an hour for every hour after the second hour of waiting. (the first two hours is free). If the customer pays them, thats a bunch of bull. We have not gotten paid for any of the detention pay in seattle. Also we find out when we are dont unloading, they do not load us, to head south, until 6pm. So really we are there at 5am and have to wait until 6pm to leave again. It is not 2 roundtrips a week. The way they have the delivery times it takes 4 days to do 1 round trip from seattle to lax. (Its 3 days to go from portland to newark nj.) Since my paycheck is based on a normal 7 day week, not swifts 8 day week this is not working.
sunset blvd.
Couldnt they give us the whole story before we made our decision.? Then they get mad at us because we're complaining its not working out. They act like we knew what we were getting into. No we only know what you tell us. Well ok, i see their point we did know what we were getting into we should not have expected swift to tell us the truth, silly me, my bad.
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| happy cows, (oregon) |
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| unhappy cows, (california) |
cow? near yreka.
Our dm said she would get with a couple people and see if they can beef up the miles. I hope so. We cant working in the negitive. Already had one negivtive pay check, cant afford too many of them. I really hope they can work this route out, will really likes me not getting lost. And so do i except it gives me less to blog about. Sorry guys.
Love and miss you all
