Werner Enterprises, Inc. - Omaha, Ne.

I went to a 12 week Tech school and started working for Werner 3 days later. They put me with a trainer that was an abusive psycho. When he wasn't on the phone yelling at his wife he was yelling at me. He would swear, call me names pound his fists and throw things around the truck. I'm pretty easy to get along with and my driving is good--this was just who he is. He was frequently subject to road rage, and was a very scary driver. I complained several times to the company, but they made me stick with him. Over the 7 weeks I was in his truck there were more incidents than I can count. I can tell you I have enough on the guy I could have gotten him arrested.

When it came time to get my own truck I was dropped in the Dallas terminal where I had to wait for 11 hours on a picnic bench to get my truck. They asked my first three truck choices ignored them and gave me a KW W800 POS. The truck was red-tagged when they gave it to me. I did my inspection and gave them a list of over a dozen problems with the truck. After four days they fixed One--the Qualcomm, and told me the truck was ready to run.(Also my start-up tool kit was missing many tools, and they didn't give me any spare light bulbs or fuses.)

I went back and told them if they couldn't fix everything at least fix the big problems: a screw in one of the tires, balding drive tires, an electrical short causing half of my dashboard panel to go dark, a right turn signal that only worked some of the time, no bunk light. They said the tires were not bald enough they were over 2/32nds, the screw in the tire wasn't a problem the tire still held air, the bunk light was a warranty issue, and they couldn't fix the dashboard panel light problem.

They sent me East where I got to go down MontEagle at night and because of the dashboard short I had trouble finding the Jake Brake when I needed it. Of course the truck didn't have any red lights in the cab and they wouldn't give me any. They sent me to a truck stop to swap my load with someone, and 26 hours later after three drivers didn't show-up they sent me on my way with a late load.

Two weeks later I pull in to the Omaha terminal, when they do my vehicle inspection they find a flat tire with a screw in it. I told them about Dallas and they just shook their heads and put it in for service. I gave those mechanics my list of other equipment problems along with the newest one the A/C broke. They fixed the tire, and A/C--nothing else and sent me on my way.

I was headed to Phoenix. It was snowing in CO at the time so I asked for tire chains. They wouldn't give me any because I wasn't going across I-70, I was taking I-25 and wouldn't need them. When I hit the heavy stuff South of Denver I locked in the rear axle, and it wasn't enough. I lost traction three times going up a steep hill and pulled some small tractor jacknifes. Luckily I knew how to maintain control and did not crash I took the first exit I could find and waited. In the meantime many trucks were having no problems driving because they didn't have bald tires. When I got to Phoenix the A/C broke again after a half-hour of use. Werner has a terminal in Phoenix, but my dipatcher wouldn't let me put in for service. Instead I got to bake in the sun for two days. I then went to El Paso where I baked for three more days and was not allowed to get service there either.

I was then sent to Long Island. I arrived in Pa the morning of the delivery, called the con. and found out they were closed that day and the next. Had I tried to deliver when the company told me to I would have been on Long Island out of drive hours with nor rest areas or truck stops to go to. Good thing I called ahead.

I went to the Allentown terminal to wait the day and a half where I was again refused service so I quit.

They would not fix my truck or let me have a different one. They have over ten thousand trucks, but I had to stay with this one. They were willing to let me quit over doing something about the truck. I talked to my dispatcher, his super, the terminal management, safety dept, no-one cared--no-one would listen.

There were well over a hundred other incidents I didn't mention. All I can say is my introduction to trucking has been very bad. Now I am having trouble finding another job due to: lack of experience, and the fact that I left Werner after three months. What am I supposed to do? If I killed someone with that truck do to it's mechanical problems that would be my fault for driving it. Plus I have a wife and daughter to come home to I didn't want to kill myself.

I forgot to mention that the electrical problems with the truck fried my 12-volt cooler, coffeee pot, and fan. The company won't pay me for any of them, much less the food I lost.

 

dang dude sounds like you had the same luck i did when i went to work for swift, they gave me a pos truck that over 500k miles on it. well good luck to you man!

 

DeepC,

Drive tires are supposed to be 4/32 minimum, not 2/32.

I understand your frustration with limited choices. I found the Werner recruiter to be a bit arrogant, and simply assumed it trickled down from the top. It IS a BIG company, with NO debt. I thought about that NO debt longgggggggggg and hard. My take on that, is that employees at ALL levels should do quite well given the lack of ANY debt to service. AND, their equipment should be top notch. Researching both the employee pool, particularly drivers, and the financial condition of WERN, lead me to believe that Werner is no different. Employees and drivers enjoy negligible advantages over other companies, and shareholders receive a very skimpy dividend. What I did find was the Werner family owns a very significant % of WERN shares.

I would encourage you to keep looking. If I read your post right, you have 3 verifiable months, OTR. IF you have 3 months verifiable, you have additional opportunities available, JBH comes to mind, and there are others. More driving opportunities are available when you have 6 months verifiable, and as you know, many more doors open with 12 & 24 months verifiable experience.

Best wishes, and good for you for walking away from unsafe conditions!!

 

when i first started driving, i was with trans am. good company, garrenteed home time, but my wife wasn't happy. so with 4 months exp., i landed a job with pgt out of monaca, pa. they have good trainers. you might do good giving them a try. also they will have you home every weekend! it is a flatbed company.

 

I think drive tires are legally 2/32 and STEER tires are 4/32. But being legal and being safe are not exactly the same thing. -Dave

 

tires are always a point of contention with companies. they are so expensive they want to get every pennies worthout of them. If it's summer it's I don't mind runnign them down to legal but in winter that's just dangerous. I'm fighting with my co now over this. I got 4 new ones put on the rear axle a month ago but the front axle is very close to worn out too and they want me to run through wyoming and utah next week and I told them I wouldn't do it without new tires. My situation is different though as I'm the only person in the company who drives over the road. the rest of the guys are local

 

I think drive tires are legally 2/32 and STEER tires are 4/32. But being legal and being safe are not exactly the same thing.

Flathead, won't bother trying to convince y'all that's what I meant, cause it's what I typed. I stand corrected, and know better. I'm kinda surprised they would let it go. I think if it happened to me, I'd of copied the driver's condition report I filed, AND the mechanic's signed response. The srew in the tire adds a thread of irony...

 

Thank-you. I don't know that my wife is convinced that I did the right thing. The problem is she's safe at home and doesn't know what it's like out there.

 

Thank-you. I don't know that my wife is convinced that I did the right thing. The problem is she's safe at home and doesn't know what it's like out there.


DeepC,

If you go to fmcsa.gov and open the safersys link, you can show her the most recent ISS data (1/26/07) for Werner.

ISS inspection value --------------------------- 94

ISS recommendation --------------------------- Inspect

ISS basis of recommendation ------------------- Safety


The inspection value range is 1-100. The lower the number, the better.

BTW, the current Swift rating is 93

You might want to take a peak at vehicle OOS stats for Werner also.
While their numbers are below the national average, I think they are high for a company that carries NO substantial debt. Where are they spending the money?

 

I used to work for Weiner.. I was a team driver they gave us a pos truck. We broke down weekly so one day when we were in Omaha, I went to safety and told them "if I don't get a new truck, I'll quit right now" Took them 2 days but we went on the lot and picked any truck we wanted.