Wow Turtle...are you actually a driver for Panther? Or are you a Panther employee?
I'm sure others besides myself got a chuckle out of that one. But you're new here and likely don't know of my long love affair with the collection of idiots, morons and incompetents loosely referred to as the people in Seville.
Even turning down the reduced rate loads they get cranky with u.
You, maybe, but not me. I usually just say, "No thanks." If they ask me why, I'll tell 'em straight up, either I don't want to go where it's taking me, or there's too much deadhead, or it's reduced rate, or whatever. If my reason is one they wish to compensate me for, they will, if not, "no thanks" still applies, and they can get it covered by someone else.
And these reduced rate loads are offered in PRIME panther circle, not the midwest.
Uhm, the Midwest is in the PRIME circle. That's certainly not the only place you'll get offered a reduced rate, but for the most part, it's where the cheap freight is, the NLM stuff, the automotive freight, and combine that with a bazillion trucks, not just from Panther, but from everybody, and competition results in low rates. I have been on the fringes and have been offered reduced rate loads, as well. I do know, tho, that in talking with lots of others, I haven't been getting as many reduced rate loads as some others have been, and I don't think it's because of favoritism.
It seems the only time you get a load at the truck rate is when they have no other truck in the area to cover the load. Other then that it is offered at a reduced rate 90% of the time.
I dunno. 90% isn't even close to my experience. My rate in the van is 77 cents. There was about a 10 day period where I had 9 loads, 6 were at 75 cents, the other 3 were at 77 cents. In the last 4 weeks, though, I've had one at 75, one at 70, and all of the others have been at my contracted rate, a few of them at substantially higher FSC rates than normal.
I agreed to run freight at 77 cents a mile, plus the FSC, so that's what I will live up to, as long as the load makes sense and is profitable. If it's not, then no thanks, thanks for offering it, have a nice day, I'll catch you on the next one.
And they don't forget about you, believe you me. I was on the phone with a dispatcher about a load and this dispatcher was grumblin about another driver and how that driver never does anything without a bonus. So they don't FORGET about you as soon as you hang up.
OK, I exasperated a little. But for the most part, unless you make a chronic spectacle of yourself (as I have done), most will not remember you. They aren't smart enough or competent enough to remember most of the, I dunno, 1000 or so drivers, on a day to day basis. They're too busy. On the other hand, there are at least two dispatchers (and a couple on Driver Relations and a couple on Safety) who, if you asked them who their least favorite driver is, my name would roll right off their tongue without hesitation. My problem is, I don't complain much, but I will not tolerate incompetence or someone who lies, so when I do complain, it's very long and very loud, which just endears the heck out of me with nearly everyone in the building before I'm done. I'm not here to win friends and influence people, I'm here to do a job, and I do it well, and I expect those who I pay a hefty fee to for each load they find for me, to at least be competent in their jobs.
And Panther offer up a bonus???? Hell no, you have to pull teeth to get bonuses, again, they only hand those out if there are no other trucks in the area that they can turn to.
Exactly, if there are no other trucks in the area, they are more likely to offer a bonus to get the load covered. That's where my "no thanks" come in real handy. I accept or reject the load as offered, and if I reject one it's because I don't want it. It's not like I want that load really bad, but only if they offered me a bonus. I don't want the load as offered, period. If they need it covered badly enough, they will ask me what it would take to get me to run it, or they might offer up some incentive like covering full deadhead or whatever. If they offer it, fine, if not, that's fine too because I've already turned the load down. I've never had to pull teeth or beg for a bonus. If they offer it, I'll reconsider the load as offered, if not, that's fine with me, too.
They do need to go back to the old boards, so we are not all congested in one area. Like Detroit where there can be 30 trucks at one time.
Well, they need to go back tot he old boards, but not because we're congested. Those 30 truck that are in Detroit are almost certainly not all in Detroit. They are spread all over the place, the same places they were before these new boards. For example, with the old boards, it might show 4 trucks in Louisville and 4 in Lexington. With the new boards, and with those 8 trucks sitting in the same exact place, it will show 8 trucks in Lexington. They aren't all of a sudden all congested in Lexington.
But that's the problem with the new boards, not the congestion, but the fact that we really don't know where the other trucks are anymore, much less where the loads are coming from. These new boards are 11,400 square miles (pi r squared) which is just butt stoopid. The old boards might show 5-a-day out of Louisville and 2-a-day out of Lexington, and it showed how many trucks were in each location. Now, it'll show 7 a day out of Lexington and 8 trucks are sitting there in Lexington, which doesn't tell us squat, cause it's dead wrong information. As bad as the old boards were, especially all those 0-a-day boards, they at least told you where
not to go. Now, we don't even know that much. The new boards are a tour de force in ignorance and incompetence
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy working for Panther, and there is alot of folks I talk to on the phones that are very nice and pleasant. It's the cranky ones that need lessons on phone manners and how to respect the drivers. Because without the drivers, they wouldnt have a job.
Yeah, for the most part everyone is nice. It's not their fault that whatever intelligence they had when they started was systematically boiled from their brain by Panther policies and procedures. Sometimes they can get cranky, but so can I. It happens.
As for working for Panther, well... I could get my own authority and everything that goes along with it, and spend time finding all my own loads and dealing with collections and all the other stuff, but I don't want to deal with all that hassle. Instead, I pay Panther to find loads for me, and to deal with all the other stuff. So while I'm leased on with them, I don't actually work for them. It's a symbiotic partnership, to be sure, but if anything, they work for me. I pay them a lot, so do you, and it's why incompetence just chaps my butt.
