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FedEx Freight | Lack of freight vs. lack of drivers vs. seniority

Long time truck said:
Good ole boy system that's what he's talking about. Seems to work that way at pretty all no union ltl carriers. Who ever does all they can for management on and off the job. See it all the time.
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Now there is a term that make everything crystal clear.

I remember one company pet... er company drivah... he was so in deep with his brownnosing etc. They were giving him cushy no work solo coast to coast runs while i had to scratch and scrape with a thousand cuts at the coil mill.

It was not long before I managed to get my shaft in and break it off inside that outfit. It was such a good old boys system. A few pets got the loads and made a good living while the rest were essentially howling in the doghouse for a meal.
 
Whogivesafk said:
Went round and round on this when I was new…. Just when you think you have figured out the “procedure” it changes. Lack of freight- lack of driver- more like lack of brains with dispatch. There’s a run in a lane you bid, you’d think you’d be rolling with it- wrong lol….
It all depends on which dispatcher is working and what years policy book gets the dust blown off of it on any given day…
Save your breath filing a claim- it will be denied. I’ve filed 2 different scenarios and both were denied based on the opposites claim set of circumstances. You can’t make this up it’s comical. Anyways I’ve never been forced to sit at home so I don’t carry grudges or whine about those things that happen here and there it’s not worth getting mad about…
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If its a bid with the same gate times and destination, you move the guy up in the chain OR you fill the run if its not cancelled.

Now where that gets dicey is if that particular run drops out of trailers, a bid driver would get cancelled lack of freight and if the board has already been offered out, you're not supposed to walk back and go through it again. If the super goes back through the board, hes just being a nice guy, there is zero obligation for him to do so and its his choice.

We have a few different cancellation reasons at the moment: Lack of Driver, Lack of Freight, Better Business Decision - The issue is the change in procedure for LOF sometimes gets confused. LOD/BBD goes in seniority order, LOF you drop to the bottom nomatter what. But atleast at my terminal a majority of cancellations are ran as BBD since we have some freight but not enough to actually justify the expense of running a driver there. (Now that I think about it, that might be for LOD.)

Ask your TM for a password, login to a company computer, head to home.fedex.com (Will not work outside the network) - click on freight in the top corner where all the opcos are location and then click on knowledgebase, it may ask you to sign in again but there is the best way to view up-to-date policy. Though its always written with lots of grey area room to allow local management to make certain decisions.
 
truckingBORED said:
How about the part where they cut the “most appropriate bid”, which one is that?

Then it says they can give the canceled run away to city or outside drivers!!!

Why bid anything anymore? Seniority means nothing with the new policies.
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Did odfl and fed ex merge. Sounds a lot like odfl seniority means nothing. Union.,!.?
 
HighDollarLane said:
"Best business decision" that is the latest ******** management double talk that the company has no rules for. Conviently!!
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Dont get me started on business decisions.

I am still stinging from the hell and brimstone I had to cross one fine day.

One day in sunny Georgia I sit in a field cooling my trailer. Atlanta was fixing to be half a day to get to it. (Fuel at the Petro, the other alternative was either Savannah, State Line or Alabama. Equally not that attractive fuel wise)

Pull fuel caps, stick yard sticks down both tanks. A skosh of a inch if that. Shes a running and thirsty. 95 out and so on. Reefer was howling. A old mechanical with a 30 gallon tank pre cooling.

With that nice 30 gallong, now 28 something... 28 gallons... over and over in my fevered mind, 28 gallons wouldnt that solve my problems. But the precooling? Hm.

Called local fuel dealer, explained situation. Asked if he could get me fueled both tanks 300+ gallons and then bill my company which then was a pretty big one. Sure you bet, we fill they pay us.

So it was done. I lolled on the warm summers evening without having to go anywhere for a few days for fuel. especially Atlanta.

Management made sure to take me to the back office and then unleashed verbal abuse. When it is not profane words they were choking on a sum of about a thousand blessed dollars. Hm. A 50 million dollar outfit and they are hot and lathered over a grand.... sheesh.

The devil you know versus the devil you just met.... hm.... Next time I'll just let her run dry on their demand to precool and show up to load NAOW. Hang the dispatchers by the fuel hose.

Second, I cannot begin to offer the abuse against the bean counters spec'ing a 30 gallon reefer tank. If you are going to do chill things, slap a big fat 100 galloner in there and stfu about the precious fuel bill.
 
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HighDollarLane said:
"Best business decision" that is the latest ******** management double talk that the company has no rules for. Conviently!!
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You're mistaken on that, its not a management level term, atleast local anyways.
You can thank Central for coming up with that, but it does describe when we're not going to run empties a bit better than LOF, since the freight is still there just the empty miles are too high. They've been tightening the belt on cost per mile per run for the last 2-3 years now.


Big issue up there too is, if you're familiar with the Management problems in NAS (IE: Revolving door) central has been going through the same thing. and more might bail because they're forcing higher seniority planners to rotate schedules when they said they wouldn't. They've also hired about 20 new planners (probably more by now).
 
Ok, now that everything's clear as mud, y'all explain to me how a tractor is both bid and extra at the same time. Heard that one today. Extra driver has bid road unit, assigned to him, and he keeps losing it to other drivers whenever their trucks are in the shop. Meanwhile actual unassigned spares and most of our L units (because city drivers would rather dirty up our R units, obviously) go unused.
 
longhaullounger said:
Ok, now that everything's clear as mud, y'all explain to me how a tractor is both bid and extra at the same time. Heard that one today. Extra driver has bid road unit, assigned to him, and he keeps losing it to other drivers whenever their trucks are in the shop. Meanwhile actual unassigned spares and most of our L units (because city drivers would rather dirty up our R units, obviously) go unused.
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That's called the buddy system.... corporate says it doesn't exist but sounds like you know different..
 
longhaullounger said:
Ok, now that everything's clear as mud, y'all explain to me how a tractor is both bid and extra at the same time. Heard that one today. Extra driver has bid road unit, assigned to him, and he keeps losing it to other drivers whenever their trucks are in the shop. Meanwhile actual unassigned spares and most of our L units (because city drivers would rather dirty up our R units, obviously) go unused.
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I bid a L unit so I done have to to share with the greasy pig roadscum.
 
DOTFXF said:
I bid a L unit so I done have to to share with the greasy pig roadscum.
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Driver in question is saying he's gonna try to bid an L unit for the same reason. Of course, being on the Road, he'll probably get denied. I told him bid the oldest POS road unit possible, then maybe nobody will want to steal it.
 
longhaullounger said:
Driver in question is saying he's gonna try to bid an L unit for the same reason. Of course, being on the Road, he'll probably get denied. I told him bid the oldest POS road unit possible, then maybe nobody will want to steal it.
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Mine mine mine mine.

Espeically old iron that no one knows how to drive anymore. No computers, no easy buttons none of that.

 
Any time tractors get passed around and bosses howl when they see rotting fast food, news papers and so on knee deep on the other side of the Shifter Boot.

IF they stop sharing the trucks and assign them... they will be in much better shape until all the dirtys are eliminated.
 
1984Sideways said:
Any time tractors get passed around and bosses howl when they see rotting fast food, news papers and so on knee deep on the other side of the Shifter Boot.

IF they stop sharing the trucks and assign them... they will be in much better shape until all the dirtys are eliminated.
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Not to mention you'd find out who actually does a pre-trip and who never even bothers to roll a hood or thump a tire. I thought that was as much a reason to bid tractors as driver satisfaction, but I'm just a dumb truck driver.
 
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