Who's The Worst Of Them ALL to work for?

This is a really bad time (due to the economy)for any newbies to get into it, no matter how old you are. I will tell you as a older couple that wants to team, you may want to be looking at the expiditer companies. You probally will have to own your own truck(usually a pretty good size straight truck with a sleeper), but you will find that there are mostly older couples in this and they pretty much run the way they want to and the companies that lease them dont ususally have the hangups with them if they want to take a few days or week off in order to see family or golf or whatever. Plus the money in the Expedited side of trucking is usually excellent.
Swift is not the place for older people and definitely not the place for teams of any type. You are 100 times better off paying for the schooling yourself and going to whatever company you want to and paying it off yourself--no matter what the company tells you!

 

As I have suspected. It sounds like companies take on new guys, run them through a so called training program, which is really nothing more than a way to get cheap team drivers. Then after 8-15 mos. they pressure them out of work, cut their loads, or figure out some way to fire them.

I'll bet that the driver is still on the hook for the cost the company say's it costs for them for the so called training.

Thanks Georgia

 

One reason never to take company training.... I am so grateful to Governor Jennifer Granholm (Michigan) for No Worker Left Behind program which is part of Michigan Works. It's paying for my training along with training in other high demand jobs for many unemployed workers here in Michigan

 

I feel CRST (The Gold Rush) is the worst followed closely by a CR England fleacing and then maybe Weiner or any other bottom-feeder (they just seem to get worse)

-however going to a trucking school and not getting a job or not having a company pay for your tuition could be just as bad.

-a lease with a bad company where you are tied to the truck is probably the worst and the more expensive the payments the worse it is.

Worse case senario: CR fleece, 2008 truck with problems and low MPG and you are paying for the tuition. -but at least CR-E has good trailers and you can screw others into a CR fleece to make extra money.

 

I am just curious how many on this thread have voted for (or would that be against) a company and made bad comments about that company and they have no personal experience of working for that company? Kind of lessens the value of a survey and the comments if there is no personal experience. It would be nice to know if you actually worked for the company or have second hand information. Second hand information is okay but I will put more stock in the comments and votes of someone who can say, "I have been there and done that" then someone who only knows from someone else's experience. If I want to know if a restaurant has good food, I want to talk to someone who has eaten there.

 

All from someone who can only guess because there is no personal experience. Well let's look at the problem with this reply. See this claim of "cheap team drivers" is one that this individual has made on several threads and got him ticked off with one company in particular because their drivers tried to point out he was wrong. But, he is just a wannabe with a lot of theories but no experience to speak from. So here is an example of the "cheap team" concept:

Swift Transportation pays a solo driver with two years experience a minimum of $0.34/mile for all dispatches over 300 miles. At the same time they pay a team (2 yr exp) $0.37/mile (which is split between the two drivers) for that same dispatch. If a solo becomes a mentor (teams cannot), Swift pays the mentor the same $0.34/mile for all dispatches over 300 miles PLUS pay what works out to approximately $0.10/mile to the trainee for all dispatched miles.

Solo Driver as mentor 5000 miles # $0.34/mile = $1,700.00
Student pay at the lowest $450.00/week = $ 450.00
total for training operation (team miles) = $2,150.00

Regular team operation 5000 miles # $0.37/mile = $1,850.00

Pay for training = $2,150.00
Regular Team = $1,850.00
Cost of training over normal team operations = $ 300.00

If we make the assumption that 100 trainees start per week that is an additional $30,000.00 per week in operational costs to train students. That doesn't sound to me like cheap team operations.

