The truth about watkins, my expierence

I always see folks on this board rave about what a good company W&S is, but honestly I had never even noticed their trucks until I started coming here. After seeing all these rave reviews, I made it a point to keep an eye out for them on the road. Every one on their trucks that I've seen look exactly like the one the OP described, decrepit junk. As a matter of fact, I got caught behind one going eastbound up the gorge on 40 in NC the other day. It was barely doing 20 mph and blowing a billowing plume of black smoke out the exhaust. When I see junk equipment like that, it makes me seriously question how good the company can be. But then again, I have no direct experience with them, so what do I know?

 

What you describe is much better than many other companies.
I'd much rather deliver furniture to mom & pop small town stores than those dedicated accounts at Dollar General or other accounts similar.
You could go to a company like Ozark Motor Lines that has 100% no-touch freight.

Edit : 8th Note, they have a new safety director and he's installing elogs and replacing all the tractors with brand new ones. It takes a while to replace a whole fleet, but he's working on it.

 

i learned a big lesson years ago

stay with the smaller out fits ( 200 or so trucks )

 

The better companies are picky on who they hire.I did have an hr long interview with ups yesterday.It went very well.Pay starts at $18.75 an hr.Some are up to 36.00 an hr.

 

This is pretty common ,

The underlying idea in trucking is to get the driver to move their freight for a little as possible and sit on it for free .

Like a hen sitting on a giant egg

 

hehehe...yeah...ok

 

Watkins was like that over 10 years ago when I was there! Tough to get home. But the people and the equipment seemed a lot more in better shape. W/S trucks look a little sad going by nowadays.

 

Of course drivers would never know this,but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Watkins receives detention from the customers and pockets every cent of that.They're not going to let the trks sit for hrs at a customer without some kind of compensation.Most all starter companies are cheap cheap cheap to their drivers.Unfortunately the new drivers don't have a choice but to start at the bottom.