Koch Trucking Minneapolis any thoughts?

Discussion in 'Discuss Your Favorite Trucking Company Here' started by radiorambo, Aug 5, 2007.

  1. exwallybulldawg

    exwallybulldawg Light Load Member

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    Dec 29, 2010
    Commerce,Ga
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    That's OTR, if you get on a dedicated acct you can be home every weekend
     
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  3. never late always behind

    never late always behind Light Load Member

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    May 23, 2012
    midwest
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    And the odds of starting on a dedicated account are what? exwallybulldawg you sure must need those 2500 dollar recruiting bonuses.
     
  4. exwallybulldawg

    exwallybulldawg Light Load Member

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    Dec 29, 2010
    Commerce,Ga
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    the odds are good if your a professional and not a crybaby, just sent a driver up on delta today, will be on bestbuy account starting next week if he can get thru orientation, and yes I do need the money, I have only made 15.000.00 this year on referrals, my wife wants to go to Europe again this summer.
     
    OPUS 7 Thanks this.
  5. JudgeRightly

    JudgeRightly Bobtail Member

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    Mar 2, 2016
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    Any updates on Koch? How are they as a company? Pet policy? Benefits?
     
  6. poorsean

    poorsean Bobtail Member

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    Oct 6, 2016
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    there is no pet policy. There orientation bonus is not really a orientation bonus as a year to get bonus. The insurance needs work. Orientation is from Monday till Thursday if you are on Polaris or Cummings. If not it is out bye Wed nite. Layover pay is 50.00 dollars after 24 hr period
     
  7. parrishr2

    parrishr2 Bobtail Member

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    Sep 2, 2018
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    I was hired by them 02/04/2011
    I was hired by them in 02/04/2011 and my first 4 years there were great. The fleet managers, planners and customer service reps were all older than 30 and knew how to keep me busy. Within the last 7 and a half years, they've had 4 complete Safety Department personnel turnarounds, 3 complete personnel changes in their Risk Department, V.P. of Operations, Director of Operations, OTR Operations Manager and numerous personnel changes in dispatch, planning and customer service. I've been through 9 fleet managers in 7 and a half years because they either got fired, quit, demoted or moved to a different department because of all the personnel changes. The headquarters on Dahlberg Dr is a dumpster fire. They only have 3 planners and 3 dispatchers for OTR operations and the rest of the fleet managers run their dedicated accounts. Koch has around 800 trucks. So if you want OTR you might be sitting in places that you don't want to sit at, especially on holidays and weekends. I've only met 3 out of the 9 fleet managers that I've had there throughout the whole 7 and a half year time frame that I was there. I knew more people by face to face contact in Safety, Risk, Road Service, the shop than any of my fleet managers. I even met the Dir of Ops, Dennis face to face. My pay was middle of the pack as far as truck driving and OTR goes at .48/cpm. I started at .38/cpm in 2011 and was selected by the Dir of Ops and the OTR Ops Mngr to be a driver mentor which paid me .01/cpm more along with my regular mileage pay. They don't pay holidays whether you work or not. Layover is $50.00 per day starting after sitting for 24 hours which is a joke. Detention is $15.50/hr after 2 hours. Hourly pay is $16.50/hr if they ask you do something extra or the mileage pay is less than $50.00. Vacation pay is based on what you made the year before which is based on how hard you run, your fleet manager and whether you sat around a lot. My first weeks vacation I was paid $189/day. This year my vacation was $220/day. I don't like to sit, and everyone knew that I didn't too, from my fleet mngr all the way to the top to the Dir of Ops. I had everyone's email that was important to me as far as doing my job. I stayed out 3-6 weeks at a time and was very flexible on my home time even when I had doctor's appointments. I was complaining if I didn't have a 3,000 mile week which rarely happened because of no freight and sitting around waiting on them. Two times in my 7 and a half years there I needed to be home on a certain day, and they blew that. I didn't get home until a day later and the second time, 2 days later. I don't think that they have a fleet mngr, planner or cust svc rep who is older than 30 now which drove me nuts because I don't like working for kids. I have my own and they're older. Their payroll is Saturday to Friday at 1700CST to have all of your trips turned in. If you sit the previous weekend, then you're only getting a 5 day work week, unlesss you sit during the week, then less than 5 days. I loved the 4 hour live unloads and 4 hour live loads all in the sameday. So for sitting for 8 hours, they pay you $62.00 for detention for 8 hours of sitting due to no fault of your own. Keep track of what you do, because payroll will miss things, and if you don't check periodically, you won't get paid for it unless they catch it on their own, then you'll get it on the following check. Their payroll department is pretty good. I questioned things, and it was usually fixed right away.
    Their Road Service Department and Shop are one of the best ones that I've ever experienced anywhere and I've been driving trucks on and off since "79" and OTR for the last 17 and a half. Breakfown on the road. If you can't limp to a shop or it's unsafe, they send someone to come fix it or tow you and put you in a hotel if it's going to be awhile. The shop is the best. If you write something up, they don't just fix that, they go top to bottom and fix everything that you didn't find to make sure that the truck is safe and you can do your job. The medical insurance is Medica and it is expensive if you want it for your spouse and family. I was paying over $9,000.00 a year for myself and wife for the middle of the pack plan. After Obamacare kicked in, I dropped my gold plan and went with the bronze plan. The legal plan that they offer is through Open Road out of Overland Park, KS and it is the best one that I've ever had for only $7.96/week. My MVR is clean and I've only gotten 1 moving violation the whole time that I was at Koch which was when I first started in 2011.Last but not least I was fired from Koch on 07/23/2018 for overspeed and alleged hard braking by the Director of Safety John deHoll. I got overspeed with heavy loads going downhill in TN and PA which all of a sudden within the last 6 months became a big deal, because in 7 and a half years, no one has ever said anything to me about it until now. My engine/jake brakes are set on 3 the whole time and I very rarely have to touch my brake let alone slamming my brakes. The hard braking incidents are also all of a sudden a big deal within the last 6 months. I was getting calls and messages from Safety and my FM about hard braking, and I would ask, " what are you talking about, I never hit my brakes that hard and never have in almost 40 years of driving." They would tell me that the computer registered a hard braking incident. I would tell them not on my end it didn't, so we would go back and forth about it and that was the end of it. Or so I thought. So I started to pay more attention to this hard braking stuff and noticed that if I hit a pothole, bump or railroad tracks too hard that a hard brake registered. Also if the stick popped out of gear, got stuck in ice, snow or mud, or the fuel cutoff engaged that a hard brake would register. So I tried explaining this to all of the desk drivers at Koch and to John deHoll who was a restaurant manager with a few jobs in between before coming to Koch that this is why the hard braking incidents are showing up. That wasn't good enough. I was still fired as a driver mentor with clean DoT random stop write ups, on time delivery and pick ups throughout the whole 7 and a half years. So if this is enough info for you to make a decision, then I hope it was helpful. I don't like companies that have high turnarounds in their HQs and I don't like changing jobs after being somewhere after almost 8 years.
     
  8. Archr23

    Archr23 Bobtail Member

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    Jul 10, 2019
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