Venezia transport

I was hoping to get some insight from some current drivers about Venezia. I found some forums about them, but a lot of them were from years ago.

I applied for their liquid tank division, hauling tar from the Philadelphia area to Pittsburgh area. $0.59 cpm loaded and $0.54 empty with $26 loading/unloading pay. Their benefit package seems pretty similar to what I have now. I was told I would be out 1-2 nights a week and home pretty frequently, including weekends. I asked for a truck with a manual trans and they said that shouldn't be a problem.

I was hoping to get the inside scoop on how honest the company is. I know they're much bigger than the company I currently work for, and have a ton of work as I see them everywhere. This does worry me a bit as I wouldn't have that small company hospitality and probably won't have the same relationship with my dispatchers as I do now. Any little details help and are appreciated. The recruiter sold it pretty good and I just don't want to make the wrong move.

 

I have absolutely no problem taking an old truck lol I actually asked the recruiter if I could have one haha

 

I start orientation on March 1st, hopefully it's the right move! Lol

 

Will do. So far it seems pretty good. They're renting me a car on 02/28, I'll drive to a holiday inn in royerdsford PA, attend orientation for 3 days (including my road test on day 1), and then I'll be bringing my truck home. They said tanker training can last up to 5 days, but given my prior tanker experience it could be expedited

 

Thank you for the info! I prefer an older truck honestly. Home time was the selling point for me as my daughter will be a year old next month and I've barely had the chance to see her grow up

 

Day one of orientation is complete! The rental car I was given was very small (Chevy Spark) but it got me 310 miles to the hotel at 39 mpg lol

We started off with a walk-around of the terminal, I was very impressed with it. Driver's room with showers and bathrooms, lunch room, paved parking lot, all things I didn't have before. Then came the road test. I took it in a Mack Pinnacle with a 10 speed hooked to an asphalt tanker. Paul from safety supervised the whole thing, he was a very nice man. Since I've only driven an 18 speed, I confused the gears a few times just strictly from muscle memory. Of course, once I lost a gear I panicked and continued to rev and grind. Paul was very calm and jokingly said "wrong hole! This ain't no 18 speed driver!" Then coached me into the correct gear. We exchanged jokes and got back to the terminal. I dropped the trailer and parked the truck, he said I did a fantastic job.

Then we did the physical upstairs, then went off site to do the drug test. Once we got back to the classroom Paul showed us multiple dash cam videos for training and asked our opinions on what could've been done differently. It was very interactive and laid back.

I have to say I was extremely nervous at first about this whole deal, but after today I'm back to feeling excited to get going