Ideas for saving money

[Dock Man]

As this seems to be a major talking point for corporate, I figured why not throw in my two cents. As if I can afford anymore.

Just before the operations over haul for line haul, which is the first step toward our new future, my terminal has hired 3 new supervisors. Only one of whom was hired inside the company, see a future for upward advancement? More on this later. So three new supervisors, figuring about $1k a week salary plus benefits. There are now two shifts with three supervisors, unnecessary and wasteful. Most of the time the are on forklifts or standing about. Instead of hiring more superfluous management why not simple use lead men. Giving a promotion with a $1 more an hour increase and the same powers as supervisor. This not only saves money but the lead man will require fare less training and can step into the role much quicker and be an asset instead of dead weight.

[had enough]

the additional ones their hiring are titled weight and reweigh inspector, or some garbage like that. just another clown to be there as a full time dockworker when needed.

[Not_wanted]

1k a week? Only our Manager makes that (of course depends on where you are in the country for cost of living)

[Not_wanted]

Big loss at our place is labor hours. Drivers punch in and sit in break room till load is ready. Why are you not hooking up? Then when load ready, sit there fumble through paperwork for 10 minutes signing every DR even though it will not be delivered for 8 hours. Go outside and finally do your Pre-Trip (if you can call that a pre-trip) on tractor, drive across yard to get your personal items (why didn't you chuck them in walking BY your truck to get to office?) wipe the dash and clean windows, THEN go get hooked up and do trailer pre-trip. At night we have drivers who hide out back and wait for a line at fuel pump padding hours, then take 20 minutes to clean out and BS with others in parking lot away from video cameras, then finally come in and punch out. I figure half our drivers are costing our terminal 10 hours a day, or $250 when you add in taxes and such,,, that is $1250 a week out the door over nothing but spite. Our Manager complains about it, but things don't change for more than 2 days. More often than not these are the same drivers who drag their feet all day then have the balls to complain how they deserve a raise because they work oh so hard all day.

[Not_wanted]

the additional ones their hiring are titled weight and reweigh inspector, or some garbage like that. just another clown to be there as a full time dockworker when needed.

We don't even have a scale at our place. My terminal operates on the "trust the customer".

[Dock Man]

As my limited understanding of the tablet system goes, it's an effort to streamline and make things more efficient. Yet why do we now have two dispatchers when there was only one before?

[Not_wanted]

keep each other awake when times get slow

[larmar]

Just before the operations over haul for line haul, which is the first step toward our new future, my terminal has hired 3 new supervisors. Only one of whom was hired inside the company, see a future for upward advancement? More on this later. So three new supervisors, figuring about $1k a week salary plus benefits. There are now two shifts with three supervisors, unnecessary and wasteful. Most of the time the are on forklifts or standing about. Instead of hiring more superfluous management why not simple use lead men. Giving a promotion with a $1 more an hour increase and the same powers as supervisor. This not only saves money but the lead man will require fare less training and can step into the role much quicker and be an asset instead of dead weight.[/QUOTE]

Depends on the market but a dock foreman usually starts at 40k and lead men don't work.

[Not_wanted]

All this is progressing somewhere, but not sure where. CK said everyone get ready for a big influx of freight, but I have yet to see it (other than the Monday after the 4th due to so many closed Thursday and Friday we had a heck of a Monday) I don't think he understood how many bridges were burned with late deliveries and damaged freight. In fact, I have seen a reduction of freight overall, granted we have dropped some who were just taking up room on our trailers but not paying enough so we could make a a few cents profit but it looked good on a spreadsheet adding to total shipments count and total weight. Like I mentioned before, other than 3pl or Freightquote.com, I have not hauled for one new customer this year, granted sales are tight right now, but when the only thing you here about you current salesman is "oh yeah, he stopped by the other day for a minute or two" then I wonder what is going on. Do they, sales, report to Corporate, or to the Terminal Manager for that area? Someone needs to do something, where I was 2/3 to crammed tight, now it is 1/4 to 1/2 most days, same for coming back, used to be "can we make it fit" to "is that all I am bringing home?"