What’s funner than a live load? A live load at a Walmart DC. Don’t be late. Don’t be early. Anything other than your appointment time validates Walmart to detain you for as long as they want without any monetary compensation.
I only ever had 1 live at a Walmart DC. As freaked out as I was with the way everyone in dispatch reminded me time and time again how important the appointment time was it actually went well. The funny story was hearing a driver on the cb telling about shipping receiving getting all bent he didn’t pull the tractor off his load. What you can’t read driver? Signs everywhere! Driver stated, yeah but I’m in a straight truck! Made me laugh hard!
Knowing that your going to be held more than an hour to two, this is referred to detention You are more than those hours, then you would have to send a macro to your Driver Mgr/ Fleet Mgr that your held ' detention; requesting for Detention Pay.
No detention pay at Werner. But if it’s really ridiculous you can talk to your fleet manager. Sometimes he’ll put a little something extra on your check.
I love your videos. Great information. I appreciate an honest unbiased opinion of the trucking industry/lifestyle. Can you tell me how you handle the snow when it accumulates on top of your trailer ? I think in most states its illegal to drive with snow on top of trailer because it can freeze and them fly off coming down the highway and end up going through a windshield of a car behind your truck. Do you have to climb on top of trailer and shovel it off ?
Hi there Michael!! Glad you are enjoying our videos and getting good value from them! And we appreciate your compliment :-)) We looked into your question. It’s a tough one. There are laws in some states. There are scrapers you drive under in some places. But overall it seems like a tough situation. Who has a ladder, the safety equipment, and a spotter on hand? Here is an interesting article we found. www.sageschools.com/tractor-trailer-snow-and-ice-removal-what-you-need-to-know/ Seems to us that they are making drivers legally responsible, but being unrealistic in how truck drivers could properly comply. Thanks for your question! Hope this helped a bit. We haven’t run into the situation, but this is the information we found. Very thought provoking.
Thanks for answering my question. I live in the Carlisle, PA area which as you must know has multiple truck stops and many, many truck company terminals. I was sitting at the Loves yesterday doing some truck spotting and saw so many Werner Trucks and was thinking of you guys. !!
@@michaelm8457 I’m sorry but I am laughing at this soo much 3 weeks after your merited concern and text book answer you received. Do not attempt or replicate anything this upstate ny hillbilly says. But me myself and I…. After prying a stuck good trailer from its slot out in a yard. Freezing cold and critically wet? Yeah drag that down the road and watch the explosion at the first 13’6” you come upon! Be mindful it doesn’t create an accident behind you or up on the bridge itself but other than that “BOOM”. Problem solved! But that’s not the right answer driver always trust the professionals!!
I've spent around 15 hours after I was unloaded and pulled away from the dock into the parking lot waiting for my bills to be signed. They claimed all the freight on each pallet had to be counted and put away before it could be entered into the system. I absolutely detest grocery store warehouses. Can't remember the name of the place but it was around Baltimore MD. Drop and hook is absolutely the best way to go.
Holy crap!! That’s terrible!!!! And totally unreasonable!!! So sorry that they could do that! If you were a company driver I hope at least you were adequately compensated!
Those grocery warehouses…. A complete racket. Unless you play ball with the way the lumpers work, they will do everything in their power to destroy you. “You need a lumper to unload you driver? We can get you one right over here.” “No I can unload these pallets, thanks.” “You need a lumper to unload you driver. These pallets you are dropping all need to be re stacked. Be real easy to hire a lumper.” “How much is a lumper?” “I don’t know they don’t work for us. I’ll send you one over”…. “250 dollars. Qual com your company and get a com check printed up. You an owner op? We accept cash.” “I’ll unload it myself” Company proceeds to make you regret not hiring an on site contractor acting as a lumper. I’ve seen this dozens of times spanning decades. All of them. I was so aware of it that my first time I personally would live unload at a grocer and the lumper gave his price, I said no problem bud. I’ll run it through. If swift ok’s it it’s yours. Every time what the lumper stated I got in a com check and handed to the lumper no questions asked. Pallets come off, light goes green, go in get signed bill. No problems. A friggen racket that I bet is still going on 35 years after I was made aware of it.
