Questions to drivers who do their own Lumping

Lumperjack

New Member
Good afternoon everyone,

Let me start by saying I am a dispatcher for a LTL service. I have been doing classes on the side to learn programming and have an idea for a website I would like to run by a few people. From my experience dispatching I have hired some drivers who like to do the lumping for some drops to earn some extra cash. The problem is they don't know how to make official looking receipts(some companies require printed receipts), they don't have the software, or they simply are lazy or do not have the time. This has put me into the situation of creating alot of receipts for drivers to submit for them. Also as far as I know there isnt a website that will create lumper receipts for you.

So here are my questions:

Why do you do your own lumping instead of using the lumper service?

Do you get paid for doing lumpers from the company you work for?

Do you make your own receipts?

Would you pay for a service that creates and manages your lumper receipts?

How much money do you make weekly from lumping?


PS: If this is something you are interested in and I get good feedback, I will be looking for users to test out a beta website, it will be free. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.


Thank you for your time!
 
I was an O/O when I lumped my own loads. I did it because it was usually faster than waiting on the lumpers.

But to your main point: Seems like a lot of bother when a Word template could be made up that would take 2 minutes to fill in and print.
 
Why do you do your own lumping instead of using the lumper service?
I usually didn't, unless it's a straight pull. (no breakdown) But I did it to save time. I don't pull reefers any more.
Do you get paid for doing lumpers from the company you work for?
$2 per ton
Do you make your own receipts?
No. Lumper does.
Would you pay for a service that creates and manages your lumper receipts?
There's no money left over in my budget after paying for the service that fills out my grocery lists and ties my shoes for me.
No, seriously, what kind of dumbass question is that?
 
Way way back in the day lol I would just pick up a book of generic recipes in the stationary isle at the grocery store.
Haven't lumped any freight since about 93.
 
Its not worth the chump change you'd get for that.

Seriously, the carriers I've worked for really only care about having a legible EIN number and total charge on whatever receipt you turn in - and not whether it's on a printed form or hand written receipt.

But to your main point: Seems like a lot of bother when a Word template could be made up that would take 2 minutes to fill in and print.

Yup, and I'd be willing to bet there's a canned receipt template already set up in MS Office you'd just have to fill in.

Accounting packages include billing, and have a canned receipt function included. There's shareware available for this - you don't even need to use the accounting features to make it work.
 
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In the 1960s, I lumped out of a Local 315 sub-office in Richmond, CA. They gave us lumper books. Each of us lumpers wrote down the information (shipper, consignee, product, time, and not much else) and gave it to the boss. I seem to recall that we were paid the next day or that evening at the hall. Forgive a geezer for not recalling the details.

I don't know if Teamster halls do this anymore. If I get a chance I'll check for this at Local 959 here in Anchorage.

I got a big kick out of the guys who went to that little hall on 14th and Wright in Richmond; they had no intention of working. But they were hell at dominos and various card games. I never got into any of those games, the lessons tend to be expensive.48116
 
In the 1960s, I lumped out of a Local 315 sub-office in Richmond, CA. They gave us lumper books. Each of us lumpers wrote down the information (shipper, consignee, product, time, and not much else) and gave it to the boss. I seem to recall that we were paid the next day or that evening at the hall. Forgive a geezer for not recalling the details.

I don't know if Teamster halls do this anymore. If I get a chance I'll check for this at Local 959 here in Anchorage.

I got a big kick out of the guys who went to that little hall on 14th and Wright in Richmond; they had no intention of working. But they were hell at dominos and various card games. I never got into any of those games, the lessons tend to be expensive.View attachment 48116

My dad was a order picker at Safeway after he sold his Barbershop and one of my brothers was a lumper there too .
My dad stayed until that wharehouse burnt down.
 
My dad was a order picker at Safeway after he sold his Barbershop and one of my brothers was a lumper there too .
My dad stayed until that wharehouse burnt down.
I drove for Safeway for a few months in 1967. When I heard there was going to be a big layoff, I quit and began working for PIE tankers in San Pablo or Richmond. (I don't know where the boundaries of the cities are in that area -- anyway the yard was occupied by more than one tanker lash-up. CF had the yard prior to P.I.E. but when CF bought PTS in Martinez. Then it took over the PTS yard that then sat to the SW and below the I-680 Pacheco Blvd. off-ramp).

