KLLM Background Info

Newbies looking for KLLM training and employment may want to know a few things about this company, which is the largest transportation company in Mississippi (which isn't saying a lot, frankly). A few years back, WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers once has a 10% stake in the company, and for awhile the SEC froze the company assets as judicial prosecuters tracked down Ebber's case of fraud and corruption. Several tenders of offers to buy the company outright by a Mr. Low resulted in a showdown between Board President Liles (whose inherited name is the "L", the other "L" was added after KLM the airline threatened a lawsuit). This year Lilies (and probably other investors) took the company private, but given the repeated SEC files showing Liles attempts to do this before, one would think the company may have been put into debt in order for Liles to secure the necessary capital for the purchase. Further evidence of this is the sale of the dry van division and closing of the Dallas terminals to reduce costs and "to concentrate on what [they] do best"--refrigerated transport.

The attention to detail for refrigerated loads has earned KLLM solid contracts with among others, Fresh Choice, a Salinas, CA based company specializing in prepackaged salad greens. Drivers thus can be expected to wait sometimes hours for lettuce and other produce to be packed into their trucks before making a run, say, from Salinas to Chicago or Atlanta. The company is more diversified than this though, as refrigeration units are also used to transport Hazmat pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and hospital supplies, and as dry vans for agricultural fertilizers, and even misc. general cargo.

Driver training begins at orientation in Jackson, Miss or Fontana, CA, with the latter being a remote and poorly supervised satellite entry point for new drivers. OTR training is mostly "team" training, meaning that drivers can expect to be used primarily as labor for the benefit of their trainer. Logbook hours possible are same as a team, so the trainer will typically sleep in the berth while the trainee teaches himself to drive. Frequently, trainees drive the freeway, while the trainer steps in to manuever urban challenges or at the terminal for loading and unloading. KLLM success rate appears to be quite low as trainers report a very low success rate with their students. Some of this, to be sure, is a product of the overwork during 8wks of training, and ordinary mismatch of expectations between OTR and trainee ambitions.

But, the training program also appears poorly conceived by the manager of safety, Carl ---. Training materials, driver manual, syllabus of training, and tests are poorly written and distributed. The safety manager promotes a belief that driving is not learned but inherited, and that older drivers in particular are less likely to succeed. The exit training exam is a time consuming onerous open blank test of many pages, includes issues never taught (especially in the Hazmat section), has many poorly phrased questions, and is clearly difficult to score. However, the test is just a bureaucratic experience. Carl lets everyone who he thinks can drive pass this test.

Carl has a turkey trophy on the back of his office door, and projects the stereotype image of a good-old-boy white guy who commands respects over subordinates by his manipulations. He once remarked with a laugh that yelling at a trainee is "sometimes acceptable and necessary". Obviously, matching trainer and trainee perspectives from the comfort of an office is a challenge he understood, but during a phone conversation I observed in his office, I nevertheless found him both judgemental and naive in the handling of a trainer "in crisis".

The mentality of the working poor who make up most of KLLM's driver pool, is a special KLLM challenge; however the personnel style of the office staff is to discourage any questions. I had found irregularities deserving change-- benefits that I was signed up to pay for which I didn't want, and a per diem program that benefited the company at the expense of the driver's Social Security contributions.

Assignment of trainer to trainee is almost completely segregated into black and white--blacks train with blacks, and white train with whites--although for myself the half-crazed, smelly, and obese fellow with whom I spent two weeks was demanding and rude to those behind the glass at shipping & receiving, and a lazy instructor who frequently awoke from the sleeper berth with some irrational and angry fear after I had peacefully and independently driven, for as much as 8 hours. I had to listen while he whined over the phone to his sick mother or yelled at his daughter, who recently had been busted for drugs and expelled from high school. A Virginian with an impossibly thick accent, he barked commands to the passenger window ("park thar") and then expected me to comprehend him. Overall, he was a poor substitute for the generally good humored and thoughtful black drivers whom are otherwise the backbone of KLLM's workforce. The black drivers though are forced to deal with a similar number of largely disfunctional southern white drivers.

I quit and went to Salem, OR based May Truck Company. After a week driving around the west, my trainer booted me into solo status. I drive long hours and can still manage to back into a slot anywhere in the country. I have Hazmat clearance, have zero tickets over the past 5 years, and I have never had even a reportable fender bender in 30 years of driving. I have more street smarts when it comes to supervising and protecting cargo filled trailers than any of the drivers at KLLM whom I worked with. KLLM booted me because I couldn't drive, but May Truck Company--which pays the same salary--enjoys my services.

Hope this helps...

 

No, I would have passed the written test no problem if given time to complete it, but I'm sure that a lot of qualified drivers would have failed it. I'm an educator, so maybe my standards are higher than the expectations of the average truck driver. The test was poorly constructed, and I'm certain a lot of educators would agree with me. I can drive and have proven this over the summer. If you are a KLLM driver, then I have no doubt the company has been good to you. In my case, the trainer made the decision and passed his opinion on to Safety guy. I wasn't really tested either by paper or by driving in a realistic manner.

 

Well, this "right fit" does seem to the an issue within the industry, but I have no strong feelings regarding my company. I just try to look at them like organizations. KLLM seems almost certainly better organized for new drivers than a lot of companies, despite the apparently low success rate. I have no hard data, but based upon interviews with trainers and trainees at KLLM and May, there is no doubt in my mind that May's 3 week "super solo" program is superior for new drivers than KLLM's 8 week team driving program. May has spent a lot of time devising quality training materials and instruction, whereas KLLM has a haphazard training program and a goofy test. The fact that a high school drop-out can pass KLLM's test is not surprising to me, however...It may be that the written test wasn't really important for the company. That part I don't know.