@@TheJoyofTrucking I know I’m a month late to the party lol. You just come across my recommendations. Can’t pick time nor reason for that! Be safe driver! Stick it out with them as long as you can. Don’t fall for them lease deals! Stay company! Do your time and wait for that real opportunity to come your way. You’ll know it when you see it! Thanks for sharing your experiences and allowing me to reminisce for an am! Not many at all knows what it takes. You said yourself 90% annually try and fail. Of that 10% how many you think makes it two years, even still in the industry? I beat the odds being one of 3% that made it a year accident and ticket free, paying back the 3k I think it was they financed you for the school. If I’d remained 2 years I would have received all 3k back. I think the way it worked I was full paid in and was half paid back. First year you payed out 75 dollars a check and they payed back 35 a check. Second year the 75 out stopped and you would still get the 35 back. When I was in swift school outside Memphis I got a call from my soon to be wife she was pregnant. He was born and with my wife being with child a second time I pulled myself out of the business and came to work for a rinkdink straight truck local company for the next 7 years. My boy will be 16 in September. Would love to climb my way back into it, but the eld stops me from pursuing. Truth be told I’d get home on Friday, my paper logs would show up home late Saturday lmao. Another reason I didn’t stick it out to year two. Much to risky. But you had to in order to keep moving and in sync with everything. HOS should be at the discretion of a trained and highly skilled professional the way I see it. Even if they just keep the 70, I’d be ok with that. Keeps everything in check in the end. Even then no matter how much you messed with the book you couldn’t get around the 70. Easiest thing was to get from under a load and manipulate a 34 lol. I could get one off in 12-24 easy then a fresh 70! It’s why no one can make a living out there now. Make enough to keep the driver ok, but the whole point is the checks gotta go home to momma. Live as meager as possible and build your castle. Damn GPS killed it for us skilled drivers more than you know. Now anyone with a pulse gets shoved up behind the wheel and, I mean, it works…. Kinda…. For a little while…. Even when I was out in 06 the rand McNally truckers atlas that would release an updated edition every year was my most important tool. Cheap garmins and Tom toms were out there but you were an idiot throwing it in the window and following it like your in a video game like everyone nowadays. 06 was the end of an era for a guy like me. Who has the 6th sense when it comes to being aware of where I am and where I’m going. Proper planning and the ability to retain valuable information on an area that enhanced my ability in that area moving forward. My 14 months I got home every weekend except three times. When you got your own truck they demanded you did 3 weeks out. The other two I agreed to do 2 weeks because I longed to get out west. I made west coast once. I dropped an empty and picked up a loaded trailer on a rainy night in Seattle UPS and a target dc. By daylight I was running alongside the salmon river in Oregon already almost in Idaho lol. I’ve been through and am familiar with every city east of the Mississippi. I can tell ya instantly on how long app. It takes to get from a to b. I dunno if they ever figure out a way to get a guy like me back into it I’d be interested, but I think I’m better off just fearing it the way I am and staying away. Do door dash or something lol. Thank you again driver! You can delete all my rambling. Just glad to have that ear out there! 🤟
@@TheJoyofTrucking yep i agree on both accounts. Let the company pay the lumpers and stay away from leasing. Especially right now with fuel costs and parts. Company drivers get to sleep at night and don't worry about getting a truck fixed. I wouldn't purchase a truck until you have at least 5 years of experience behind you. Unless you trip into the perfect company.
Just because it’s a live load /unload doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad by definition. Most times you are accommodating customers who are small and do not necessitate preloading the trucking companies trailers. Let’s say swift sales comes to small company they will try to sell you the convenience of having a number of empty trailers available at all times. This is also sold as additional warehouse space when not needed to transport goods. Problem is it’s pricy for a customer to pay for this kind of convenience and are happy to accommodate drivers with appointments and most have no problem getting you in and out in under 2 hours. 90% drop and hook? Ya you wish. It’s those huge multi billion dollar labels that seem to have no problem with making your life a living hell spending in access of 8-10-12 hours hooked to a door. You tell your dispatch gimme my 20 for two hours which is max I as a driver I can receive. The one time I am referring specifically I was at some Gatorade place in Atlanta. Dropped at Georgia spice in the am and was at my pickup before lunch hoping to beat the traffic out of the city. It was 10 pm I finally was pulled into the shipping office and was told my load was given to old dominion before I ever arrived. This snowballs. My day is shot. I put myself a available with 11 and 14 to work with just to try to get something to get me outta ATL asap. Don’t I get a Walmart load out of their refer division in Monroe,GA up to Knoxville, live unload at a sams club and return the refer to Monroe Georgia non stop. Monroe GA was about 50-60 miles east of the super loop. And not interstate 20 east. Back roads east. And had to take a 45 minute course on how to properly make sure that green light stayed on. Dropping it included standing at the back of the trailer and adding labels to every case on the pallet as the fork pulled it. I was soooo tired I called dispatch. I said listen. With the debacle yesterday and this I’m now 24 hours and counting leaving Knoxville. Do they absolutely have to have this refer back in Monroe right now? Let me check. 5 minutes and answer, yes. Walmart has to have that trailer back and ready to go for tonight. I tell you this story with such detail 15 years later because it was the worst of the worst in my 1.5 year career with swift. I got to the DC and crashed hard! I woke up 24 hours later on a Saturday, no cares given to a getting a load out of ATL at all. I ended up doing a 34 and putting my truck into maintenance for its B service. I hated the thought of doing my B services anywhere other than martinsburgh WV. the word was days you could be sitting in the ATL swift terminal waiting for them to get to your truck. This at least went smoothly and I was put back on dispatch before lunch on Monday, got a load for the coast and had to battle rush hour at its worst. When I parked early early Tuesday am hours from my drop, the silence of that off-ramp and the faint smell of the Atlantic and the freeness I felt being free of hotlanta overwhelmed me to tears. I’ve had a lot of good and a lot of not so good live unloads but that time in Atlanta for me was the worst it ever got.
