Smaggs goes to Marten. My Experience with Marten Transport.

and on the 8th day God created the caves and said Let there be warehouses

 

I was once a Marten Cheerleader, they could do no wrong, then the forced perdeim came into play, rail loads entered the pic,(many 400 miles loads were going onto rail) missed home time pay went by by($50.00 per day until you got home), giving dm's an open season not get you home on time. Miles dropping like flies.( was averging 3,200 miles aweek, saw those drop to 2,000 or less) Not getting put on a regional run, cause they always said no we are not hiring right now, yet 9 out of ten newbies, getting hired for that region.
Seeing some good people, both Sr. Drivers( i know a Sr Druver with 28 years at marten, and they forced her out) and Sr people in the office get 'let go, so randy could hire younger people in the offfice and not paying them as much.
Haveing to pay a 3 cent per mile 'admintrative fee to be on forced perdeim,, do the math, randy is making more money off the driver with that fee.

Im now with a much smaller company, no form of perdiem, back to 2,800 to 3,200 miles per week, no rail loads, i load out of Cal, run to Conn, reload in Vermont, go back out to southern Nevada. Reload in so cal, up to the nw, then east from there. No one in the office mircro managing me. At 6pm and after 1pm saturdays, no one in the office. If my truck breaks down, i take it to a shop with out fighting with any one, to get it fixed.
I stay out 3-4 weeks, take 4 days off. Still did over 122,000 miles last year. Oh ya, i got a annversary bounus for those miles. And mext may, my 2 year anniverary date, my medical vison and dental insurence is paid for by the company. Yes at the same policy i have now. No cut back .
i Get regularly get my safety, fuel and miles bounus, At marten you gotta beg for the miles to attain that. Our customers don't keep us for hours at the dock, so no need for detention.
So when you try to get a loan, and when you see how much you won't have paid into social security, llets here you brag marten up then.

 

The Marten of a decade ago is long gone, just like all the big companies. These older drivers sat there and watched their jobs go from a good job to idiots-are-us in a matter of years. Imagine spending 20 years with a company only to end up working for a trucking school. That's why the newer guys never understand why some people really bash these outfits. Some are kind about it...some aren't.

 

Ok, Thanks!

 

You got the ROATAING side to side stick OPTION and the AUTO hood opener

 

Sounds like this truck is a candidate for a PT failure...

 

Whoa! That sounds bad, but maybe they will straighten it out. Can't believe they wouldn't.

On the other hand, maybe if you had stuck with Knight (even with all their warts) more than a year, you would have continued building on your relationships with the good people that they DO have? Not always the best idea to jump from the frying pan into the fire. Not really directed at you personally, smaggs, just the prevalent attitude that one must complete "the year, change company's, and everything will be Rosy" attitude on this forum. Like I said, trucking is trucking, and trucks will break down, dispatchers will be clueless, yada yada yada.

BUT, by staying with Knight for a bit over 4 years, I have even gotten to know some of the breakdown personnel in Phoenix, and they will go out of their way, it seems, to get me squared away when I break down in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. "Junior" comes to mind, as well as Kevin in KC. But if I was a "new hire"? How would they even know if the problem was real, or just because I didn't know what I was doing? Gotta build a "track record" before people start to take you serious.

But, you are where you are. It seems, to me, that your thread about Knight started out way positive, and then "trucking" happened, as it always will, and the "Knight haters" came on to tell you how bad Knight was, and you started thinking that way, also.

Trucking, especially for an OTR company, will always suck, at times. Big, little, or in-between. But there will also be those days that you can hardly believe you are getting paid to do the job, it is that good at times.