where are the loads
- Thread starter oops79
- Start date
What company are you talking about? All carriers post loads on load boards, it part of the business. GP plays a part of it too. Remember it is now the slow season and what you may have said no too a few weeks ago may be the only freight now until freight picks back up some.
Jefferson3000
Expert Expediter
There are many reasons that a carrier brokers a load when they have trucks sitting. Many times a load is booked because the carrier can cover the pickup within an hour. If you're 90 miles out from the pick, your carrier will broker it, rather than lose the customer. The good news is, there is some driver sitting over there who just got a load, so at least someone is moving now.
letzrockexpress
Veteran Expediter
why do we have no loads? But are dispatched are selling loads to other carriers. Whats up? Only certain driverds are getting the loads.
But they swear they dont play favorites. Whatever
.....wtf?.....
letzrockexpress
Veteran Expediter
Dispatcher03
Not a Member
why do we have no loads? but are dispatched are selling loads to other carriers. whats up? only certain driverds are getting the loads.
but they swear they dont play favorites. whatever
Let me explain this scenario. Here is what we see. It is now 23:55 cen.
Louisville, Ky to Detroit, Mi. Picking up on 12/22/2010 Delivers on 12/26/2010. 5 Skids 48x45x40 stackable. etc.
Do you see he dates? Right in the middle of the slow season. This load may be the only load we see all day on the 22nd. And nobody wants it. Why? Because it cannot deliver on Christmas. And no driver wants to do this one. So we might call a couple of buddy carriers and see if they have any muslim drivers lol. Then we have to bid on the load for like a arm and a leg, because the muslim driver wants to take advantage of the situation. So we do, and after arguing with the customer we just lost due to the rediculous rate, we get the load covered, and it will be the last one we get from the customer probably. Then our company driver or owner op wants to complain that we are getting loads to other carriers? You would have sat in Mi. or whever the scenario drops. During the slow season, nobody knows if they can find you a return trip for sure or not. Its gambling. This whole business is gambling. You as the driver are gambling, and us as loadplanners and dispatchers are the biggest dice rollers you will ever see. Main thing is, you dont want us rolling your dice for you do you? We dont want to hear you complain about sitting either. So its better to sit at home then in the amazon. Be greatful. Its not playing favorites. If you havent noticed, most companies have company drivers. They didnt hire them for no reason. They are for the companies benefit not loss. So if you are sitting, think about where you COULD be sitting if you had an idiot dispatcher that took too much risk in a slow season. Nobody likes the slow seasons. Its tough on everyone.
this is always a slower time of year for freight. those that are busy can generally be explained by rite place at the rite time. then again, other companies just simply have some freight when others dont. as far as selling loads, it happens. a company should not broker a load till they are sure they cannot do it. all avenues need to be explored if possible. sometimes there is no time to do this. other times though it is done in the name of a larger profit margin cause a partner carrier will do it for less leaving more for the original carrier. this part is wrong and should not be done. also at times i have seen it done cause of the dh to the p/u is farther for the carriers truck than a partner carriers truck. not even a phone call made, just brokered away. also should not be done. other times the p/u time is stated and the del time is out far enough the p/u could be done 2/3 hours later and still make the del. giving time to make the p/u if the dispatcher would communicate with the customer. not done, easier to just broker it to someone else. also should not be done. make a call ask some ?. on the other side though there are many reasons to broker loads and they are pretty cut and dry. what gets most of the o/o though is the scenarios mentioned and the company driver attitude you get from SOME not all dispatchers. you know what i mean. take it i found it for you.
lots of strange unpredictable and very predictable things happen in this business. some rite some wrong. like when you get a load on the truck. no more than get 5 miles from the p/u and get a call to take the freight back the load has canceled or its going on a plane. 75% of the time if you stay and observe, another carrier will show up and get the freight. that is if the other carrier is not already there waiting. this situation is not controlled by your carrier its just done in the name of profit. the point is, this world of expediting is as was said, just another word for legalized gambling. crazy stuff happens, one week 5000 mi next 500. slow times, good times. there are alot of reasons for having or not having loads. all we can do is hope that the reasons are justified by the circumstances of the load or the amount of freight available. not by the reasons previously mentioned. hang in there, your day is coming and freight will p/u. dispatchers, in the slow times take the extra minute to think, how can i keep from brokering this load. o/o, think can i do it and not lose money if it will put me in a better freight area. but dont lose money.
