How many will depart as soon as things turn around? I for one are ready to jump ship. This Combo deal is cutting drivers who want to move to line out of the pic. Why would you want to take a pay cut in you hr wage. Work the dock for 5 hrs then drive for up to 9hrs. R&L this will come back to bite you when you can not hold on to these Combo drivers. The Combo drivers at are Term are all talking about jumping off the truck. Are bill count inbound is way up. As well as are out bound. The combo drivers are working as many if not longer hrs then us P&D drivers. The combo drivers that run line are starting to see it was a bad deal they got. For the rest of us Bid runs are just about gone. They just give it to a combo driver or move line drivers to new runs when the need them.
Last edited by Skeet; 10-23-2010 at 06:24 AM.
these combo guys are really getting run through the ringer with what is expected of the. you are right, they work about 5 hrs on the dock, get in the truck and drive a few hrs, sometimes have to work the dock at that terminal, then have to drive back to their terminal. all said, it seems to be about a 14 hr day everyday. i certainly dont think i could keep that pace up for very long. it just seems like r&l could care less that these guys are pretty much dropping 65 to 70+ hrs a week into their jobs.
It's the same at any freight company driver...the grass is NOT greener on the other side...same crap happens over here at FredEx
I can third that quote, All these trucking companys will twist, turn & bend till you break. Then when the new guy comes in drop the wage, if you quit and go where the grass is greener you as the new guy just helped them. I agree also with Zathlon don't sit back and accept things as they are but also choose how you fight your battle.
They hired me off the street as a combo guy, and it wasn't that bad at first. Little by little, they just kept putting the screws to me until my motto is "R+L rhymes with Hell."
I hate it here. I'm running city, docks, and line haul all in one day, every day, and the only bright spot in the week is the day when I finally run out of hours. The only thing that doesn't suck about running out of this terminal is that they're backing down when they try to get me to play games with my book, and I refuse.
It's the only job I've ever had where I really didn't care if I got fired, or if the company went out of business. I'm going to get as much money out of these bastards as I can while I'm here, but that's the only thing R+L is good for. They pay good money to treat a man like a pile of crap, and the money, at least, is good.
you know it is a shame you feel that way(im not saying you are wrong). it didnt used to be like it is now. ive been here just shy of ten years and all i can say is this wasnt the direction it was going at one time. i actually thought i would retire here at one time. somewhere on the way the whole attitude changed and it went bad. it sucks. i wont slow down or anything like that because im just not that way, but i wont stay. the way things are rolling now, im not sure how things will be in another ten years.