We found what some would call the Holy Grail...

I almost never have anything to say about a company, positive or negative. And I am not going to mention names this time, as this is a small local company, and the vast majority of people here would not been in their hiring area. (But if you live in Tulare or Kings County, and want to know who, PM me, and I will tell you who they are!) I am writing this to let the rookies out there know that the good companies DO exist! You just have LOOK for them.

My husband works for a smaller company. A company that most people would not even consider, simply because it does it appear on the surface to be anything special. But it is. He has worked for this company twice before, and left once seeking greener pastures, which, it turns out, didn't really exist, came back for a second time and was laid off due to a serious lack of work. (Ag work is seasonal, so things happen!) This is his third "tour" with this company.

Is it perfect? NO! But it's about people and trucking and neither are perfect.

Let me give you a tour of the people of this company..

There are two full time dispatchers here. These two men are both long time drivers. They understand exactly what they are working with as far as equipment, hours of service, traffic, law enforcement, equipment failures, and they understand the DRIVERS. Both of these men are dedicated to their drivers.

The third man in the dispatch office is a combination of safety officer and dispatcher. I don't know if this man ever drove a truck, but I know his Daddy is a driver. I know he thinks like a driver.

I can tell you from personal experience that they treat a driver's wife who behaves as a team member AS A TEAM MEMBER!

My husband had a trailer catch fire on Easter Sunday. Dispatch was more concerned with my husbands safety than they were the trailer or the load. When I called Safety to find out what was happening, he was more concerned with soothing me than anything else. And YES, Guy and I both talked to Safety ON EASTER SUNDAY!!!! He answered the call himself. He did not have some half trained flunky sitting in the office screening calls for him!

The Lady who runs payroll is a gem. Only TWICE out of a total of 5 1/2 years can I recall mistakes on paychecks. One was caused by my husband, and one was caused by a long gone dispatcher.

The owner, well, what can say about this man? Most owners show up in business casual, or even a suit and tie. Not this gentleman. He comes to the office in work clothes and work boots, because (GASP!) he WORKS! Can you believe it? But I have seen him! I have seen him run those huge backhoes and bulldozers. I have seen him drive a big rig. And I have seen him grab a shovel and dig a ditch! He can be cranky. But can't we all?

He knows his drivers BY NAME. Can greet most of the wives by name, and knows most of the children. I think when he is there, it just makes my whole Friday something worth smiling over. Is he always happy to see me? No. Let's be real, I am exactly what he has tagged on me as a nickname. "Trouble". But I do try to make him smile, and even if I fail in that, maybe the fact that he can tell me what's going on helps him a little.

The pay isn't what some people brag of. $38K last year. But it was a slower year.

There is no rider policy, so I can't go. But there's alot of the shippers/receivers that they handle that would not allow me on company property.

Hometime is dependent on the season. During nut season, you grab what time you can get, if you can get it and be grateful for it. Once all the Ag seasons are finished off in Jan/Feb, it slows down a bit and home is seen every 3 or 4 days.

I have had my share of rounds with this company. And as drivers wives do, there are simply days when I hate it. That's the nature of the beast.

But when your car breaks down at 7:30 at night in the middle of BFE, and it's cold out there, and the person who comes running to your rescue is your husband's dispatcher..

Or when you just need someone to HEAR you and it's your husband's employer...

Or you need someone to giggle with, and it's the lady who writes your husband's paycheck...

That's when a drivers wife KNOWS she has found the right company.

 

His boss has called me Trouble for a LONG time! LMAO! Has since the day I got my little Nissan pickup stuck in a mudhole on the company yard.

Only twice have there ever been issues with checks. He fixed both of those.

I do things like helping a dispatcher plan a load so that my husband is here for our daughter's graduation. We spent hours on that. Him negotiating with the shipper/receiver, and me working on the numbers of where to pick him up when. Our teamwork got my husband home to see his baby girl graduate, and then got him to his delivery ON TIME.