Averitt | Rant !!

I apologize for coming across as a TL hater, I promise I am not. TL has never taken a load away from me and I go out of my way to be friendly and nice to them. It's just hard to see my friends going home or working the dock when we have no runs left over when TL guys are walking out the door with LTL loads. I understand we are all doing our jobs and what Central assigns is just that. Again I am no better than anyone else, I apologize for coming across that way, truly sorry. I wish we all made the same money per mile, would stop alot of tension I beleive.
 
There is still bad blood between LTL and T/L concerning Shuttle freight...here is a example..
I had a LTL from LOU-FUL,P/U between 2130-2230,delvr 0600-0700,425miles. At 2115 I go over to dispatch and ask about the load...he looks at his screen and says it's still being loaded,come back at 2230....sooo at 2215 I go back...he says it's ready...paperwork is at the dock stand...soooo I go over to the dock stand,get the paperwork.....the load CLOSED at 2000,2100 my time....I go back to dispatch ,ask him to make a copy of the manifest..all he does is **** and moan,about T/L people. That person is a *****,purposely told me the load was not closed out,so I would have to wait and bust my butt to delvr ontime. This is not the only thing I observed at LOU this week to make me shake my head. Ice...don't be so hard on the T/L people...we have a massive amount of people that are new here and don't know the "ROPES"!

Same thing happened to me at KNX this week I go up for the bills at the cut time told to come back in an hour as it cuts between those hours. I come back the next hour get the bills printed on the bottom the cut time it cut 30 minutes before the first time I went in. As I walked out with the bills I just knew he was laughing to himself...
 
I apologize for coming across as a TL hater, I promise I am not. TL has never taken a load away from me and I go out of my way to be friendly and nice to them. It's just hard to see my friends going home or working the dock when we have no runs left over when TL guys are walking out the door with LTL loads. I understand we are all doing our jobs and what Central assigns is just that. Again I am no better than anyone else, I apologize for coming across that way, truly sorry. I wish we all made the same money per mile, would stop alot of tension I beleive.

You act as if we have a choice Iceman you have only to blame your sainted company leaders...
 
As I said before...Cookeville....assigns non bid shuttle freight between 0800-0900,anything that get assigned before was forcasted on the prior day.
We ALL know your not a T/L HATER....We all drive the RED trucks for the same guy.....things are just getting OLD!
 
The problem is the same guy we all work for is playing us against each other. I refuse to wait in the break room any more waiting for my LTL load as I'm viewed as scum by most shuttle drivers as they sit there waiting for theirs...
 
Same thing happened to me at KNX this week I go up for the bills at the cut time told to come back in an hour as it cuts between those hours. I come back the next hour get the bills printed on the bottom the cut time it cut 30 minutes before the first time I went in. As I walked out with the bills I just knew he was laughing to himself...

The reason they do this is the "SHUTTLE BUDDY" a sleeper shuttle driver....if we do not show up at the "right time" FOR OUR LOAD....THEY GIVE IT TO A SLEEPER SHUTTLE DRIVER. I think some dispatchers do this on purpose so the T/L drivers are late,thus reemphizing the need for more sleeper shuttle drivers to be hired pulling LTL freight,locking T/L out. I know it bothers them that THEY have NO CONTROL over us,as we don't work for them. SERCTRS THAT ARE GETTING TO BE A PITA.....CLT, NOR,FUL,MFS and now LOU
 
The problem is the same guy we all work for is playing us against each other. I refuse to wait in the break room any more waiting for my LTL load as I'm viewed as scum by most shuttle drivers as they sit there waiting for theirs...

You get that feeling too?.....99% of them could'nt hold my truck keys...if they had to go into T/L within a week they would be wandering around with that confused look....EFF THEM...the only reason they are in their position is that they have been with AVRT forever or were hired straight into that position,when their serctr opened...some like ICE worked their way into it!
 
When you are assigned an LTL load and they tell you some ridiculous time that you are due at a terminal to deliver and it is between 0500-0600 realize that you are being fed a line of BS. In the LTL world corporate has come up with this arbitrary 0830 drop-dead arrival time for it to be necessary to get the freight on the street. It is ALL 100% about a numbers game.

