| Author | Message | ||
     Wolfridgerider |
and my vendors can't keep up... I was told... "I've offered them overtime but they all got lazy over the past two years" But the vendors not keeping up doesn't matter... because the freight company I have been using for years has damaged 25% of the loads I have shipped with them since Sept 28Th. This kinda $hit wakes me up at 2 AM just need to vent.... | ||
| Pwnzor |
the freight company I have been using for years has damaged 25% of the loads I have shipped with them since Sept 28Th Ummmmm... wild guess here... Yellow Freight? | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I wouldn't ship pillows with Yellow.... they'd find a way to break them.... | ||
| Roadcouch98 |
Wolfrigerider, Sorry to hear about your current events situation, other than the business picking up part. Your vendors need fresh blood, and so does your shipping company. Contact both of them and let them know there are plenty of quality workers looking for work. I'm looking. (Message edited by roadcouch98 on October 07, 2010) | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
They'll get it fixed... I was just about to put the gravy on my tater but they keep knocking bowl outa my hand... and I needed to vent I hate to use threats. I've had that done to me and it just make me serve the spit on hamburger with a smile. | ||
| Pwnzor |
I wouldn't ship pillows with Yellow.... they'd find a way to break them.... You'd be surprised... or maybe not... how many people just go right on shipping with Yellow, regardless of all the damage done. The only one in the biz with a worse rep had to be Viking... but whatever happened to them? Oh yeah, FedEx bought them out. hmmmm... | ||
| Swordsman |
I've heard Kennesaw Transportation is pretty good to its employees. They got a story in the paper last year for some crazy bonuses they gave to ALL employees, not just the top brass. Dunno if that makes their work any better or not, or if they ship in your area. ~SM | ||
| Badlionsfan |
Who ya shipping with Wolfie? | ||
| Hootowl |
There are still lots of good companies left out there. My company paid an average bonus this year of 12% of salary. Everyone gets them. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I need someone that covers all 50 and then some. We are going to go overboard on crating. That, plus all the crying I've been doing should get it fixed | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Who ya shipping with Wolfie? Estes | ||
| Buellkowski |
Let Pwnzor broker your loads. He's got mad skillz. | ||
| Whisperstealth |
What do you do Wolf. Your profile doesn't say. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I sell building materials. If you have been to a Outback Steakhouse, Ryan's, Carrabba's, Cheeseburger In Paradise, Bonefish, Hard Rock Cafe.... just to name a few... there is a good chance something in that building came out of our warehouse | ||
| Pwnzor |
I know brokers here in Georgia that specialize in furniture and fixtures for restaurants. Pad wrapping, multi level decking inside the trucks, liftgates and things of that nature. Let me know if you want some info on them. | ||
| Badlionsfan |
Being in the LTL business, I'd suggest giving Old Dominion a shout. 50 state coverage, don't hear much negative about them. | ||
| Buffalobolt |
It's the same with us. Crazy busy, but having trouble getting inventory/supplies. With the economy crash, no-one is stocking quantities, and they are getting by with minimal staffing. Between that, and so many items coming in from boats from oversee's it is just one big house of cards. Delays at one end of the supply ripple all the way through to the end user. And, no-one wants to ramp up on staff in case the economy takes another crapper, so it gets into a screaming match all the way through. And, I'm with you Mark, I hate HAVING to holler at someone just to get them to do what they should have been doing all along! We also use Old Dominion on a 50 state basis and they seem to do OK. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I've been using Estes for a long time so I will give them a chance to fix it. For the most part I have 2 or more suppliers for almost everything. Some cost more but they work in a pinch. We are so short handed that I've been doing "some" deliveries and helping in the warehouse when needed. But I still have a job!! | ||
| Nevrenuf |
wolf, brother has a cdl and getting back into the trucking thing up here in c-bus. if you ever need a driver, talks cheap. | ||
| Pwnzor |
I can say this about Estes: They've never broken any of my freight, but they have a bad habit of showing up to deliveries with no liftgate when the price for that service has already been paid, and it's clearly marked on the paperwork. My $0.02 | ||
| Brinnutz |
How about FedEx Freight or FedEx National? | ||
| Pwnzor |
