Werner Enterprises, Inc. - Omaha, Ne.

Guys there is no freight!!!I teamed with my wife for Werner for 3 yrs,we did dedicated only (3M,Quadgraphics,EGL or SCG,Forward Air and Toro)and they kept us busy,actually I had to waste my hours on the qualcomm log to take my wife to the mall or the movies.Always got reimbursed for everything,they even paid us a rental car after we lost our own truck in an accident and gave back all my escrow money.We left them in 2005 because you you had to either ran too hard or not get any miles,and I felt like a robot beeing tracked all the time with that qualcomm log deal.So I went with Landstar where I choose how hard I wanna run.But freight is slow and cheap right now everywhere.

 

ahh werner, what can I say, hmm I'd never try to convince anyone that this is a good or even average company. thier problems are far too many for my three fingered typing style and be patient this is going to ramble a bit.

start at the begining, you will be solo and you are in competition with 7000 or so other drivers in the van division including 'net-ops' (day cab %&#$%!!!) they reserve so many loads for these guys that if you get a long load and its split off you, it went to net-ops

really the only way to make money at werner is to team/train. teaming might work better for most people assuming you can sleep with the truck running (i can't ) the trainer gets paid for all miles and it can be quite lucrative I've had paychecks that have been under $200 and over $1800.
the average being about $1250 on 4500 miles. no, you don't get much sleep, I've had a student roll me out of bed to back him out of a parking lot he should NOT have been in, and wake me up by striking low branches of trees by turning down a restricted road. teaming/ training should move you to the "TX" division which is team werner and should run you at least 19,000 miles a month (the division minimuim)


I've had it sooo much better then the typical werner driver, my last trainer was an eagle driver. a company based in tucson AZ that leases about 100 trucks to werner so I got a vouch from him and went to work for a eagle.
three weeks ago saturday the owner of eagle gave me a call and touched base to see how I was doing, how many times has greg werner called any of you other werner drivers? I'm going to guess ZERO!

my dispatcher has 5 years experience in the office and 12 years OTR exp.
I'm very, very lucky to have him, he knows what it takes to do the job, and gives me time enough to do it in.

about the only thing eagle would let me go for would be excessive idle, that is not likely to happen since I have a APU. I have a job and for now I'm going to stick with it, I want to move but I want the economy to stabilize first.

I've heard many horror stories from many, many drivers and if half of them are true it's a horrible company. get your experience and get out!

they have been 'thinning the herd' and releasing drivers for the questionable items I've heard here including; excessive idle, safety items, and low productivity. one driver I talked to in the atlanta terminal (lithia springs actually) says he was fired for 55% over idle I asked him when this occured he said 'January' I said 'where were you' he said new york!
last year they kept all the drivers that were driving 400 miles a day being "truck stop warriors" but it's a brave new world now. whats next? will they start being selective of who they hire? or will they still hire anyone with a CDL and a pulse?

I'm still here because of eagle, if I were a werner driver I'd have quit long ago. my biggest beef is the night and weekend operations/dispatch. these people have VERY limited experience and yet they are allowed to make decsions that rob me as effectively as a back alley mugger. most recently they pulled a 1669 mile trip off of me and gave me a 169 miles.
when you call and complain they blow you off and basically think it's no big deal. I wonder if I caught them on the way to thier car one night and robbed them if they would think it's a big deal?

 

thats funny! I run 66 too you know how many times I get passed and re-passed by some yahoo doing 70 in a typical day? usually 2-3 times.

they go faster but they lose all the time they had by stopping somewhere whilst I keep plugging along

 

I thought they already did that:

We
Employ
Rookies
No
English
Required

 

LMAO!!

 

My experiance with Werner was short. I worked for them a whole 4 days. Got hired on as an experianced driver but since my experiance was a few years ago they wanted me to do 2 weeks with a trainer. No problem I can live with that. Seems better that way anyhow. So I went through orientation at Dallas and was set up with a trainer. To make a long and agonizing story a little shorter, that trainer didnt work out, we just didnt mesh even though I tried to make it work. Got routed back to Dallas after droping our load to get with another trainer. He called and told me to meet him by the fuel island, I went and there was no truck there. Apparently they told him to pick me up in Ohio.......I was in the Dallas terminal. Got hooked up with another trainer but he decieded he wanted to go home instead. Now it's the weekend and bout the entire company shuts down. Tried and tried to get another trainer but couldnt even talk to anybody who could do anything about it. Finaly got a hold of somebody and told them I needed a trainer by monday or I was walking. Monday came and went and no trainer, so I called my training person and told them not to bother anymore, I'm going home.

I dont have any gripes with them, I'm just not the type to play games. I want to take care of buisness and get things done, not fiddle around.

 

i am a student graduating in january and was considering werner. i take it that is a bad idea?

 

Team/training.....exactly how does that work out? How can you train from the sleeper berth? I think thats why my school didn't recommend Werner, instead we would crack jokes about werner.

 

IMO?
Not exactly the best training I can think of.
And, I hear, it often DOESN'T work out.

BINGO!
You just won a CEE-Gar.

Ya reckon.

Same thing when I went to drivin' school --- YEARS ago.

Back then it was J.B. Hunt and Schneider National.
I applied with Schneider.
Got hired.
Go figure.

And the rest is history.

 

Right now as I type this I am sitting in a hotel in Edmonton Alberta currently a trainee of werner. I checked into this hotel Dec. 19th and will check out January 2nd. Pretty much a paid vacation. The only bad part about it is missing Christmas with my family and the -20 weather. My trainer lives here and Edmonton and is on his home time for the holidays. So far my training has been fine. My trainer has been driving for Werner for around 7 years and seems to really know what he is doing as far as working the qualcom to keep his production up. Plus he seems to have a really great dispatcher. In my time with werner (about a month) I have met content drivers and discontent drivers. I have dealt with friendly people and bitter people. As far as how the company runs, it is just like any other major corporation. They aren't in it to make the world a better place they are in it to make money. By that standard sometimes you'll win and sometimes you lose. Thats the way the cookie crumbles in this world no matter what company you go to work for. And if you aren't happy with that, you need to ask some deeper questions than "what trucking company will benefit me the most?"