Take a look at your manifest. If they have you pulling a load from MFS to GBO and the manifest says "Dest. SVC" as GBO, you have until 0830 to arrive, not 0600 or some such bullcrap. Also on the manifest to the right of each consignee will be a dest SVC for that shipment. The trailer may be destined for GBO but every shipment may be going on to another SVC (ie RIC, ENC, RAL, etc). Also look down the manifest beside each consignee and there will be a due date. Based on the computer time assigned at the time each one of those shipments was picked up that is the "service standard" assigned to that shipment so as to deliver "on time" as they like to say. If you are hooked to a GBO load and they say be there at 0600 on the 18th, look at the manifest for 2 things. Is this a GBO destinatation or is it a RAL load (going on to be unloaded at Raleigh)? If the dest svc ctr is GBO then look down the delivery dates on the manifest. If they are due on the 18th you need to be there NO LATER THAN 0830. If they are due the 19th, GBO is NOT going to unload that trailer until the next night to deliver when the freight is due. If it is a RAL load they may have another driver waiting on that load in GBO to pull it to RAL and you need to be aware of that scenario. ASK CENTRAL!

The problem with most, if not all, T/L drivers is that they don't understand the LTL world and their operation SOP. Hell, the load managers/planners, whatever, don't understand the LTL operation so when they tell you this and that and the other thing you have to be able to play BS Bingo with them and call their bluff. If you follow the guidelines I listed above, key in on the service dates and the Destination SVC, you will know what you are dealing with instead of some crap coming from a planner. AND, as a side note, when you arrive at the terminal you have been dispatched too, CALL UP CENTRAL DISPATCH AND HAVE THEM ARRIVE YOU DAMN IT! I don't know how many countless trailers that I have hooked to that were relayed by T/L and tried to dispatch out only to get a qualcomm response that "Trailer #1 is not available for dispatch". Is this too much to ask?

Myself, when I hook on to a load that is destined to my HOME svc and all of the bills are showing going on elsewhere or have a SVC date of the next day, I get back when I get back because I KNOW they are NOT going to unload it on the inbound shift that morning.
 
Ok, it's time to wish you all a Merry Merry and a Happy Happy! We are lucky to be in the midst of 1 of 3 4 day weekends. Kind of nice. I am also glad to be on vacation until after New Years. Enjoy all!
 
Just think. Only 1 more paycheck before obamacare taxes along with all of the other higher taxes kick in. That coupled with that fantastic and generous raise we received this year as a result of the company operating so efficiently SHOULD put a huge smile on your face!
 
Incompetence breeds incompetence and in my terminal, there is an infestation of it and it starts at the top. AE should hang their collective heads in shame that they have let their employees work in such an environment for so long. You KNX boys are extremely lucky.
 
Here is another one of those things that drives me nuts. Just because someone says something does not necessarily mean that it is so. This happens in news broadcasts, from our politicians, etc. If you hear something said may times, over and over again, you tend to want to believe it even though it is blatantly false and a lie.

Here is a glaring example trying to sell a lie from the March edition of the Averitt Pravda, Page 5 .....
Brighter LED lights are designed with safety in mind, while spring suspensions provide the same comfort and performance as an air ride suspension with less maintenance costs.
:duh: This is patently absurd! I've pulled several of these new spring ride trailers and though I agree that it "currently" has a nice ride, it is not the same as an air ride trailer.

Hey Averitt. Please stop with the patronization of your employees. It make you look silly. :biglaugh:
 
I can't imagine a spring ride riding like an air ride, unless it is some new technology. I pulled a 24k load the other night, rode like crap. Bridge seams felt like my tractor was going airborne, scaled it in Knoxville before dropping, 31k on trailer axles and 16.5k on drives, no wonder. Would have hated to pull that thing on snowy roads.
 
Jeff has an anouncement about Dropbox running above the forum through this week. He is absolutely correct in his description as I have been using it for about a year and love it.
 
I work at a terminal that has a concrete yard. The sealer in the seams has been coming out and desperately needs to be replaced. If left alone, water will get under this concrete and it won't be long before the concrete will be compromised. Our highly talented terminal manager knows this and, like he does with everything else, will do NOTHING about it. When the concrete busts up he will go the cheap route and have some caliche Caliche - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia dumped to fill the holes which in time will render our yard a forever dust bowl. It is only a matter of time before this WILL play out. He should be fired for how he has allowed our once nice facility to go down the tubes.
 
Enough of the BS.....We are pulling old beat up trailers, yet the LTL side of this house has decided it's ok to store CARDBOARD,PALLETS and FREIGHT RACKS in the new and newer swing door trailer. I know that many people on the LTL side don't give a RATS BEHIND, but this is BEYOND stupid. THIS JUST PIZZEZ ME OFF. Here I'm pulling a 44k load on a 9xxxx and a EFFIN 131xxx is being used to store CARDBOARD.
 
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