Nope, still here. My truck broke down in CO and stayed in a hotel for almost a week..... freaking egr sensor. It was suppose to be good run, IA to CA, then deadhead to TX. Oh well. Other than that, nothing new, some good weeks some okay
Maverick Training and my first flatbed/Glass Struggle
Discussion in 'Maverick' started by w.h.o, Oct 27, 2015.
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Only thing i miss about glass, is the empty miles.
hallellujah and RedRover Thank this. -
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It has been a year since I made this thread, so it's time for my 1 year review with Maverick Transportation.
As a whole, the company is well organized. I met my recruiter, talked to dispatcher, safety and there's even a driver retention guy that had contact me. Everybody is friendly, office wise, some mechanic are just mechanic lol
Dispatcher
Dispatcher are not 24/7 unlike big megas who has 24 hours dispatcher. After 5pm, dispatchers are gone but usually they will give me something before they leave. If not, then I'll just drive to a truck stop and call it a night. Flatbed is usually a morning type gig so it works out.
Now glass dispatcher is different, but predictable. Go here, unload, drive to a glass plant and reload. I rarely sit waiting on glass dispatcher. But if freight is slow, then they might give me a flatbed load. It's kinda easy to tell if I'm getting a flatbed load because I would sit longer than usual, like they are waiting and trying to prevent me from getting a flatbed load. Now some drivers hate getting flatbed loads. Which understandable, if you are pulling a specific freight, pulling something different might feel uncomfortable. But I get the same pay rate and the load probably don't need to be tarp, so win win for me. I don't mind getting a flatbed load, it's part of the job.
Sometimes when I'm coming out of hometime, freight is slow so dispatcher will let me stay home another day. Fine by me, hometime is more important than pay for me.
As for on time delivery and pushing drivers the the limit on HOS, well I honestly don't know how to rate them. There's time I barely made it to my appointment. If you don't know how to do a 8/2 split, I suggest you learn because it's extremely useful. But during the weekend, drivers have the option to do a reset. So it's hard to tell if they run drivers to the wall on HOS. But it's good mileage and good paycheck.
Alright enough on dispatcher, how about fleet managers? Every driver is different, so this is my personal experience. I'm not a talker. I don't chat, don't hang out much in the driver lounge in the terminal. With that said, the only time my manager call me was to sent me home. Never harassed, never called to check up, never got yell at, not that I did anything to get in trouble. He let me be and I do my job. He's a great guy and always paid me what he promise. He's also a ex otr/owner op driver so he understand how it is. I don't like someone watching over my shoulder and he doesn't do that. I do my job, and do it right.
Hometime
I can't express how much hometime is important to me. And Maverick beats any otr company on hometime. Now maybe I'm in the right area, and maybe it depends on freight, but most of the time I get 3-4 days off after being out just for 2 weeks. I even got a week off at one point. I get sent home a day early, and they would even call if they can't get you home at the time you requested.
Now when I started, I honestly thought the hometime request was just a general idea to them to get you home. Like if I wanted to be home Friday the 5th at 8am, I thought it would be like Friday night I would get home or Saturday morning. No. They actually commit to what you put down. The first few months I would get calls from dispatcher asking if it was ok if I get home a few hours later, which was surprising to me, I never thought they would commit and thought it depended on freight.
Here's an example. Request hometime Oct. 1st at 10am - depart Oct 4 at 10am.
As you see i don't count the 1st and 4th as hometime but the 2rd and 3rd as a FULL hometime and they honor it. Now as a rule they would like you to leave the house before 10am so you can't pass 10. Depending on the day I usually depart 7am or 9am.
Freight and miles
It has it moments. Some weeks are slow, some weeks are busy. Glass deadhead ALOT. Miles is great, over 2k a week, maybe 1700 on the very slow day.
General stuff.
East coast stuff....get use to running east... Maverick has more freight going east than west. And yes glass guys go to NYC and yes it's like 200$ extra to deliver in NYC.
Force dispatch, I don't care about it idk why some drivers really hate forced dispatch, it's a job, just do it, put on your big boy pants and go to NYC. Everybody hate east coast and NYC , you're not the only one.
Sometimes dispatcher will call and ask which load you wanna take, which is nice to choice.
Well idk what else to add. Maverick has been good with me and I really enjoy working for them. There's guys here that been working over 5 years with them and I can see why.
To end this, even though I said all this about Maverick, I hate to disappoint and say I'm actually leaving. There's something Maverick can't control, and it's time for me to go back local. I started local work when I got my CDL, did a few gig, went regional with Schneider and otr with Maverick. I don't have any major issue with Maverick or Schneider. Maybe the govern truck and stupid, annoying safety features but lot of company is going that way. My otr days are over. I enjoyed it. I use to be excited about it, but after 3 years sleeping in the truck, I miss a lot back home. It's nothing Maverick could had prevented, because at one point a driver has to go back home.
highspeed1972, HalpinUout and x1Heavy Thank this. -
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