Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

Response to tow614

No one is saying that Gordon isn't a great company. In fact, Gordon is a powerhouse with the logistics in place to keep 2000 trucks constantly on the move from the Pacific Northwest, down to Southern California and throughout the Greater Mid-West with a Pre-Plan on your QualComm for your next trip before you hit your delivery. And Gordon does it smoothly with nary a hiccup. Every day. It's called 'logistics'. And Gordon needs a constant stream of new drivers to feed the machine.

Back in the day we did not have this term 'logistics'. That was when tractors had mostly Cummins and Detroit engines and Cats were just coming on. Mostly owner-operators had the Cats and they had so much torque you were told they could twist your drive shaft or transmission right off the mounting bolts. There were good companies and bad companies back then, too.

The word we had always in the back of our minds then was 'lugging'. You did not want to lug that Cummins engine, which meant that bad things would happen inside that engine if you put your foot into it below 1800 rpm, where it had no power (torque). You shifted a lot, a lot more than we do today. Up to 2200 rpm, down to 1800, up to 2200, down to 1800. The Detroits were screamers that could smell a hill miles away and were afraid of them. The Cats flattened those hills out and just rolled over them. Some of the trucks I drove had two-stick transmissions, like a splitter but off a separate stick. You shifted one stick, then went through the gears in the other, then shifted the first stick again. Smooth and slow.

It boggles my mind (and should yours) to think of the growing pains that Gordon has pushed itself through to get to where it is at. In the Mid-West, for example, you see lots of Cascadias (newer Freightliners); yet in the Pacific Northwest you see more Columbias (older Freightliners). The mix of the fleet is a conscious decision on someone's part; it didn't just happen, a small part of a remarkable story. Trucking is not an easy business. Companies struggle, companies fail. Gordon carries on and does so with great equipment, driver support and never takes its focus off safety.

I am not the least bit regretful of my time with Gordon; I learned a lot and I liked driving for Gordon. It simply made better sense to cut the cord when I did and that's far, far down the road in my narrative. (If I can make as much or more now on one run from Indy up to Cleveland and then down to Kentucky and back to Indy, as I did on many a 7-day, 98-hour slog with Gordon, why wouldn't I? There is no anchor in my butt, no chain on that Cascadia's driver seat. Nonetheless, it was a pretty darn good seat, mind you.)

Gordon made me a better driver despite that I had years of trucking under my belt, albeit an easier, simpler kind of trucking. I don't at all regret it. So my story isn't just about the conversion into how much per hour I did or didn't make at Gordon. But that is part of the story. I like to think for myself. I'm not going to let a Gordon or a Prime or anyone else hand me a turd and tell me it's okay because I've got the good end. Gordon runs 5-12 new drivers every week through Orientation in Indy alone, pays hefty sign-on bonuses and has trucks parked waiting for drivers at all sorts of oddball places around the country, including Gordon's drop yards and terminals. That's a business decision.

 

The Math Behind Orientation

As long as I've gotten a little off-narrative, this would be a good spot to share some thoughts, my conclusions, about the math behind Gordon Orientation, then I'll get back to my narrative and my next dispatch. I began to think about the math behind Orientation in the Pacific Northwest where I encountered a lot of angry drivers where ever I went. Some were just seething, smoldering angry and they had been with Gordon or a company that Gordon had purchased, for years.

They weren't making it. To them it was a better company a few years ago. They felt they were being pushed more and paid less. Pushed out. We all have a breaking point after all. Now these were really good, experienced drivers. Long time drivers, who knew the roads, the loads, the weather, the snow, chaining, all of it. I marveled that it seemed Gordon was willing to sacrifice this talent rather than bump up their pay, because again and again I heard how much better it was a few years ago.

Well, that's before the big push into the Mid-West and the building of the Rancho terminal, for example. Just the concrete at Lathrop wowed me in terms of what that pour must have cost. Ya gotta see it to believe it. The cost for Gordon's expansion boggles, like the purchase of Buske. I hadn't planned to write about this until my narrative actually got me into the Pacific Northwest, but that's okay. Think about it. Gordon has 2000 drivers. If Gordon paid each one $5 more each day, $35 per week, how many would notice and what difference would it make to their lifestyle, their home life? Not much. At a time when Gordon is making bet-the-company investments in infrastructure.

Instead, take that $5 per day, times 2000 drivers and you've got $10,000 per day and $70,000 per week to spend. Hang that out as bait to attract new drivers and what do you get? A compelling new-driver-getter and a robust Orientation program. I mean, every company has turnover, it's a huge problem in the trucking business. But I believe that somewhere along the line the Gordons and companies like them made a conscious, even cynical decision, that it was cheaper to draw in newbies than to try retain long-time drivers. Drivers don't leave companies that pay well.

