Marten Transport May Not be for you!

Discussion in 'Report A BAD Trucking Company Here' started by truxpen, Aug 14, 2012.

If you are Currently a driver or use to drive for Marten do you agree w/ this forum?

  1. *

    Strongly Disagree

    6.3%
  2. *

    Disagree

    12.5%
  3. *

    Neutral

    50.0%
  4. *

    Agree

    18.8%
  5. *

    Strongly Agree

    37.5%
  1. truxpen

    truxpen Bobtail Member

    1
    1
    Aug 14, 2012
    0
    I joined Marten with the thought of them being a good company from what I Always heard on Radio! I Was Wrong.. Dont Get me wrong it may be good for you but from what i heard when i was with them from the drivers been there for decades it changed alot in the last 2 years... for the worse.. Here are things you got to watch out for.. 1st will be FACTS.... then next will be my Opinion....

    FACTS:

    F1.) They will take .03 a mile out of your paycheck... This is for PER DIEM which is MANDATORY! ( you dont have a option.) i have a program on my laptop that caculates my pay i caculated it with per diem and the .03 taken out and with out per diem and no cents taken out and i made just about the same amount of money.. both ways give or take 1-2 dollars. a week ( the .03 a mile deduction is fact but the caculation is opinion. i may be wrong. but i believe they take the money you earn from perdiem from you.. and that is wrong and pretty much legally stealing from. you... now they may not metion it to you they didnt metion it untill i got to orientation. some of the drivers were told about it before hand.... make sure you ASK!!! for ex. if they say you will make .40 a mile you will only actaully make .37 a mile.. .21 taxable .16 non taxable.. i asked about it 2 different pple. and got 2 diffent answers 1 said its for the account who caculated the per diem (HELLO if it take all the money earn from per diem let me do it i will be willing to go to mondovi and caculated for yoU!!) and the other said it was for tax purposes.. (Which i believe was bologna)..........

    F2.) Ask about INSURANCE... it sucks......... you leterally have to pay your 1,500 or 3,000 deductible (Not sure on amt. but at least 1500) before they will pay anything INCLUDING regular Doctor Visits.. it was cheaper for my family to say we had no insurance then it was with the insurance... they have a teledoc for $35.00 but be realistic i think thats a good service but they cant handle everything...


    Now my opinion..

    O1. I was OTR and im not sure how it was over in Regional but over in otr it felt like they cared less about the driver.. and all they cared about was moving the freight......

    o2. you can easily get a failure on delivery on the stupidest thing... for instense was sheduled to leave at 3 pm monday.. they gave me a load to pick up at 11pm... it was a PRE LOADED trailer.. (DROP AND HOOK) they load was only 550 miles and didn't deliver till Wednesday LAte after noon.. so i figured instead of sitting out on the road waiting to deliver because the customer would not accept early delivery i would pick up load tuesday morning.. giving me a day and half to del.. Caught a call tuesday morning said I had a Failed on the load because I Didn;t pick up the load when they wanted me to...

    o3. this goes basicly to my DM I was trying to get home on a friday ( PAST due home been actually trying for past 2 weeks. was out for 5 weeks all together..) but i was only 260 miles a way.. and knew they were trying to get me home.. it came to 1 hr before she went home and i asked if they got anything yet and answer was working on it... when it came. her quiting time 5pm i called at 4:57 just to find out she went home for the weekend. with out telling me what was going on for me to get home....


