Westside Transport

Just wanted to give an honest and fair Assessment of my time with Westside Transport. Overall, I have no ill feelings toward them, in fact I wouldn't mind staying, however the hours and compensation just isn't worth it. Lets start at the beginning. Westside was my first choice out of trucking school and as a starter company I would say that there not bad. The first 4 days of orientation im sure were like any trucking company, opolicies, rules... road test, drug screen... I can honestly say that I didn't learn 1 thing in orientation. They really harp on you being able to read an atlas, well an atlas can get you near the location but unless you got a truck gps, your not going to find the location of where your going. Which leads me to the first 30 days of training. Unfortunately for me, it was exactly what I thought itd be. After the first day of being with my trainer, he turned and said to me, you seem to have a good idea about what to do in a truck, ill call my dispatch on Monday and see if we can "alternate driving". Well that was it, 1 day into it and im already team driving, aka making my trainer rich. Again, the 30 days out with the trainer I didn't learn anything. So now training is over. Westside has a tendancy to want to give you short haul runs, id say most drivers average between 2000-2700 miles a week. I eventually switched over to Minnesota Hub and that means home everyday, but because of loading and unloading and multiple stops, you don't always get home (which is fine, but your paid by the mile so not good to have more than 1 stop.) I typically did about 2800 actual miles a week, however only got paid for probably 2300 of them. Again that's pretty well standard, most co's hose you on miles. Bottom line I worked 5 fourteen hour long shifts and probably grossed about 930 average for the week. If you do the math its about 13.50 an hour if going by straight time, or about 11 an hour if you factored in ot. Bottom line is that it wasn't worth it, so I moved on. They gave me a chance though, so I have nothing but thanks and praise for that, and most of the people there are pretty nice, not a bad co to work for, however id say a cheap one. They are upset that im leaving, but hey, maybe the office should put in about 30 more hours a week and not get any extra money for it and see how they like it.

 

no problem, if you need to know anything more, your welcome to ask