I quit truckin' in 1971 and 72 and hired on to the Richmond Fire Department. But I missed the Safeway warehouse (the largest food warehouse on earth at that time) fire because I moved to Alaska in 1980. That warehouse was a great place to work. Since I was one of the new hires when I worked there, I ended up driving those old 3-axle White gas pots. Driving those old (Mustang-engined) Whites was like driving a 36 hp Beetle. You drove comfortably -- both feet flat on the floor.

I never lumped at Safeway. But I lumped nearby at the United Grocers warehouse. Also I lumped at a warehouse that was known as the "soap house." Lumping (unloading) boxcars at the soap house was a crap shoot because one never knew what had to be unloaded. If you were unlucky, you unloaded big boxes of soap and those boxes were heavy. If you were lucky, you unloaded a whole boxcar of Campfire marshmallows or maybe Cracker Jacks.

I also used to lump at the C&H Sugar refinery in Crockett. In those days everything went on the deck. The bags came out of the warehouse on a conveyor. Then we lumpers extended oak-slat ramps into dry vans. The truck-facing ends of the conveyors were high and those 100 pound bags of sugar rolled off them with some zing. Being a rookie I stood at the butt-end of those slides and the first sack heading my way knocked me on my ass. I learned to stand alongside the ramp and use the momentum of the sack to propel it into place. The old hands hardly broke a sweat as they figured out how to guide those sacks and not throw them.

Lumping was hard work at times but it was good work. And after the work was completed, beer tasted all the better.

In 1966, I drove for Richfield (the terminal was towards the end of the Canal Blvd. before one got to the old WWII Kaiser Shipyard #4). One of the warehouse bosses was Bob (or Terry) Bunton; I see him on Facebook and on posts about El Sobrante were he and I were raised. His mother had a barber shop by the Park Theater in El Sobrante. Maybe Terry knew your Dad.
 
I drove for Safeway for a few months in 1967. When I heard there was going to be a big layoff, I quit and began working for PIE tankers in San Pablo or Richmond. (I don't know where the boundaries of the cities are in that area -- anyway the yard was occupied by more than one tanker lash-up. CF had the yard prior to P.I.E. but when CF bought PTS in Martinez. Then it took over the PTS yard that then sat to the SW and below the I-680 Pacheco Blvd. off-ramp).

I quit truckin' in 1971 and 72 and hired on to the Richmond Fire Department. But I missed the Safeway warehouse (the largest food warehouse on earth at that time) fire because I moved to Alaska in 1980. That warehouse was a great place to work. Since I was one of the new hires when I worked there, I ended up driving those old 3-axle White gas pots. Driving those old (Mustang-engined) Whites was like driving a 36 hp Beetle. You drove comfortably -- both feet flat on the floor.

I never lumped at Safeway. But I lumped nearby at the United Grocers warehouse. Also I lumped at a warehouse that was known as the "soap house." Lumping (unloading) boxcars at the soap house was a crap shoot because one never knew what had to be unloaded. If you were unlucky, you unloaded big boxes of soap and those boxes were heavy. If you were lucky, you unloaded a whole boxcar of Campfire marshmallows or maybe Cracker Jacks.

I also used to lump at the C&H Sugar refinery in Crockett. In those days everything went on the deck. The bags came out of the warehouse on a conveyor. Then we lumpers extended oak-slat ramps into dry vans. The truck-facing ends of the conveyors were high and those 100 pound bags of sugar rolled off them with some zing. Being a rookie I stood at the butt-end of those slides and the first sack heading my way knocked me on my ass. I learned to stand alongside the ramp and use the momentum of the sack to propel it into place. The old hands hardly broke a sweat as they figured out how to guide those sacks and not throw them.

Lumping was hard work at times but it was good work. And after the work was completed, beer tasted all the better.

In 1966, I drove for Richfield (the terminal was towards the end of the Canal Blvd. before one got to the old WWII Kaiser Shipyard #4). One of the warehouse bosses was Bob (or Terry) Bunton; I see him on Facebook and on posts about El Sobrante were he and I were raised. His mother had a barber shop by the Park Theater in El Sobrante. Maybe Terry knew your Dad.

I can remember taking my first girlfriend to Park Theatre on a first date, lol.

I'm pretty sure this Terry person would know my dad (rip) .
 

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