    Now keep in mind they do have decent trucks with apu's and power inverters. the in-cab scanning was nice... and Auto-Detetion was the BEST.. And like i said I was OTR andim not sure about REgional drivers experience with this company.. From the few times i talked to the regional dispatchers they seemd to be nice. (Wasn;t able to be regional due to on where i live.) But OTR Just tottally SUCKEd.. If you decide to give Marten a Try THats ok.... You gotta to go by your gut.., but just make sure before you even Agree to go to Orientation ASK ALL the Questions you can ( once hired if you quit b4 6 months (this is fact and you will sign a aggreement on this) you will have to pay for the Bus ride up to Orientation, Hotel room (2 or 3 nights) and Cab fare from greyhound to Hotel mine would have been ($205.00) But i stuck it out over 6 mos. since then someone told me they also now make you pay for physical and drug test if you quit b4 6mos.. (that was from another driver and i Cannot confirm that but make sure you ask your recruiter.. but like i said ASK ASK ASK.. Pay, per deim, Insurance (health, vision,dental, life. etc.) ask about home time... and Parking your truck they will not allow truck stops and the spot you choose must be secured with gate and lock! ask about anything you can think of include amount of time you got to stay home.. and when they say 3 days off they mean 3 days off (at least my DM) if you got home at 11pm thursday night you have to be ready to go at 11pm sat. night.. and they always had something for me at the time i was suppose to go out.....and one last thought... Personally i had 4 other jobs in the past 10 years. and could recommend them to other drivers for 1 reason or another... but Marten Honestly I could not recommend to ANYONE... and that is why i decided to post this forum. Thats my opinion.. I Hope this was hopeful to you . but keep in mind to ask other drivers....
     
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  3. Hurst

    Hurst Registered Member

    6,618
    12,265
    Aug 24, 2011
    Tampa, Fl
    0
    Wow,. did you ever think to proof read that before you hit the submit button?
    Maybe take some classes on punctuation and grammar.

    I understand you are having problems,.. but that was a very difficult read. Still not sure if I comprehend everything.
     
  4. rachi

    rachi Road Train Member

    4,246
    5,225
    Feb 25, 2010
    SoCal
    0
    Marten used to be good with hometime but not anymore. On western regional you stay out 10-12 days, then you get about 1.5 - 2 days off, then back in the saddle. Figure on maybe 5 days off per month, not much time to see the family. Now, if you are a driver who never goes home, then this post won't matter. Every other aspect i like, good miles, detention pay, good equipment, but quality hometime is important to most drivers.
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2012
    lonelyswmtrucker Thanks this.
  5. stuey

    stuey Light Load Member

    51
    20
    Jul 17, 2012
    Jefferson GA
    0
    Here is my two cents:

    I hired into Marten to run a dedicated account that was just starting up for Wrigley’s Chewing Gum from Flowery Branch GA into Canada (Quebec) and back to Kennesaw GA. Then to Marten's terminal in Tucker GA and go home for 3 days off. I was also told that on occasion I’d go thru/to Chicago IL to pick up hazardous materials that would be used in the plant in Canada so I might be asked to deliver product to a vendor for Wrigley’s and then continue onwards and upwards. This seemed like the perfect type of job for me, it would meet my financial needs, allow me to see my family who lives in Canada and allow me to do something that I still love to do… as I’ve often thought of getting out of the race because of so many discouraging things within the industry.


    I accepted the job offer, thought that I asked all the right questions and got a good feeling for Marten. I to had heard over the years that Marten was what many say in this industry of being a top tier company. An outfit that you strive to get into because the company has low turn over, nice equipment, a leader in the industry and on and on and on. But, like so many other companies I hear about or have personally worked with, they seem to regress into a less than desirable company… for whatever reason.

    I went to their orientation in Tucker GA and it seemed like chaos there. They had no idea and no organization, in my opinion. They had an agenda of required things they needed to get thru in order to seat everyone in the equipment and get them moving freight. Marten brought the medical staff to the terminal which allowed for quicker processing. They also had the insurance representative on hand and most everything else was done over the internet in live chat private chat rooms with other orientation groups linking together with Mondovi WI. Most of this stuff is typical of any company’s orientation and so I paid less than full attention to it to be perfectly honest.

