XPO vs Estes vs Old Dominion

Yeah, back in the day we called it a job

 

That’s pretty common on new trucks in general these days. I heard the issue with XPO was a few years ago they turned the trucks up to 70 on the cruise, and some smooth-brained steering wheel holders were leaving their wipers off and cruise control on so they could keep doing 70 in the rain.

 

With XFG, ALL out of town routes (even 0900-1000) starting times are made to load their trailers, plus do 4-5 in town drops before heading out of town. I literally had no home-work life balance there like I do with Cross Country. You also sometimes had to come back and unload your trailer, plus do some yard moves. Most of the time I didn’t get off work until 2100-2200hrs.

Hopefully it’s different where you’re gonna be at. Congratulations!!

 

Thing is you definitely worked hard for that check, money was great there. I chose the home-work life balance over money and my stress level is staying around 3-5%. Every barn is different though, so hopefully op will do good with them.

 

You can make the good money but it's definitely different driving into work each day, dealing with being home everyday and the chores piling up and bugging you because you see it everyday. Also, 70 hour week just driving is far less taxing than 70 hours of mixed dock work and driving and city driving.

I'll say LTL sucks outside of linehaul. And linehaul is a special kind of mind numbing doing the same route over and over all night. That's why the pay is so good. You get the city driving forklift running crap for a year or two, then wild board linehaul which might starve you out before you get a bid and then in 5 years you're on a line bid going braindead making 120k a year and never having any free time anyways.

I don't know how guys do it for 20 years or more at these places. Between how crappy the trucking world has become, all the nanny babysitting features in the trucks, the lower pay each year adjusted for inflation, and the corporate micromanaging; I'm just running LTL for another 5, maybe 10 years. Get everything paid off and get some other job in an industry that isn't garbage.

My piece of #### cascadia is having electrical problems where the truck is lagging and showing me still running 10mph when I've come to a stop. This means the driver camera is reporting me running nearly every stop sign and red light. Even though you can see this, I'm still getting called by safety everyday. I'm told to wait at a stop sign for 10-20 seconds until the truck thinks it's actually stopped so it stops triggering the stupid camera.

That's a good way to get me shot by some road rager for just camping out at every stop sign.

Also, if you've ever lived in Florida, you know good and well a truck rides just fine at 70 in the rain. Someone here must be one of those western state folks who slows down to 30 on the interstate when it rains a little bit.

 

Write the truck up and park it.
They got 7 days to fix the POS.
In the winter them Southern truckers don't carry any chains.
Turn on their flashers and creep until they get stuck .