lots of strange unpredictable and very predictable things happen in this business. some rite some wrong. like when you get a load on the truck. no more than get 5 miles from the p/u and get a call to take the freight back the load has canceled or its going on a plane. 75% of the time if you stay and observe, another carrier will show up and get the freight. that is if the other carrier is not already there waiting. this situation is not controlled by your carrier its just done in the name of profit. the point is, this world of expediting is as was said, just another word for legalized gambling. crazy stuff happens, one week 5000 mi next 500. slow times, good times. there are alot of reasons for having or not having loads. all we can do is hope that the reasons are justified by the circumstances of the load or the amount of freight available. not by the reasons previously mentioned. hang in there, your day is coming and freight will p/u. dispatchers, in the slow times take the extra minute to think, how can i keep from brokering this load. o/o, think can i do it and not lose money if it will put me in a better freight area. but dont lose money.
Dispatcher03
Not a Member
And to add to that there was another thing I didnt mention. Almost all of the loads my company brokers are going to very crappy areas for us like Oregon or Alberta or some craziness like that. Loads that we would NEVER send OUR driver to unless we had a customer set up there. But the circumstances provided, we might no of a company that has customers in Portland, Or. To get their truck out of there, and we don't. They have a guy ready for the load, our guy is 350 miles away. Guess who we are calling? We are calling the other company. Save our guy for something more decent in an area we can get him out of. The average company brokers 10%-20% of the loads they get. Guess how many they GET from other company's? The same. 10%-20%. Its a business relationship. If we can broker what would be a crappy load to us on another carrier, and then they call us a few days later with whats a crappy load for them but a great one for us, drivers won't know all of that. All they know is we came through for them. We don't like to broker a load until we have exhaust all means to cover it with our drivers, but certain company's (ahem, Panther, Fed Ex CC,) do broker their loads out while still calling their drivers and use the cheapest rate. The truth of the matter is, if you are in a company like mine, its always cheaper to do it in house, not outside. For example, Our straight truck drivers average 1.30 - 1.45/mi. If we try to broker a straight truck load, we will be quoted anywhere from 1.77 - 2.00/mi. These are acceptable ranges, but obviously brokering the load cuts our profits (if any) if we bid on the load for the company driver. This is where you get that tense relationship between dispatcher and driver. Because if I get this load to move you out of where you have been sitting for 3 days, and you turn it back, you just costed the company a buttload of time and money, because you dont want to deadhead 125 miles for only .40/mi. Truth of the matter is, dispatchers always give the driver as much as they can, because we want to keep you guys on with us and happy. If we only have 5 trucks running, the company will make nothing. If we have 100 happy trucks, we are all happy. Have you ever noticed that sometimes you get a load from one place to another a couple of times, but a different rate almost every time? Thats because we are paying you what we can. If you talk us into giving you more money, now you are taking food off of our table, if there was any to start with, and taking money from the company, all which might actually only add up to be an extra 20 bucks at the end of the load you was orignally complaining about. Think about it. I had a driver in Laredo a while back, and I got him a load to Detroit. Total miles is 1620. I gave him 1.28/mi. We had 1.55/mi. in the load. His 1.28/mi. came to 2073.60 at the end of the load. No deadhead. He wouldnt do the load unless I gave him 1.30. This dude is in a 16ft. box truck with a 90" high door for christs sake. We are lucky to find anything more than a cube load for him. Do you know what 1.30/mi came to? 2106.00. He wouldnt do the load unless he got another 32.40.
keep in mind this guy WANTS to go to wy or SD or ND....
BTW.. your last example...did you give him the 2 cents or sell it?
BTW.. your last example...did you give him the 2 cents or sell it?
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greg334
Veteran Expediter
Good thing I got some new boots for Christmas...
Normally I would be messing around with this subject but to your disappointment, it is very very true.
Starting Monday, I got a 'request' to haul my butt down to some other midwest state to pick up 1000lbs for $3.75 a mile. During my trip to the pickup, I got 4 offers. AND Monday on my way down there, I got my Wednesday load confirmed - it is a dedicated run, so I don't take anything except if it goes in that direction. Tuesday I got 5 more calls for 4 loads, all going south and I really hated to turn them down but I had the run for Wednesday already set in stone. Wednesday during the run, I got 6 calls for 4 offers, this time 2 went east, one went west and one south. This morning, the reason I am up is another offer was made but I had to turn it down because my other work is more important. I do expect two more today.