    After completion of the entire process, id cards were issued and truck assignments assigned. If you were fortunate enough you got something there in Tucker GA. There was seven of us that traveled by 2 rental cars to TX to pick up our trucks. We drove straight there and because it was a Friday that particular “shared” shop didn’t have night or weekend hours and had it not been for the quick thinking of a couple of people in the car I was in to call Mondovi and ask about access and keys, we’d have had to spend the weekend there as no one at Marten’s Mondovi WI office let that staff in TX know we were coming and no keys would have been available, nor would we have had access to the property. Long story short I personally felt like we had been let down and given little consideration… again, my opinion. Not such a nice way to start a new relationship.

    So, we all got into the trucks and we got a good nights sleep and one by one on Saturday we got some sort of dispatch to get us moving… There was another driver that had been hired to do the same dedicated account that I had been hired for so we spent most of our time discussing and comparing notes. We got beer loads that carried us into points west and then finally, after 5 or 6 days we were heading for home. I make this point because we had been told to bring only the essentials as we’d be routed straight home to get the rest of our gear and then we’d drop right into our rotation for Wrigley’s. So here is my second let down, my idea of straight home and Marten’s idea was two different time frames. Mind you now I have Mr. Marten’s son as our driver manager, he was the one who brought this new business in for Marten and he was to head it up until everything got up and running smoothly… a point that had not been made clear in the initial conversations about the dedicated account, (that Marten had just acquired the account and was getting it up and running).

    After I got home and set my truck up, I proceeded to take my three days off only to be called on early and given my first dispatch. It wasn’t for Wrigley’s Chewing Gum nor was it for the dedicated account at all. It was some more beer that had good miles but it carried me away from the dedicated lane and I told Marten up front that I was a Christian and beer wasn’t going to be a load that I’d be able to haul except on rare occasion. I called and asked what was up, had I misunderstood, was there a problem with the account? And this is when I found out that I was going to be given any and every load possible to keep me busy until the account was ready. All the drivers had been hired with the expectations of jumping right onto the account, three up while three are coming back to start with and as the loads increase so would the driver pool. But Marten jumped the gun a little and didn't have everything in place to transition the prior contracting company out and Marten in. Maybe a good thing, maybe not... they didn't want to lose the drivers they had just hired, after all, it's expensive to hire new drivers so retention is the key (to any trucking out fit for that matter) so they were just dumping whatever refer freight they could get to keep us busy and a check coming in.


    But, I didn’t want to do refer freight necessarily. I took this job because it offered good miles (better than average for refrigerated as I understand), a dedicated lane and a dedicated customer with very often the same destinations, a simple border crossing that paid a premium and best of all… it gave me three days at home after a trip up and back. I have all the respect one driver can have for another and we all have our chosen freight types; flat, dry, refer, tank, over sized… whatever, we all have some we like and some we don’t. Hauling miscellaneous loads of varying types of refrigerated freight wasn’t what I wanted to do… it wasn’t for me. Driving night and day wasn't for me either. God Bless those drivers who do it now and without them we'd be up a creek for food & toilet paper... well maybe not toilet paper since that comes in a dry van.

    I hung in there with Marten for a several weeks. I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. For me I was let down for the third time because I had left a very good regional position with decent miles and better than most in my home time for Marten and what Marten had promised to me in my job offer. Disappointed doesn’t even begin to cover it, truly it doesn’t. I was repeatedly ignored for home time of 4 out and 3 home as promised. Detention, at that time was paid to the driver only if the customer paid to Marten, (I understand it’s been changed to honor system payment on detention now) and it didn't start until after 4 hours which is typical for refer freight and when you never knew if you were going to get it or not it was frustrating, at least for me.

