Beware of WEL companies

Oh yes, it is about being adaptable. A good driver does whatever it takes to get a load where it needs to be on time. If you aren't any good, which WEL Companies told you to your face, why the hell are they going to pay you? You keep talking about going to tankers. You tried that and left. Why did you leave tankers in the first place of the money was so good? Yes adaptability is key. I've made money at every company I've worked at, even Western Express, believe it or not. I had to figure out their way of doing things, and when it was time to upgrade, I upgraded. You haven't stayed anywhere long enough to know if you need to upgrade.

 

Sometimes loads do get tight, hot loads they call em. They told you that they didn't believe you could do 600 miles in 2 days, and they marked you late before you even got started. To me that's telling. Reefer is a different ball game that's for sure.

 

This is a general statement, nothing against the OP and I’m not defending the company in question here at all.

Every company, even the perfect ones, have issues that you choose to accept or not. If someone believes they just have to get to company X and everything will be fine they will be disappointed when the finally get to company X. No company is absolutely perfect in every aspect, but if there’s enough good to outweigh the issues then people stay.

My experience as a company driver was roughly 10 years at the same company. I was working at Pepsi and decided my time was worth more. I applied for a daycab, home nightly position and was placed on the waiting list. A few months go by and the owner calls and asks if I was still interested in a job. He said he didn’t have a daycab open but had a truck coming available in 3 weeks that was a home weekends position. I took it. And once I was there I quickly saw that would’ve hated the daycab position had I been offered it.

Was the job perfect? No. There were companies that looked better on paper at the time. But once you dug into it our job wasn’t so bad as far as flatbed work goes. We were paid off the odometer for every mile we drove, no short computer miles. Health care at the time was no cost for the employee. The equipment was nice and we pulled the same trailer all the time. If we wanted time off we just wrote our names and dates needed on the board in the office. But our cpm was lower than what some OTR companies were paying at the time. And chaining was just part of the job. Unless the road was actually closed we were expected to chain up and get the job done.

Right now it’s a down market, as everyone is aware, so companies can be choosy about who they hire and wages are stagnant for the most part. Job hopping isn’t as possible in this market as it is when the market is hot. Way back in 2004 when I applied at my old flatbed job I had been at Pepsi for 2 years. He flat out told me he was giving me a chance (I had no flatbed experience) over guys with flatbed experience simply because I was stable in my work history. I had 2 jobs over the prior 5 years when I applied.

I guess that’s a lot of rambling to basically say that even the perfect hazmat tanker job won’t be perfect and sometimes we all have to eat a crap sandwich as long as there are enough toppings to cover up the bad taste.

 

Long FLD,
You always have a great reply and straight to the point. I for one always respect and enjoy your comments.

 

A stable job history nowadays is key,especially in this current job market.. If an employer sees an employee who has “job hopped” between 5-6 different other jobs in less than 2 years,they’re not going take a chance on that employee,especially with the costs of training,drug and alcohol testing and screening.
That can kill your employment prospects-dead as a rabid dog.

 

The job market is rough right now,with numerous companies shutting down.
Too many trucks and companies chasing too little freight now that the pandemic is over.

 

Where do you live? Have you considered Walmart? Seems like they're always offering a $10,000 sign on bonus for qualified drivers out of one of the Wisconsin DC's when they post available jobs. I'm assuming you're somewhere around Wisconsin if you worked for WEL but maybe not? Walmart's an easy job if you've got a clean record and drive decent. Grossing $2,000 W2 wages would be a "slow" week I've never grossed less than that in 2 years. If you are ok with hustling you can make a lot more. If you don't want to hustle that's cool too you'll still make a lot more than typical OTR and a lot less stressful than LTL. Steady year round work, steady paychecks. Plenty of PTO and very flexible with time off even if you don't have any PTO accrued. Lots of perks that won't be matched anywhere else.