Reality Check

So...last week while in Portland, Jeff and I had a chance to do some thinking...about what we were doing out here and how frustrating our job has been lately. Don't get me wrong we love doing what we do, but trucking is a strange beast. You would think if you had two hard working people in a truck that truly drive as a Team (which we were trained to drive 11 hours a day,standard in this industry) and drive hard 7 days a week, most trucking companies would chomp at the bit for the opportunity to employ us. Instead, this industry has shown us that mediocre, sometimes even lazy, not honest, and downright grumpy people abound in this industry.

Drivers talk a big game about miles they drive, which I know for a fact, that anyone who announces their miles on a weekly basis are just plain liars. People that truly run great miles on a weekly basis don't need to brag about it. They know where their bread and butter comes from and don't feel the need to shout it out to the world, which by the way, there are only 7 days in a week, so any Team telling you that they run 7500 to 8000 miles in a week in a company truck are just liars. Do the math...unless you have a truck that runs 75 mph 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, running those kind of miles legally is not possible. Plus even if you drive out your 70 hours of drive time per person per week and you average 65 mph, which doesn't include, stopping to go to the bathroom, eating or putting fuel in your truck, any type of construction in your path, shift changes, laundry, grocery shopping, loading and unloading, taking a shower or waiting on dispatch to give you your next load, which anyone who drives a truck knows all of these things must happen to make it possible to do your job, can drive a maximum of 9100. But reality is you average your trips at 50 mph. So on average company trucks are governed at 65 mph, but factoring in all of the things above you must do to keep your truck rolling and the people driving it fairly happy, you use the 50 mph rule. So, let's do the math...50 mph x 140 driving hours (70 hours each) is a MAXIMUM of 7000 miles. This also relies on your company dispatching you the 7000 miles in those 7 days, and the moon being aligned with the stars correctly, which in the last 2 1/2 years we have done this job, has never happened. We have run a maximum in a week of 6742 miles in a company truck governed at 65 mph.

All trucking companies are full of fluff. They tell you what you want to hear to get you to sign up with their company, claiming their company is better than all the rest. Reality check, all trucking companies are the same, you just have to choose the level of stuff your handed on a daily basis that you can deal with.

Do I sound bitter? No, just frustrated. I'm tired of lip service and inconsistent miles. I understand that the amount of freight changes on a weekly basis, but give the miles to people that continously perform. Let the sitters sit or the people that just don't want to run that hard on a weekly basis. We are consistent in our miles and communication to our company and Team Adventure expects the same out of any company we work for.

Thanks for letting me vent.  My next post will be in a 'happy place'....