    Now here’s some good news about Marten. I went into the Tucker GA terminal and spoke with the recruiter who recruited me, the senior dispatcher/driver manager and the terminal manager and told them that I was going to leave the employ of Marten Transport. I did this of course after I told Mr. Marten, my driver manager, that I was leaving the company because the job I was hired for wasn’t what I was being used for. The senior dispatcher/driver manager and the terminal manager wanted to make any accommodation possible to keep me working for them, again, retention is the key. They were straight forward and honest, I guess but they said that they didn’t have any regional positions available at that time, only OTR and that it was a 10 – 12 day out and 2 day home situation; however the senior dispatcher/driver manager offered to take me onto his board and work me 6 -8 days out with 2 day home picking up and delivering general refrigerated freight. It was unfortunately not a solution for me as I only took the job for the turn around to Canada and home time and that I had no desire to do refrigerated freight at that time.

    Lastly I’ll add this; the other driver that went to work for Marten when I did and was hired for the same Wrigley’s account… he’s still there and he loves it. About two more months after I left he told me that the account was fully functioning and he was enjoying it. The only thing that is really different, he’s not doing the 4 days out and 3 days home but 2 weeks out and a weekend home… but it works for him. He came from a refrigerated company before starting with Marten and this was only his second job; so he’s not influenced by other factors really… again, my opinion.

    My experience with Marten Transport wasn’t a good one. I had high hopes with this company. I had been driving for years, paying my dues with the larger fleets, minding my P’s & Q’s, waiting for the opportunity to move into a better company that would appreciate me for my skills and professionalism. But, like everything else, it’s all subjective. I had a pay check that cashed every week and the equipment was decent. I have answered you’re poll as Neutral because my experience isn’t yours or anyone else’s. I offer these ramblings only as information to a perspective driver seeking information with regards to Blue Bird. I leave it here for everyone to comment on and complain about as is usually the case for such a long diatribe on this forum.
     
  6. pilottravel2002

    pilottravel2002 Medium Load Member

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    May 25, 2011
    Tucson,az
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    I dont have any problems reading the last post i dont know what are u talking about,(this is not online high school grammar school ).
     
  7. pilottravel2002

    pilottravel2002 Medium Load Member

    688
    156
    May 25, 2011
    Tucson,az
    0
    that happens to me not with marten,with national distributors exactly the same #### they offer me a dedicated run,but when i get to orientation they told me the account was not ready yet,so why they hire a driver for a run didnt exist yet,i end up paying for my bus ticket both ways,drug test,physical and food,i just spend money i didnt have at that time for nothing i resign my last job too,so long story short i learn my lesson the hard way,thats why i dont trust any job recruitment advertising from any trucking company because most of the time is just a recruiter b.s just to fill seats,until i search and talk to drivers thats when i send my application not before,we just need to do our homework when is time to look for jobs.
     
    stuey Thanks this.
  8. apyles

    apyles Medium Load Member

    449
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    Oct 21, 2011
    Newbern,Tn
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    i doubt that this thread was started, just so you could play english teacher. It seems that there are some people who troll these threads, just to make the one comment about the 'correct grammer and spelling'. it's starting to get old! someone makes a post then the next reply is.. gasp! at bad grammer and fifth grade spelling. wtf (read iT) if you dont understand move on! dont make dumb ### statement. btw i do not see anything wrong with this post!
     
  9. shadowfax

    shadowfax Light Load Member

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    Dec 23, 2008
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    Mr Hurst:

    I would respectfully refer you to this informative thread created by Mastertech that addresses this very situation:

    http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...formation-center/154304-spelling-and-ttr.html
     
  10. apyles

    apyles Medium Load Member

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    Oct 21, 2011
    Newbern,Tn
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  11. brianw900

    brianw900 Bobtail Member

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    May 16, 2011
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    First off Mr. Marten doesn't have a son, you we're working for his nephew, second when your new you do what your told, i'm tired of people who think they should just get the run they want right out of the box, did you consider the fact that drivers already with the company were ahead of you in line for this run, third don't be surprised when you don't see what you were expecting because these companies are always blowing smoke up your but to get you in the door and retention is not as high on their list as you think it is.
     
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