The Truth About Gordon

Gordon is a very good company.Keep in mind, if your waiting on your pre hire packet, once you get it, you need to send current DMV records for every state you held a license in and once you send it out to them, it takes about 2 wks min to get an all clear from them. unlike many companies, they do all your back ground work first, not while your in orentation and they do look deep so be prepaired for the wait. you can speed this up a little by staying in touch with your recruiter and asking them if they are waiting for anything to come back and if you can help. I did that and found out a former employer was holding up my acceptance by sitting on the verification fourm. made a phone call and gordon had it in 1 hr as were they had been waiting 4 days for it. make sure they know you are moving to phoenix, you may need to move first, as we dont hire out of florida. good luck and hope to see you in one of the yards.

 

Well this brought up a lovely memory......
In May, I left Swift (thank God) after being hired by GTI. I was in Phoenix at the time of the change (on home time with Swift) and needed to have a new DOT physical prior to driving to the Rancho Cucamonga, CA GTI terminal. The day of the DOT, the recruiter called me to tell me everything was ready to go as they had a load for me to take up to Washington so I could begin my orientation. She said I had to hurry as the health facility doing the DOT was closing. So I dropped everything and got there in time.
Everything with the DOT was A-OK and with that my wie drove me to CA.
I arrived there and the next day I got my load to take up to WA. That following Tuesday at 6:30 AM I began the orientation.

At 9AM I had been terminated.

They pulled me out of class and asked me about a back surgery I had. I said "yup, in 1988 I did have a disc operation. It was in my DOT physical application". They told me it wasn't. I was completely in disbelief as I had always included in every application since whether it be health insuirance, life insurance....even my last DOT with Swift 8 months earlier. It had never caused a problem with any of it. Just an easy disc operation with no problems since. In fact, with Swift I was driving flatbed (a lot of heavy work).

In any event, in my rush to get throught the DOT paperwork, I neglected to put it on the application. Gordon safety (Scott) didn't care. I was terminated on the spot and got a nice 27 hour Greyhound road home. They wouldn't even ship my truck belongings home. I had to make a separate 2200 mile round trip back there to get it all. Nice, huh? One would have thought I'd killed someone. As I told them, I would have understood if I had "left out" a drug bust, felony or killed someone in an acident. That would have made sense. But a 21 year old surgery which GTI themselves said it wouldn't have affected the employment? "You falsified documents" hey said.

Just got my DAC report and in fact it states: "Falsified Employment Appliacation". The day it happened, I tried to meet with Steve Gordon. He wouldnt give me the time. He, nor anyone else, simply didn't care.

I was crushed, to say the least and frankly didn't reserve much when dispaying my sentiments about the process. As far as I was concerned, they were and are heartless, gutless human beings. There I was, 57 years old, with a 100% clean MVR and character record and my career is destroyed because I forgot about a 21 year old non-important medical event. Yes, I have, since, been turned down by three trucking companies becasue of it.

The good news? I begin with a tour coach (Prevost bus) operator in a couple of weeks in Phoenix. Nice clean, new equipment....nice clean clothes, nice (paid for) meals, nice (paid for) motels, good home time and far better money. (they don't use DAC's)

Hmmmmmmmmm......perhaps GTI was a GOOD thing for me!

 

Yeah they are really slick at pushing people out the door...i quit this month and know at least 20 other drivers that had 15 yrs + exp that just handed them their keys and said shove it...I never had any real issues with anyone but some have...I saw stacks of new app's on their desks and know that if there is just one thing out of place...boommmm you're out the door. They are working pretty hard at ruining the reputation that they had before...We pulled for some major companies and had a lot of freight...It's a shame that no one at the top knows what's going on in the ditches...just my .02.....

 

well hello out there ,i been with gti for about 1 yr and 3 weeks,been running about 13 yrs out here.tomorrow i been going with another copany,why well like some say gti is not to bad,but with my experinece,when it comes to home time.(as they say its a goal for dispatch to work toward)as far as eqipment goes,well thats another store.but one thing i want to say is watch out for gti trls begining with a E,be sure to check the cross members,the last one i pulled ended up with 7 cracked in half,i spent all evening to convince them i wasnt picking up a load with it till it got fixed/getting the trucks serviced,or something fixed is like trying to pull teeth from a toothless man.good luck with gti,and triple check all equipment before u it the roads. like its said its u they will get.

 

Wow what a horrible company in your opinion. I have a friend that drives for them and has none of the problems you listed. So in your opinion log everything on duty and then have no time to drive? Well you can do that if you want with that LITTLE OL' LOG BOOK(how many times did you say that till it became very annoying? I got annoyed about the thrid time) but I choose to make money out here. My friend has never been ripped by his DM, safety, or breakdown. Sounds like to me you didn't like it there and left, which is your right to do but maybe you should just move on and let your "horrible" experience with Gordon go away into the sunset.

 

how long has your friend work there i applied there sounds your friend like their i lve in chicago dose get the miles in the midwest div thanks

 

Well I found out that the grass isn't always green on the other side.I returned to GTI and so far it is going great...I have a different DM and that might make all the difference in the world. I don't complain at all and just run as much as I can. We are always told that we need to do it "safe and legal"...no one has ever tried to push a load on me and make me run illegally.period...I heard a few guys complain about the midwest and I must say that we have an awful lot of freight on the westcoast.Some guys just love to complain and are finding out that the DM will just sit you and give better runs to the guys that just have better attitudes...hmmm

 

Thanks nicnat2,
I am going to school on the 21st of this month and grad on jan 18th. I spoke to the recruiter out of modesto and he said they would hire me but be patient cause they only have so many trainers and lots of apps to work through. I am also looking at Wakins Shepard with a oreintation date of 25jan. If i go with WS i am trucking on my own 10 days later at full pay??????????????????? The dilema of uncertainty!

 

To Green, I wonder what it is where every company has some major problem with a few drivers that have a run in. This is not to say its the driver. But it seems the driver is the one who more than 98% of the time is the person out of a job. Can anyone explaine this? We all know as drivers it is he/ and I do not want to discriminate because there are pleanty of FANTASTIC well beyond qualified women/lady drivers, that are the ones who are doing the work. These are the people more than often being the scape goat.

 

To KABAR (KROWBAR) if you do 600-650 per day, you most certainlly are not in a governed 58m.p.h. schindler truck. And driving like that you are a very good driver because I use to drive from Green Bay,wi. to the very first rest area in Pennyslvania under my 11 hours. Just so you know thats thru the tolls in Chicago, Indiana , and Ohio.