Now add to the training cost that the mentor gets a penny a mile for every mile his graduate runs for a year and assume he/she trains 6 students per year and they all run just 2,000 miles:

Solo Driver as mentor 5000 miles # $0.34/mile = $1,700.00
Student pay at the lowest $450.00/week = $ 450.00
6 previous students # 2000 miles # $0.01/mile each = $ 120.00
total for training operation (team miles) = $2,270.00

Non-training team pay does not change

Pay for training = $2,270.00
Regular Team = $1,850.00
Cost of training over normal team operations = $ 420.00

That moves the operational cost of training 100 students per week to $42,000.00. And Swift has no guarantees that most of those will stick around. Many come to this industry only to find out that it is not their cup of tea and leave. Others cannot do the job right and have to be terminated. Others train with these companies and then move on to the alleged "greener pastures". And these "bottom feeder" training companies have to absorp all those training costs that they lose the services of that driver they trained. This makes me think that too many of the non-training companies are just too cheap to do the tough work of the industry; taking a greenhorn (wannabe) off the street and turning them into a truck driver who is a valuable asset to the industry.

So I will leave all of you to decide whether mannmk7's claim that the only reason a company trains is to get "cheap team labor" is true or not based on the added annual cost of operation $2,184,000.00 to train students based on the examples above.

I will also let you decide if a company who has put out that kind of expense would do everything they could to get rid of people they have paid so much extra to train just so they can do it all again.

 

Please tell me you're not serious!

Keeping in mind that SOME folks actually seem to prefer greasy-spoon restaurants because they like the short-skirted
waitresses, and only order chili and french fries, too engrossed in pinchin' buttoxes to notice the ####roaches.
Braggin',
HeY!
I've had dog meat before.
It ain't bad.
Tastes a lot like chicken (innerds).

I've read, as I guess you have, too --- that the world is round.
But according to your reasoning, if you haven't personally been AROUND the world, and/or viewed it from outer space, it's only someone's opinion.

From someone with how many years truckin' experience? :smt017:smt102

And another thing to factor in is that PawPaw's numbers are out of his head, and actually have no basis in fact.
Until PawPaw has opened the books of the various trainin' truckin' companies, the numbers are only his opinion, and/or guesstimates, --- unless he can verify those claims and/or provide a way for others to crunch the REAL numbers it's not even second hand information, --- and sounds a lot like what one might hear from a trainin' truckin' company recruiter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ DISCLAIMER ~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am NOT suggesting that PawPaw is a recruiter.
*********************************************

I've heard it said, that if one has a question, ask a teenager ---
while they still know everything.
And I wonder if that would also apply to wannaBees and/or NewBees?

 

the numbers look fair, but as a trainer I doubt that you are running like a team = you are training more than teaming for the Swift 8 weeks (no pun intended) hopefully.

Getting fleeced by CRE --> when you are drowning from the fleece you are (almost) willing to do anything. Train others of the value of the golden fleece etc.

***with these new trucks having such problems expect more fleecing and O/Os from these trucking companies***

 

Actually, AfterShock, I gave an example based on how Swift Transportation works because I drove for them before and have first hand knowledge on how things are done there and took the pay numbers right from the pay scale listed on their website. I am not trying to recruit for anyone; just give things from what I know. And I have been in commercial driving for over 5 years but only have limited OTR. That does not invalidate my comments. I originally came to this site looking for help but there are people here, like mannmk7 -- who is now banned, who have no experience and just regurgiate other people's negative comments. If there were more honesty and facts rather than tearing people down with no facts, like you do in your post, this site would be more helpful to those who come here seeking answers. In my post I used actual numbers to pont out that training is expensive. The problem is you would rather tear a company down then present facts. I am not going to argue with you. Anyone who wants can go to Swift's site and confirm that the pay numbers I have listed are real numbers. So attack if you want I am not going to get into it with you. But people can evaluate for themselves by doing their own research.

And as for your "disclaimer" ANY time someone posts something positive about a company on here they risk being called a recruiter by the likes of you. People need to hear both sides of the story but it is strange that those who have negative attitudes about companies decide to attack those who have positive comments to make and call them "recruiters" in hopes that the moderators will ban someone for recruiting. I don't care to recruit anyone for any company. I just want to share what I have learned either though personal experience or througnh extensive research I have done.

 

I vote for Covenant Trans I own them $700.00 sold to collecten in 2007 terminated in 2006. C.R.E towing 650.00. D&D transportation 570.00 reloading at scale in Cal