Home again!

I deadheaded home from Ogden, UT on Saturday.  After taking a brief detour to ditch my trailer in Greeley, it ended up being just over 500 miles.

Normally I don't like deadheading home, but I have stuff that I have to get done here this week and my options for getting here were limited due to a weekend delivery.  I could have taken a load from Salt Lake City to Sparks, NV for a Monday morning delivery, but that wasn't acceptable.  I also could have waited until Monday for a load heading home, but again, I needed to be home.

Such is the fun of being a trucker, and more so being an independent contractor.  I'll end up being $300 or so in the hole this week.  Oh well.

Once a reefer driver, always a reefer driver

Oh hell.  I forgot to update my situation in my last post.  I guess I got too excited in my rant or something.

I'm back in the saddle as a reefer driver, with a brand new 2008 Freightshaker Century.  The flatbed gig was ok, but through the training I just had a horrible feeling that I would regret it if I did it.  Whenever I go against my gut feelings, I lose. 

Here's a picture of the new truck:

A Trucking Strike?

Seems that some people are calling for a trucker's strike to protest high fuel prices and/or pressure government to intervene in the hopes of providing relief.

I'm going to be blunt. These people are morons.

"Wait, wait, wait", you say, "that's not really fair to say. These people are just trying to earn a living!"

I repeat. These people are morons. The reason that any driver or company is going under in these economic times is the unwillingness to adapt to the current marketplace. See, we have a free market economy here, and as such, it's a consumer driven economy. That means that if your business is going into the shitter, THEN YOUR BUSINESS IS NOT IN DEMAND.

As a business owner, your function in life is to satisfy your customers in a profitable manner. You do not render services to customers for less than cost, and you do not keep offering services that are not in demand. You're trying to make money here.

"But what about the unscrupulous brokers? If I don't take their crap freight with no fuel surcharge, someone else will!"

So what? Let that someone else haul that freight and lose money on it.

For that matter, owner/operators and independent contractors need to learn to cut their expenditures, especially in fuel. Slow your ass down and quit idling so much. At $4.00/gallon at 1 gallon/hour of idle time for 10 hours, you're spending $40/night to idle that truck. How much pain are you willing to endure before you learn that lesson? Driving slower is even more of an impact. Saving 8 cents per mile over the course of 120,000 miles (about 1 year of driving) gives you an instant $10,000/year pay raise, with zero increase in revenue!!

Strike, my ass! How about I just come out and slap the stupid out of you? Or even better, keep putting forward that myth that speed = money, run yourself the fuck out of business, and leave more freight for the smart and business savvy drivers to haul.

You're not entitled to a profit in this country, and if you won't effectively manage your business, you don't deserve to earn a profit. Quit asking the government to reward your shortcomings as a businessperson.