See Letz, it is very unusual for me to get this many offers, it is usually two a week outside the ones I take. I don't know if it is because the D units are all away from the area or if the agents are finding loads in bunches or the economy is booming, what ever it is, I feel bad I can't do them all.
Dispatcher03
Not a Member
keep in mind this guy WANTS to go to wy or SD or ND....
And comminicating that with ALL of your dispatchers is key. Also, you need to explain how desperate you are. "Hey Dispatcher I will take just fuel for x miles for any load going to x region." But be careful and never be too specific on how many loaded miles you MUST have or exactly what region you want. Let dispatcher know of options, not requirements.
Dispatcher03
Not a Member
To be honest with you with most situations I would have paid the two cents. But this driver asks for more money EVERY time we call him with a load. I offered him 1.36/ mi. on a 2000 mile run with 58 miles of deadhead paid, and he wanted 1.40. So I brokered that load out of Laredo and did pay more. But it was principle. Remember its all gambling. If we paid our drivers what they wanted every load, then they might as well book the loads themselves and answer the calls on their own 24/7 and maintain relationships with the customers themselves, because the company doesnt make that much money.
as an O/O and a businessman...I would have sold it in a heartbeat....Laredo isn't a place to try to gamble..the odds are with the house...
Always open..I never box myself in...I know that sometimes you have to try and get back end money and that might knock you out of the load...In my case that is not required..and dispatch knows of this...
greg334
Veteran Expediter
as an O/O and a businessman...I would have sold it in a heartbeat....Laredo isn't a place to try to gamble..the odds are with the house...
Actually it shows the problem I think it prevelent in the industry, a need to make X amount of money on every load. It has nothing to do with where it ends up at, that is the contractor's problem, but rather the 4 cents difference to move the truck, capture the revenue is more of an issue. By brokering it out, it screws the contractor/company relationship.
The carrier should be as flexible as they expect the contractor to be, not all loads make money and if the company feels they have to make money on every load with a set margin, it is not a company that people should work for.
Depends on the situation..
this driver knows there is a margin for the company and pushes for extra pennies on every load...where does one draw the line?
knowing this guys history, the dispatcher should have came in at $1.24...???
greg334
Veteran Expediter
Now see you are thinking that there is a need to step out of the business shoes and into the company's shoes.
Take Laredo for example, the 4 cents could mean that the driver is willing to sit for an extra day but on the other hand it may be to offset the cost of higher DH to say Dallas to pickup a load. It is a business thing and the company who decides not to pay the 4 cents to me is rather a cheap company and not willing to compromise.
It should not matter what the margin that the company operates on to the contractor, it is his bottom line that only matters. In thinking that 4 cents will break a company and the inflexibility of the company to compromise means that the company is chasing pennies and NOT using their resources right. Their problem shouldn't become the contractor's problem but in many cases it does.
The business man in you shouldn't be concern about what the company has to deal with, honestly, because unless they want to open their door to you, it is not about them but you. Many of these companies, like one I was going to mention but won't, view you as a tool, not a person, not a business person but a tool to move freight that they deem as their protective profit. THAT company can move every truck in their fleet, every day and pay them better than most companies and still make a crap load of money but they don't. They operate under the idea that we as a company are to get X and not a penny less than X with internal resources we have but we will accept Y with external resources - X being more than Y in many cases.
So where do you draw the line?
You really don't because each situation is different as every contractor is different.
Why do you think the company always has to compromise?
where is the "partnership"?
By the OP's own numbers the company was going to make $388.80 on the original offer...so in that regard would have the extra 32 bucks hurt them either?
where is the "partnership"?
By the OP's own numbers the company was going to make $388.80 on the original offer...so in that regard would have the extra 32 bucks hurt them either?
why would a owner what his truck to sit for aweek. oh because the fleet manager doesnt tell the owner. slow or not theres no reason to be sitting where I have been since friday. no more fuel to run apu to keep warm or food. yes I m looking for a different owner and company. I like to run my *** off and I will run like a dog. but 500 to 800 miles per week for the last month is just crazy. Ive lost evrything.