Beware of WEL companies

Believe me I'm already tired of getting in and out of trucks, I don't wanna sit here and waste time with bad carriers, I wanna sit and find somewhere I can go and just drive and not worry and have to ask "should clean out my truck when I go home and just leave?"

And bad part is im gonna have to do the same again, I gotta make the transition to hazmat tanker so I have at least 1 more company i won't care about, go drive and then eventually quit in the next few months

It feels ####ty and it just makes me hate myself but I don't wanna sit there and be taken advantage of endlessly, and it's sad to say my starter company treated me best out of all of them too bad I can't go back because I can't park my truck at home

In the last 2 years I've been home 3 times and that's when I quit jobs

 

They pay the trainees less than the drivers, I was told it was 52cpm by one of the guys I talked to

And I never hit that 2500 mile mark maybe the teams did a piece but I only got to 2200 on my best weeks

 

Been trucking about 4 years, longest company was just under 2 years

Edit(some of these companies i was with i didn't stay even 3 months)

 

Ill be 100% i was late 5 times, once I overslept because my phone decided to casually just not be an alarm clock one day

1 weather related delay i was held at fault for

1 poor planning on traffic (I don't drive east coast and I have no concept on driving it constantly, I used to be able to refuse driving up 95 corridor at my other jobs)

1 customer issue with my only available trailer so I gotta bobtail back

1 accident, not at fault, non reportable

Then I constantly got handed loads with no spare time or that were already late, or load swap with multi stops, get given half the details and find out where i picked it up wasn't even dropped off despite the guy being there all night and then whoops we neglected to tell you but it's your fault

I even got told ahead of time by dispatch "were marking you late despite you having a whole day ahead of time and shorting your pay because I don't think you can do 600 miles in 2 days"

 

They're there but I can't afford to work for free, I need money to buy a car, need money to move elsewhere so I can get a better job, I'm too young to work for 50cpm

 

I made sure I met garuntee terms, dont be late at fault of your own and be in truck 7 days for the week and be available for a load

Then they started giving random excuses that weren't original stipulations like weather, customer issues, taking longer than planed load/unload, just random bs all the time

The attorney never actually had to get involved past a letter, they didn't try not paying me at all often and when it happened they gave me the garuntee in full

 

So basically nomatter how bad the employer is i need to stay a year? That almost seems counterproductive, it's just gonna make me not care about the job and end up getting fired. And as is I'm already gonna be stuck hopping one more time at least before I get to a company I want to be at

What am I even supposed to do when I cant find a carrier that's gonna pay me enough and not try to rob me?

Ive had a carrier i worked for for almost 2 years but it just got slow and I was tired of making nothing the final 4 months and left

Then most of the other ones like I said something ends up being wildly wrong and I leave

There's been 3 carriers i was at for a decent time, other 2 I hopped quick, 2 I left orientation

 

I know it sounds like I'm complaining, but I really do love my job, I love everything about it, just not the companies, if I had the money to go owner op and just work for myself I'd do it

I'm not looking for squeaky clean perfection companies like UPS, KAG, Walmart,

Honestly looking at places like Heniff, Groendyke or Badlands something I can progress in, id even go back to food grade if I made the money I needed

Something I can progress to owner op status and stay with the same company, I dont want some fancy salaried work uniform clown show carrier (no offense to those who want that but it ain't me)

Good and bad weeks happen, but i wanna reliably be making 1500+ a week if I'm doing my job right i can take a bad week, winters happen, I go home, there's breakdowns it's part of the job

But the fact i can't find what I'm looking for and it being so difficult is whats stressful

I wanna move out west, Texas, Nevada, Wyoming, Missouri (haven't decided yet) and still be able to work for said place

I know looking for the unicorn is gonna drag me to my grave, but looking for something that checks the basic boxes shouldn't be as difficult as it has been

Trucking is something I love and wanna make a career out of it, very few other things peak my interest as much and are much more difficult to get into careers

I just wanna drive, get a paycheck reliably in the ballpark of what I expect for CPM and enjoy my time off at the end of the day without worring is dispatch/office staff gonna screw me this week