This is a mind-blowing concept in my opinion because the investment Gordon has in the training, skill and experience of its drivers is one of its biggest expenses. If it makes more dollars-and-cents to Gordon to let experienced but unhappy drivers move on to greener pastures and recruit newbies, rookies, and go through all the pain--again that's a business decision. But look at the cost of increasing driver pay! If $5 per day per driver has more impact in recruitment than it would for driver retention, where would you place your emphasis? Keep in mind, it's a business decision...

 

A Further Thought on tow614

Let's say I'm the hiring manager for a smallish, 60-150 trucking firm and tow614's application comes across my desk. With what I know about Gordon, tow614 is going to the top of my application pile. I know that he's an experienced OTR driver, has grown accustomed to driving on time, safe and legal. We pay well so I can meet or beat what he makes in 7 days in 5, maybe less some weeks. Some of our guys who stay out pull in $1500-$1700/week; he'll drive a reasonably nice Kenworth T800 Aerocab rather than a new Cascadia. No APU but no restriction on idling.

We have weekend work, too, if he wants it and I want to talk to this guy.

Instead of being buttoned at 61 and a top speed of 63, his Kenworth is buttoned at 71. He doesn't have to worry about Gordon's 65 mph speed limit any more. If he's in Kentucky and the speed limit is 70, he can go ahead and run it. He doesn't have to start and stop as much. He might run 650 miles a day. Oh, yeah, and we'll run paper logs until the government tells us we can't. Three-hole punched log sheets that fit nicely into a small format 3-ring binder.

If he breaks down he's on the clock for $18/hour until that breakdown is complete; he gets paid the same for anything over two hours on a combination of the time it takes him to load and unload; so if he needs two hours after his appointment to get loaded and an hour-and-a-half to unload, that 1-1/2 hours is paid. We pay very simply, 25% of the load and our loads pay well because we have a niche; we're a specialized carrier. We're not counting his miles and won't start. His first five days he will drive with a trainer for $13.50/hour--and it doesn't matter his 4-years of experience. We invest that in each new driver. This job requires training.

Dispatching is very simple, too. You get a call. "Can you be in Cleveland at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow?" Is-it-XYZ? "Yes." Sure-been-there-twice-now. Goes-to-KY-again? "Yes." Okay-fine. Still-in-30? "Yes." That's it!

Oh, and his sign-on bonus? Forget it. If tow614 needs a sign-on bonus he can quit Gordon and go over to Crete or Averitt or Roehl and back every year or so. Almost all of our new hires are here due to expansion; we bought more trucks. We rarely have to let a driver go. No one leaves here because he or she can't make money here. No one.

And don't ask. I signed on part-time by choice, didn't want to work full-time; they told me I could work whenever I wanted. They hired six new full-time drivers after me so I don't get out as often and it will slow down this winter. If I told you, and they hired you on, what work would there be left for me? But if I did tell you and they hired you, they'd pay me $500 for recruiting you!

tow614 can go find his own! But with his excellent Gordon experience, it's out there waiting for him. Myself? If I weren't working here, I'd want to find someplace that paid similar.

 

Dispatch #5--New Century, KS, $112.22, 362 miles

By the end of my second week with Gordon, my first week after Orientation, I had screwed up so badly that when I got to the yard on Friday the first thing I did was unload everything out of 3579; not only that, I screwed up again on Monday and for the second time unloaded everything out of 3579. The second time, Gordon put me with a trainer. But we're not there yet.

I have small notes on this load (and some others); I had started making my notes on trip sheets and then re-writing the trip sheets later so they were nice and neat for Trans-Flo. I have those somewhere but it's not worth the trouble right now to look them up. I recall a conversation with another Gordon driver about this time. I had asked how it was going. He said he'd been trucking for 30 years and he felt like a rookie just learning the ropes.

I knew exactly what he meant. I'd had a dedicated $24/hour run with the post office, left Bloomington, Indiana around 8:30 p.m., ran that little roller coaster between Bloomington and Nashville, Indiana (about 18 miles of two-lane, hills and curves and lots of deer), then through to Columbus, Indiana, hop on I74 at Greensburg and on to Cincy. It was the same race every night. Our trucks were slow and poorly maintained; couldn't make any time up on I74, so I always ran up to 5-over, even 10-over in spots where you needed to get all the speed you could to make a hill without too many downshifts. I knew and was careful of the two speed traps: one right there before and after Nashville and the other the five or so miles before Greensburg.