I always thought them open deck boys had it the worst. And with swift, all that for a penny a mile more than I got. I guess they got a whole lot more times they could put in their 80 dollar driver load/unload fee when handling tarps maybe. But all that strapping. All them safety checks to check straps…. 1 cent a mile. I’ll stick to dry van!
More , great information again!!👍
:-)))
Off ramp lyfe!!!
Last live load was scheduled for 5pm I got there at 5:30, got put into a dock at 9pm. Left the parking lot going to a parking for the night at 1am…..
😵💫😵💫😵💫😖😣😤😩
What’s funner than a live load? A live load at a Walmart DC. Don’t be late. Don’t be early. Anything other than your appointment time validates Walmart to detain you for as long as they want without any monetary compensation.
Thanks!!! We really prefer the drop and hook!!
I only ever had 1 live at a Walmart DC. As freaked out as I was with the way everyone in dispatch reminded me time and time again how important the appointment time was it actually went well. The funny story was hearing a driver on the cb telling about shipping receiving getting all bent he didn’t pull the tractor off his load. What you can’t read driver? Signs everywhere! Driver stated, yeah but I’m in a straight truck! Made me laugh hard!
@@midnightryder611 🤣😂😆🤣😂😃😁🤣😆😂
Just got love those live unloads lol, , I get $100 if I been waiting for 2 or more hours at a customer! Stay safe and keep on truckin
That’s good! Do you have to ask or is it automatic?
Knowing that your going to be held more than an hour to two, this is referred to detention
You are more than those hours, then you would have to send a macro to your Driver Mgr/ Fleet Mgr that your held ' detention; requesting for Detention Pay.
No detention pay at Werner. But if it’s really ridiculous you can talk to your fleet manager. Sometimes he’ll put a little something extra on your check.
I love your videos. Great information. I appreciate an honest unbiased opinion of the trucking industry/lifestyle.
Can you tell me how you handle the snow when it accumulates on top of your trailer ? I think in most states its illegal to drive with snow on top of trailer because it can freeze and them fly off coming down the highway and end up going through a windshield of a car behind your truck. Do you have to climb on top of trailer and shovel it off ?
Hi there Michael!! Glad you are enjoying our videos and getting good value from them! And we appreciate your compliment :-))
We looked into your question. It’s a tough one. There are laws in some states. There are scrapers you drive under in some places. But overall it seems like a tough situation. Who has a ladder, the safety equipment, and a spotter on hand? Here is an interesting article we found.
www.sageschools.com/tractor-trailer-snow-and-ice-removal-what-you-need-to-know/
Seems to us that they are making drivers legally responsible, but being unrealistic in how truck drivers could properly comply.
Thanks for your question! Hope this helped a bit. We haven’t run into the situation, but this is the information we found. Very thought provoking.
Thanks for answering my question. I live in the Carlisle, PA area which as you must know has multiple truck stops and many, many truck company terminals. I was sitting at the Loves yesterday doing some truck spotting and saw so many Werner Trucks and was thinking of you guys. !!
@@michaelm8457 LOL!!! We’ve definitely been there. Not this month. But in the past. And probably in the future. :-))
@@michaelm8457 I’m sorry but I am laughing at this soo much 3 weeks after your merited concern and text book answer you received. Do not attempt or replicate anything this upstate ny hillbilly says. But me myself and I…. After prying a stuck good trailer from its slot out in a yard. Freezing cold and critically wet? Yeah drag that down the road and watch the explosion at the first 13’6” you come upon! Be mindful it doesn’t create an accident behind you or up on the bridge itself but other than that “BOOM”. Problem solved! But that’s not the right answer driver always trust the professionals!!
