Millis OTR journal

I've been to 2 of the new Loves stores lately and been really impressed. The one I'm in tonight doesn't look like a typical truck stop (and the parking lot doesn't have indentations deep enough to make me worry about bottoming out like the old school one I weighed in the other day) and the other one appeared after I was mislead by my GPS when looking for a place to stay.

 

Is it true that Millis has almost 200 empty trucks right now?

 

Where did you hear that figure?

 

Someone posted it on the employee Facebook page, something about 177 empty trucks.. but can’t find it now. My guess is an Admin deleted it.

 

Found it

 

No idea if that is true or not. I don't do Facebook and definitely would not have done the "gear jammers" page that some drivers were on. I don't know if that is the one you are talking about or if it still has that name. I always heard there was a lot of BS on there.

I worked at Millis twice between 2015 and 2021, leaving once in the middle for a local job. When I came back in early 2019 I was told they had very few empty trucks. That was 2 years ago so who knows. Heartland happened between now and then and I know people were wary of what that is going to mean long term, me included.

Initially I liked having more terminals to park at and the unlimited truck washes Heartland had. Didn't care for all the crappy Pilot/FJ fuel solutions that started happening at what seemed like the tightest dirtiest crap hole locations all of the time. I left myself a couple months ago when they shutdown Weedsport. That was a Heartland influenced move I'm sure. I had some other reasons related to trucking in general but that move really pushed me to act.

I wouldn't be surprised if they have more empty trucks now. The more they start doing things like Heartland and less like Millis I'm sure there will be more. I also wouldn't necessarily fully believe what you read on that FB page. Who knows. Time will tell.

 

I heard the same about the mt trucks. Nothing to my knowledge has happened for any mass quitting. I’m guessing that with all these other companies increasing their pay packages people are jumping at the money.

Also the mt trucks could be all of the 19s they are rounding up to turn in. The terminals all look the same to me, no overcrowding.

 

Last time I was at Richfield there were a bunch of bobtail there but who knows why. If I don't read it on the Qualcom or here I rarely hear any news about this company.
I was at a fuel stop that surprised me because it wasn't the crowded slow dirty place it had always been. There was no waiting for a pump, the pumps and the AP all worked and they'd cleaned up. Something made them change for the better.

 

It took roughly 4-6 weeks after I turned in my truck at Weedsport before I noticed it was gone. It sat in the exact spot I left it in the entire time until it was gone.

I happened to drive by there this past weekend when normally there would be a lot of bobtails because people were home and there was only one andbit wasn't parked in the normal bobtail line. That area was empty..

There were also very few personal cars in the lot which seemed contradictory to also having no bobtails. I wonder if the drivers there were told to start making other parking arrangements or what the scenario was.

As @Stillundecided said, I always felt communication was lacking a bit company-wide other than the safety messages.

 

Im still hoping to hear about the missing trailer from last year. Was it found?