Fedex Freight is on the high end of LTL in terms of price. Of course it depends on the lane, or direction of travel your freight is taking. Fedex is very competitive in some lanes. Others, not so much. Here's the lowdown on LTL: Any time you ship Less-Than-Truckload, your freight is going to change hands at minimum three times. It will be cross-docked at facilities (often open air docks)and exposed to the possibility of damage. If it goes intermodal (which is often out of your control) then your transit time is increased and you add two more cross-dock procedures to the mix. Bottom line, the more times somebody touches the freight, the more likely it will be damaged. Again, minimum with LTL is three trucks. If you ship PTL or Partial Truckload, with a carrier you trust... key element there... your freight travels on a single truck and it gets off at the first stop. On occasion, it will be unloaded and reloaded on the same truck, if the stops are not lined up. Other times, it will travel as LTL and you'll get charged the slightly higher PTL rate. It's not supposed to happen, but it does. All the time. The highest possibility for zero damage exists with the FTL or Full Truckload scenario. Here is where the brokers come into play. By giving your load to a broker, you can dictate the terms and time limits along with the type of trailer, equipment, number of men, etc. All these things factor in the cost. The bidding process includes cost analysis of the lane your freight will be travelling. For example, if your load is coming from Florida to Chicago, you can expect to pay a premium rate. This lane is not a busy one, and most of the time a driver is going to dead head into Florida to get the load. That costs extra. If your load is going from Chicago to Atlanta, things are much different. It's a very busy lane, there are MANY carriers to choose from, and they are all ready to cut deals. Rate analysis based on the lane is the key element here. There are online tools by which you can perform this task yourself, and if you're shipping a lot of volume it can be worth it to subscribe to these services. DAT360 is among the most comprehensive of these. Truckstop.com and getloaded.com are also good tools. The work I do is priced so absolutely sky high due to it's nature, the online tools are of no use to me. My services tend to start at $6 per mile and go way up from there. 135 foot turbine blades, giant tooling dies, and heavy equipment. For example, this trailer is 2 lanes wide, has 8 steering axles, and the gross weight of the load including the truck is just over 400,000 pounds.   It's very hard to see, but the tractor at the rear actually pushes while the one in front pulls. If it was all flat highway, the single tractor could do it, but there are some pesky mountains between points A and B. One of the pilots sent me the pictures, guess he needs to reset the date in his camera. This was last Sunday. $22.00 per mile from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City. All in a day's work. Now, if I could just get this kind of work every day, I may just make a living at it. It's tough all over. | ||
| Badlionsfan |
Many unhappy people at FedEx freight and National ltl right now. FedEx is merging the to companies and lots of guys are either gonna get pushed down the seniority list or out the door. I know people over there and morale is in the crapper. Low morale creates an "I don't care attitude" on the docks, which results in more damages. | ||
| Court |
Good to see a heavy hauler like that in the USA. We usually end up getting folks from the Netherlands to move HRSG's, turbines and generators. I found a picture yesterday from back when I first started in business and we used a Schnable car to move a transformer. It looks funny to see a locomotive, the transformer and a caboose. Those prime movers always fascinate me. | ||
| Whistler |
Glad business is good for you Wolf. We are also suddenly seeing a marked increase. No vendor problems and employee response has been excellent, the increased OT is appreciated. One increase to be mindful about will be receivables as some clients wait for cash to catch up with their orders. No worries if plans and provision are in place. Should be an interesting fall. Let's go get 'em. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
For the most part, we don't get paid until the General Contractor gets paid. BUT. We will take discounts if a vendor offers them for early pay. It can make for some fun stress | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Its been a GOOD Friday!! I love it when the day ends with a handful of orders and customers saying "THANK YOU SO MUCH!" and vendors saying... you're open on Saturday, well will bring your stuff over tomorrow beats the hell out "WHERE IS MY $HIT!!" and "ALL MY STUFF IS DAMAGED!!" | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
The Dutch have been top dogs in the abnormal load game for a long time. They've developed some amazing kit to do it too, real thunderbirds stuff. | ||
| Court |
Interesting to hear the Big O describe our "recovery" today . . . unemployment continues to rise in private business, construction and manufacturing and federal spending last month increased 9% over budget, about 6 times the rate of inflation, and this is a recovery because . . . (drum roll) . . . . . . .if we had NOT have pissed away the $878,000,000,000 (that Recovery.Gov can't account for $162,000,000 of) it would have been worse. And folks line up like lemmings buying that line of bullshit. | ||
| Buellkowski |
My company's busy, too. On target for a record sales year. Things ARE beginning to turn around, despite the unemployment figures. Companies gotta make money before they can afford to hire. |