I've spent around 15 hours after I was unloaded and pulled away from the dock into the parking lot waiting for my bills to be signed. They claimed all the freight on each pallet had to be counted and put away before it could be entered into the system. I absolutely detest grocery store warehouses. Can't remember the name of the place but it was around Baltimore MD. Drop and hook is absolutely the best way to go.
Holy crap!! That’s terrible!!!! And totally unreasonable!!! So sorry that they could do that! If you were a company driver I hope at least you were adequately compensated!
Those grocery warehouses…. A complete racket. Unless you play ball with the way the lumpers work, they will do everything in their power to destroy you.
“You need a lumper to unload you driver? We can get you one right over here.”
“No I can unload these pallets, thanks.”
“You need a lumper to unload you driver. These pallets you are dropping all need to be re stacked. Be real easy to hire a lumper.”
“How much is a lumper?”
“I don’t know they don’t work for us. I’ll send you one over”…. “250 dollars. Qual com your company and get a com check printed up. You an owner op? We accept cash.”
“I’ll unload it myself”
Company proceeds to make you regret not hiring an on site contractor acting as a lumper. I’ve seen this dozens of times spanning decades. All of them. I was so aware of it that my first time I personally would live unload at a grocer and the lumper gave his price, I said no problem bud. I’ll run it through. If swift ok’s it it’s yours. Every time what the lumper stated I got in a com check and handed to the lumper no questions asked. Pallets come off, light goes green, go in get signed bill. No problems. A friggen racket that I bet is still going on 35 years after I was made aware of it.
@@TheJoyofTrucking I know I’m a month late to the party lol. You just come across my recommendations. Can’t pick time nor reason for that! Be safe driver! Stick it out with them as long as you can. Don’t fall for them lease deals! Stay company! Do your time and wait for that real opportunity to come your way. You’ll know it when you see it! Thanks for sharing your experiences and allowing me to reminisce for an am! Not many at all knows what it takes. You said yourself 90% annually try and fail. Of that 10% how many you think makes it two years, even still in the industry?
I beat the odds being one of 3% that made it a year accident and ticket free, paying back the 3k I think it was they financed you for the school. If I’d remained 2 years I would have received all 3k back. I think the way it worked I was full paid in and was half paid back. First year you payed out 75 dollars a check and they payed back 35 a check. Second year the 75 out stopped and you would still get the 35 back.
When I was in swift school outside Memphis I got a call from my soon to be wife she was pregnant. He was born and with my wife being with child a second time I pulled myself out of the business and came to work for a rinkdink straight truck local company for the next 7 years. My boy will be 16 in September. Would love to climb my way back into it, but the eld stops me from pursuing. Truth be told I’d get home on Friday, my paper logs would show up home late Saturday lmao. Another reason I didn’t stick it out to year two. Much to risky. But you had to in order to keep moving and in sync with everything.
HOS should be at the discretion of a trained and highly skilled professional the way I see it. Even if they just keep the 70, I’d be ok with that. Keeps everything in check in the end. Even then no matter how much you messed with the book you couldn’t get around the 70. Easiest thing was to get from under a load and manipulate a 34 lol. I could get one off in 12-24 easy then a fresh 70! It’s why no one can make a living out there now. Make enough to keep the driver ok, but the whole point is the checks gotta go home to momma. Live as meager as possible and build your castle.
Damn GPS killed it for us skilled drivers more than you know. Now anyone with a pulse gets shoved up behind the wheel and, I mean, it works…. Kinda…. For a little while…. Even when I was out in 06 the rand McNally truckers atlas that would release an updated edition every year was my most important tool. Cheap garmins and Tom toms were out there but you were an idiot throwing it in the window and following it like your in a video game like everyone nowadays. 06 was the end of an era for a guy like me. Who has the 6th sense when it comes to being aware of where I am and where I’m going. Proper planning and the ability to retain valuable information on an area that enhanced my ability in that area moving forward. My 14 months I got home every weekend except three times. When you got your own truck they demanded you did 3 weeks out. The other two I agreed to do 2 weeks because I longed to get out west. I made west coast once. I dropped an empty and picked up a loaded trailer on a rainy night in Seattle UPS and a target dc. By daylight I was running alongside the salmon river in Oregon already almost in Idaho lol.