Gordon, however, was a new race every load. Wow! Not only that, when I finally hit a delivery to a place I'd been to before it was cause for celebration. I didn't know the lanes or the customers. On top of that I'd been out of a truck for 18 months, a long time and all my personal vehicles at the time were automatic shifts. I had gotten into habits not compatible with driving truck.

Oh, I had a good time. For five months I put three dogs in my car and tooted around the country visiting trucking companies like Prime in Springfield. I visited trucking companies from Indiana out to Californiia and from California back to Jacksonville, Florida. Thought of writing it up, too, and calling it, 'Road Trip--One Driver's Interviews with Trucking Companies Across America. (Postscript: And how they lie!)'

Again, the math is about the same. I ran empty to St. James, MO and wrote down 13 hours for my driving time plus loading/unloading (8 hours driving/5 hours loading and unloading). I had at least one additional stop in Columbia, MO and ended in New Century, KS for $6.31/hour ($112.22/13 = $6.31/hour). Driving time includes the usual delays waiting for the DM to respond, getting off-track with my GPS, ya-da-ya-da-ya-da. I was completely ignoring my Rand-McNally that Gordon provided me. Didn't understand what it was for, really. After all, I had my GPS and my Ipad. And my GPS talked to me. I started to feel vaguely tired and wasn't enjoying the driving as much. I still enjoyed it some but these were long days, longer than I had been used to. I hadn't slept in a truck since I was a kid just starting out, 30 plus years ago.

 

Dispatch #6--Columbus, OH, $214.21, 691 miles

Out of New Century, KS I deadheaded 15 miles to Lenexa, KS to load for Columbus, OH, 676 miles away. Wow! I was getting to think there weren't any loads over 400 miles. I didn't know it then, but there is a basic principle of Gordon dispatch at work here. I had three stinker loads in a row, 258 paid miles, 293 paid miles and 362 paid miles. Gordon followed up with a good run, 676 miles to Grove City, OH and only 15 miles deadhead. (Not that it matters, deadhead miles pay the same.)

Gordon Dispatch Principle #1: In order to get a good load, you have to do something non-profit for Gordon first. Gordon Dispatch Principle #2: And once Gordon has done something for you, Gordon will require you do something else non-profit for Gordon. Just remember that for now; it will bear out in all your and my dispatches from Gordon. You can count on it. IMO.

I ran part of this on Wednesday and the last 481 miles on Thursday. My notes show 9 hours 51 minutes driving time and an hour to unload on Thursday. For the 110 miles on Wednesday, figure 2 more hours ($214.21/13 = $16.47/hr). Hey! A couple of these each week and a couple stinkers and at least we've got game... Things are looking up for the kid!

After unloading it was getting dark and I thought I was about 15 miles from a Flying J according to my Ipad. I punched the address into my GPS and was looking to shut down as quickly as possible. The road, however, turned into a small two-lane not fit for a semi. Not. At. All. When my GPS finally chimed in that I was, "Arriving at location, on right," I was in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to stop or turn around. If you look up Darby Creek Road south of I71, turns into London Road, that's me. In the dark.

There were sharp, 90-degree turns not made for a tractor and 53-foot trailer. There were drop-offs, woods and pastures. I crept along and crept along at least an hour. When I finally popped out into something similar to civilization, it was a small cross-hatch of streets, a couple commercial buildings and a handful of residential homes. I was minutes from out-of-hours on my eleven. I made a right turn onto a highway, a left turn off the highway, another left, another so I'm across the small highway and pointing back towards the same way I drove in. Well, I'm not going back that way!

I pulled over and shut down with almost nothing left on my clock. Can't tell what the parking regulations are; I'm in front of someone's house but it hardly looks occupied so maybe the APU won't bother them. It's cold out tonight. I QC Gordon that I'm hopelessly lost, out-of-hours and shut down for the night. Will try to figure my way back to the world-as-we-know-it in the morning. Nobody hassles me all night. I'm fine.

 

Dispatch #7--Indianapolis, $54.87, 177 miles

Oh, does that photo look ugly or not? That's trailer P54453 and the customization is all, all mine. I hadn't as much as touched anything in 30 years and, and, and, well, there it is. Very ugly. Tired and hunting for a place to pull off, I screwed up and rubbed up against a pole. "There goes my career at Gordon," I thought.

