KLLM or Wilson Logistics?

Pack your stuff in a flexible duffle bag; don't use a hard suitcase.
If money is tight, take some microwave stuff with you to help out until you receive your first paycheck. Even though meals are provided at the school, you may still need a little extra and especially when you hit the road with a trainer. Truck stops have microwave that's free to use.

 

OTR is coast to coast, but I mostly stayed east of CO. I took what they gave me, but if you hustle with dispatch, you might get longer runs. Regionals run the lightweight trucks, I told them I was interested but not if I had to downsize. There are dedicated accounts that offer longer runs, some are geo-locked; I did OTR for about 18 mos before switching to a dairy account, I run mostly CA, TX, and North East now.

While you can take up to 14 days of hometime, max without being asked to clean-out truck is 7. That’s also the max you can take with trk, otherwise it has to be left at a yard. Depending on how far you live from a yard, you might be required too anyway (within 150mi).

It can vary tho on dispatcher. I’ve been offered 8, and depending on the travel day, sometimes it felt like 9 days off. I usually do 4-5 weeks out for a week off. Dedicated is a bit more lax and sometimes they don’t even take me off trk.

 

New cdl is 1 year, refresher is 6mos. Both pro-rated. idk current dollar amounts, was 4k for me in 2019. It’s not subtracted from settlements.

For some comparison, my sister at Swift (in 2015) had hers deducted the first year, and then added back her second year.

 

I haven't seen kllm around wi in years. I honestly thought that company died lol. Now Wilson was bought by Ashley, which could be a plus to get into Ashleys private fleet. So, I would love to hear your experience at kllm.

 

Kllm is around my area of WI quite a bit. There a large 3M distribution warehouse here and they haul outbound freight from there. I worked at 3M in the warehouse part time for several years and there were Kllm trailers being loaded a lot. I never see FFE over here though. I'm in rural SW WI.

 

We currently mostly fuel at pfj and occasionally Petro/TA. We can’t even get reefer from Loves anymore (without calling in). As otr, the dispatchers can be pretty strict about following fuel routing; the system gives you the route and where to fuel. Now this could vary some depending on who your dispatcher is and we have 2 locations for otr ones.

I’ve liked all my dispatchers and any disagreement was due to company policy and not personal. I started with the ones located in Lancaster, TX and they are all very consistent. The supervisor ran a good ship and everyone was on the same page. It took time for me to learn the ropes, but I eventually learned what to expect.

The ones in Jackson, MS otoh are cowboys and cowgirls. They’ve got more of a free reign and seem to do their own thing. They aren’t as strict about fuel rting and I wouldn’t be surprised that if you became one of their good drivers, they would do more for you.

As to what I prefer, I liked the ones in Lancaster more; I eventually got on the same page with company policy. I’d much rather work in the system than against it… but I’ve got to have an understanding of what the system is; I very much value consistency over rockstars.

I’ve never felt micro-managed by any of the dispatchers. In my first 6mos, I maybe received 1 msg about needing to get up and go (I was already parked at receiver) and one phone call (I was already going)… and that was it (these were both from nights and weekend). Since then, I have received msgs that were meant for other trks, I believe the msging system relies on trk number and that’s easy to typo. So if you are a bad driver, you might experience things differently or it could be the dispatcher as well.

I was eventually told on otr that if you hustle with your dispatcher, let them know your hos available and what kind load you want, they can send the request in to the planner (nothing is guaranteed as company). I was laissez-faire; I didn’t really consider it my problem for the company to keep me moving. I’d get preplan, lose preplan, get another, lose it… I never understood that system, so I didn’t see the point in continuing to ask.

The only company fleet with open fuel cards is Tyson, they can go anywhere that takes EFS except for loves (my info could be outdated); as such, they don’t have to follow fuel rting at all. Dedicated accts can vary but overall are much laxer. My card isn’t open, but if I want to make minor changes, I can call in no questions asked. I’m also preplanned up to 10 days in advance and it usually doesn’t change unless a load is canceled.

One of my biggest issues early on happened with nights and weekends, and it wasn’t on them, it was totally on me. I was still super new and it felt like I was getting conflicting info on what I supposed to do when bols said one thing and trip info said something else (for the record, always set according to bols). Company policy said to report discrepancies and then ? So that’s what I was doing… I was waiting for dispatch to tell me what do but, you know, shifts change… I ended up speaking to a supervisor who greatly helped my understanding in dealing with dispatchers and how to set the reefer.

If there’s ever any doubt in what you should be doing, try to talk to a supervisor. Get them to send a msg and save it. Supervisors trump dispatchers.

Other then that, I’ve never had an issue with nights and weekends, and quite frankly I’m very appreciative of ours. It felt like I got more straight answers from them then out of daytime. Also, if you call in and tell them you are low on fuel, they’ll open your card vs daytime questioning you about it. My Jackson dispatcher actually never questioned me, but I was trained so well by Lancaster that I never really asked anymore unless I was really low on fuel or running a bit heavy and needed to watch my weight. But, just switch to dedicated… problems solved.

Sorta feels like I’ve been drinking the kllm kool-aid… I like their hometime policy, while I’m sure there’s probably a smaller company out there that might do what I get here better, the problem is finding them and well, I’m lazy.

edit: I mostly dealt with dispatch early on because of what I believed to be inefficient fuel rting. I never really ran into other trip problems outside of tires and mechanical issues and very rarely asked or had to have appts rescheduled. If you’re someone who tends to be late, you might see a different side of dispatch; some trips are dispatched as impossible, and they are aware of those. Always put in/out times on bols, helps with detention. If dispatched on an impossible load, you can usually escalate and still get detention for being a work-in.

As a “starter” company, they seem to be a bit more flexible in regards to mechanical issues; I still don’t know what I’m looking at sometimes when trying to determine if, let’s say, this tire needs to be replaced… some of that can only come from experience which takes time. And like all companies, they probably prey on driver ignorance to pull something when it shouldn’t be pulled… but it cuts both ways, my ignorance made a load a week late because I thought there was an issue and there wasn’t; 1st shop messed it up, 2nd shop corrected 1st shop, and 3rd shop said we’re all idiots and that nothing was wrong. For definite problems tho, stay at them and they will fix them. My trk had an intermittent issue and it took about 2 mos and going in and out of the shop, but it was finally resolved.

edit again: be wary of running toll roads if transponder isn’t working. Unless actually fuel routed over it, I’ve heard of drivers not being reimbursed for taking them “out of route.” Otherwise, it’s the classic left hand doesn’t know or care what the right hand is doing. We do a lot of PA to Chicago and the turnpike is ever so tempting.

If it’s not working call permits… it’s mostly new cdl company drivers that don’t seem to know what to do. The same is true for dealing with breakdown, I’ve taken in bad trailers from swaps and other driver didn’t know what to do, I told them to just swap and I’d deal with it.

edit3: sorry I’m bored and like to talk. If you have any questions don’t be afraid to ask!

 

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I’ve been told that the experience increases for otr is now a 2c increase per year, capping at 5 years. So 3 yrs of experience is now 66cpm vs 63cpm under old system.