I’ve been through and am familiar with every city east of the Mississippi. I can tell ya instantly on how long app. It takes to get from a to b. I dunno if they ever figure out a way to get a guy like me back into it I’d be interested, but I think I’m better off just fearing it the way I am and staying away. Do door dash or something lol.
Thank you again driver! You can delete all my rambling. Just glad to have that ear out there! 🤟
@@midnightryder611 Thanks for sharing your insights and experience!!!
@@TheJoyofTrucking yep i agree on both accounts. Let the company pay the lumpers and stay away from leasing. Especially right now with fuel costs and parts. Company drivers get to sleep at night and don't worry about getting a truck fixed. I wouldn't purchase a truck until you have at least 5 years of experience behind you. Unless you trip into the perfect company.
Yes ! In the order for wihich they are received.
😃👍
GREAT video......
Thanks David!!
Just because it’s a live load /unload doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad by definition. Most times you are accommodating customers who are small and do not necessitate preloading the trucking companies trailers. Let’s say swift sales comes to small company they will try to sell you the convenience of having a number of empty trailers available at all times. This is also sold as additional warehouse space when not needed to transport goods. Problem is it’s pricy for a customer to pay for this kind of convenience and are happy to accommodate drivers with appointments and most have no problem getting you in and out in under 2 hours. 90% drop and hook? Ya you wish.
It’s those huge multi billion dollar labels that seem to have no problem with making your life a living hell spending in access of 8-10-12 hours hooked to a door. You tell your dispatch gimme my 20 for two hours which is max I as a driver I can receive. The one time I am referring specifically I was at some Gatorade place in Atlanta. Dropped at Georgia spice in the am and was at my pickup before lunch hoping to beat the traffic out of the city. It was 10 pm I finally was pulled into the shipping office and was told my load was given to old dominion before I ever arrived.
This snowballs. My day is shot. I put myself a available with 11 and 14 to work with just to try to get something to get me outta ATL asap. Don’t I get a Walmart load out of their refer division in Monroe,GA up to Knoxville, live unload at a sams club and return the refer to Monroe Georgia non stop. Monroe GA was about 50-60 miles east of the super loop. And not interstate 20 east. Back roads east. And had to take a 45 minute course on how to properly make sure that green light stayed on. Dropping it included standing at the back of the trailer and adding labels to every case on the pallet as the fork pulled it. I was soooo tired I called dispatch. I said listen. With the debacle yesterday and this I’m now 24 hours and counting leaving Knoxville. Do they absolutely have to have this refer back in Monroe right now? Let me check. 5 minutes and answer, yes. Walmart has to have that trailer back and ready to go for tonight. I tell you this story with such detail 15 years later because it was the worst of the worst in my 1.5 year career with swift. I got to the DC and crashed hard! I woke up 24 hours later on a Saturday, no cares given to a getting a load out of ATL at all. I ended up doing a 34 and putting my truck into maintenance for its B service. I hated the thought of doing my B services anywhere other than martinsburgh WV. the word was days you could be sitting in the ATL swift terminal waiting for them to get to your truck. This at least went smoothly and I was put back on dispatch before lunch on Monday, got a load for the coast and had to battle rush hour at its worst. When I parked early early Tuesday am hours from my drop, the silence of that off-ramp and the faint smell of the Atlantic and the freeness I felt being free of hotlanta overwhelmed me to tears.
I’ve had a lot of good and a lot of not so good live unloads but that time in Atlanta for me was the worst it ever got.
😮😮😮😮😮😮😳😳🥺🥺
No wonder you remember it so well!!! How terrible!!!!! Thanks for sharing!!!! Glad you also have memories to balance that one out!!
1
Good info. Just think what reefer drivers go through. Much worse.
Yup! Live unload every time.
I always thought them open deck boys had it the worst. And with swift, all that for a penny a mile more than I got. I guess they got a whole lot more times they could put in their 80 dollar driver load/unload fee when handling tarps maybe. But all that strapping. All them safety checks to check straps…. 1 cent a mile. I’ll stick to dry van!
@@midnightryder611 That’s Kevin’s thinking too. And the weather and dangers of climbing around on the trailer. Not worth it to him.
@@TheJoyofTrucking You are correct on that part. Tapping in 30 mph at 0f. I was thinking of the bad appointment times and detention with reefer.
@@jimb3541 And they are loud at night!
Werner only pays miles.
The Chickens Chirp loud at Werner
🐣🐣🐥