I had loaded in Columbus after picking my way out of the wilderness, and it took a while just to find civilization again and my shipper. I couldn't trust my GPS and had to rely on my Ipad. I'm not worrying about the math here, now am I? I called the Safety Guy and told him I had some ugly photos and some damage to P54453. He instructed me to email that to OTR and stop at the shop when I got in. I did, but not directly.

I had checked my bank balance and there I saw a deposit from Gordon for $869.46 for the week prior, my $1000 windfall sign-on bonus (that was supposed to be $750) and pay for the run Indy-Olney-Effingham-Seymour. When I got into the yard I dropped the trailer, got 3579 and my station wagon side-by-side and off-loaded everything from the truck. Then I went over to the Drivers Room and Trans-Floed all my bills to Gordon.

Then I headed, heavy-hearted, to the shop. "Who's in charge?" I asked. A fellow who would become one of my favorite people at Gordon asked me what I needed. I told him that I had damaged a trailer. "Really?" he said. "Really," I said. "All right," he said, "It'll be a minute and we'll go over and look at your damage." He said damage like he was skeptical of it. As we walked over, he said, "Don't have very many drivers report damage." "Well," I said, "That could be a good thing or a bad thing for Gordon. This is a bad thing."

When we got over to P54453, he looked at it in silence for a minute. "Why, that's not damage! You haven't even broken through the skin of the trailer..." "It didn't look like that when I got it," I objected. "You worried about them firing you over this?" he asked. "We'll sure," I said. "They won't fire you for that," he said. "They won't?" I asked. "They won't," he repeated. "But I've already removed everything from my truck!"

He shrugged, kind of 'not-my-problem'-ish. Then he walked me over to the shop and to a computer. "P54453," he entered, "SCRATCH, NO LEAK" Then he said, "Don't worry about it."

Stumped, I got in my car and drove home for the weekend.

 

I signed up part-time although they s-t-r-o-n-g-l-y prefer full-time. Keeps my CDL warm and I've got plenty to do here on my property and too many vehicles. Last week ran that Cleveland-Kentucky load part Thursday & Friday. It really did pay more than many of my 7-day weeks at Gordon. A little warm and wet this week to do much outside, got a lot done anyway on an '87 F350 long-stretched-flat-bed 6.9 diesel. Have a '93 F150 I want to clean up, polish and sell. So far when they haven't used me coincides nicely with my Social (Security) and I'm okay, anyway. So I write. May help someone!

P54453 happened on Friday. It gets worse right away on Monday...

Ugh!

PS Friday, early afternoon, got call, PU ready in Indy now, off to St Paul. Neighbor will take care of dogs. Buttoning things up here...

 

Reminder About Purpose of This Thread

From Farmland Rest Area off I-74: I'll need to get some place where I can upload another photo to carry on the narrative. I doubt I'll have the chance to do that until I complete this run to St. Paul--so Sunday or Monday. My Ipad won't and I'll have to get to a public library and a PC.

(By the way, all the 'normal' upload procedures did not work for me. A librarian introduced me to Microsoft's snipping tool (built into both 7 and 8 and available for XP, too). You'll find it under Accessories. It captures anything on your desktop, so if you open a photo you can capture all or part of it. Uploads fine.)

Back to this thread. I just want to remind you that the purpose of this thread is to reveal the Gordon culture so that if you knew nothing about Gordon when you started reading, at some point you should have a feel for Gordon and Gordon's policies, both stated and unstated, the good and the bad and what it might be like to work for Gordon compared to somewhere else if that's what you want to do. Based on my experience, which just scratches the surface.

I think, for example, you'll find it very interesting how Gordon handled my screw-ups. I scratched a trailer and, and, and, and--you'll just have to wait, now won't you! While some of what I have to say about Gordon may sound critical (hopefully justifiably and soundly based on my own personal experience), keep in mind that I would unhesitatingly recommend Gordon for its good points. As tow614 pointed out, he feels secure that Gordon's not likely to just slink away and leave him financially stranded 'out in Montana and that happened to him before with another outfit.

This trucking business has a lot of sleazy, corner-cutting, bottom-feeding players who would think nothing of skinning and filleting you financially and otherwise ruining your CDL. We all need to be aware and wary of that.

Gordon's ongoing investments in infrastructure, terminals, trucks, personnel and that fancy term 'logistics' is rock solid. IMO. If you look at how even small companies struggle, even with just a few trucks, juggling the customers, the loads, maintenance, drivers and on and on, here's a company that does it day-in-and-day-out with 2000 trucks, is still investing and still growing.

I'm going to write about Gordon's warts, but you could do an awful lot worse.