Southern Refrigerated Transport, Inc. - Texarkana, Ar.

I've been at srt since the beginning of February. Later this week I will be turning in my truck to texarkana and going else where.
Here's what I know.
Of course in orientation, they promise you the moon.
But the moon is a long ways off here at srt.
They have never had me home on time when I need to be. This last time home I was 10 days late.
The money here is crap. I haven't had a check yet over $450.00. That's not to say, they don't run you. They just find ways to Nickle and dime your check until you are left short.
No one wants to hear your concerns regarding anything.
Look, I'm not a disgruntled driver with a bad attitude.
I'm just really sorry I've wasted the last 3 months here. Not one thing has ever gone right here.
Like I said they promise you the moon here but you will never see it.
I came to work here from a much smaller company where if you did your best the company would do their best for you. But here at srt, you do your best, and you get squat. Just my oppinion, go some where else.
Feel free to email me and ill go into more detail. And til Saturday, I'm in truck # 10060, so if you see me this week, ask me. .. take care fellow drivers.

 

im looking for some answers about srt is it a good company? what kind of insurance do they have? how many miles do they get ? and what is the orientation like there? husband is suppose to go there tonight on a bus for orientation can any one help? are they still owned by covenant? i dont like covenant transport at all. thank you for any opinion. i havent heard to many bad things about srt .

 

Covenant - SRT same same. My Advice. Tell your husband to forget SRT. Go with Marten. They have a term right down the road from Chat in Atl. Better pay, Better trucks, No one telling him what roads to take or where/when to fuel. Good miles, They go through chat all the time and they get 1 day off for every 5 out instead of every 6 out. IE run 10 days and get 2 days off not 2 weeks and get 2 days. Run 15 days and get 3 off not 3 weeks and get 3 days. Run 20 days and get 3 days not 4 weeks and get 4 days.

 

I've hauled ice cream from the Blue Bunny plant in St.George Utah, and took it Denver, right over the Rockies.I was never given any special routing instructions nor advised of any precautions,such as avoiding high elevatiosn,(which would have been impossible on a run to Denver.) I had no problems with thee load.The reciever accepted it in good condition..

Maybe your getting ice cream mixed up with bagged potato chips, which I heard WILL explode at high elevations.

I never had any problems w/ice cream though, and I've hauled quite a bit of it from all over the west as well as Le Mars Iowa.I just run it at -20 continuous,and like I said..Never a problem..

 

SRT blows....period. Your husband will be home again soon. And he can start looking for a real company to work for.

While in orientation he will be told straight up that Covenant doesn't own them. But he'll quickly learn that Covenant TELLS them what to do at every turn.

If he is going with a trainer, he will get lots of miles. And he will continue to get miles until he starts to get pay increases. Then the miles will drop.

Getting an 800 mile trip, with 5 days to deliver and a FIRM appointment, is not unusual at SRT. He'll quickly learn who the favored drivers are. And who gets the miles.

Good Luck with that nightmare.

 

thank you kabar for the info about srt . i let my husbad know about it and he didnt go to srt. thanks alot saved us some grief . opinions matter to us alot xoxo celticsong

 

Glad I could help. Hate to see a driver sitting rather then working but it's better to sit then end up with another 3 month job on your DAC.

 

It's been a while since I drove for SRT. But, I do have regular contact with a number of current ones.

Back then as well as now, Covenant pretty much stays out of the day-to-day operations of SRT.

From the folks I talked to, they are getting plenty of miles.

 

I get ok miles. Been here at SRT since December. When I say ok miles, I am saying 2400 to 2500 miles. Just enough to cover expenses but nothing worth taking home. Some drivers I talk to are getting over 3000 miles, but that is all dependent on the Fleet Manager. Mine is a lazy surfer wanna be and only cares on how low your idle time is. He will write you up in a 2nd if idle over 15% and threaten to fire you. Do the math and you will see it sucks. Run 11 hrs per day in the southeast, then sleep for 10 hrs while idling and 88+ and humid and you are well over that 15%. They do not care about the driver at all.

You are treated like a dog 99% of the time. The only time you are given respect is when they call you on the phone to try and convince you to run over your hours to get a load delivered on time so the dispatcher doesn't have to waste time looking for a repower of your load. They always call and will never put it on the Qualcomm.

They keep saying freight is picking up, but I don't see it. As fast as we get a customer, we are losing them. Coca Cola in Florida is a huge example. We got that contract and was late picking up on every load and we have 2 local drivers there, well 1 now for he got tired of it all and went to Indian River and makes way more than I do (seen his check), and they yanked that account. So now freight is very limited out of Florida.

They cut the HAZMAT pay, but expect you to haul nearly every HAZMAT load they have. So you are getting screwed there. More work for less money. (sounds like Covenant, eh?) They tell you they will bring you in at .38/mile (.04/mile less than the the company they bought that I was working for and how I ended up here to begin with), then take .04 away at orientation. Then after orientation, you find out you are only getting .325/mile. They say it is for all these "administrative" fees to pay you their perdiem, which you have to take, but will not show the fees on your check so you can write it off at tax time. So they are basically doing 2 things, stealing that money from you or just lying on your pay to begin with.

Insurance sucks. I went to doctor and just got bill for entire amount. I'm told that the visit isn't covered for it was a script to refill my Acid Reflux medication, which SRT has to approve thru their safety department or you will be terminated for not getting their permission for it (whole story there). and insurance company said it isn't covered for it is "existing" under their current policy. What? It is just a script...

If you take a aspirin and you didn't tell safety, you're fired. You have to report all meds and get permission to drive to take them. When mechanics work on your truck, they will go thru it and tell safety of the meds they find. So if you have any, put them in backpack and carry it around with you. Also, take your laptops, TV, cb radios, any other valuable for the mechanics are known to steal them out of your truck. The drivers will rip you off as well for all the trucks are keyed the same. I already found a driver in my truck going thru items under bunk and was trying to say he climbed in thinking it was his truck and was getting papers out from under bunk. I don't keep papers there. Just my DVDs, XBOX 360 games, etc.

They say we are not owned by Covenant, yet we are. We get messages telling us we can't go into Atlanta because Covenant says so, or Birmingham, or Laredo, or wherever else Covenant says so. We are told to go stay in one of the yards and that is a joke. They all are dirt lots with lots of trash, urine bottles, poop bags, etc. Just nasty!

If you do work here, send everything on the qualcomm. If you get behind by 1 minute, say so. They will screw you big time if you don't. Even when dispatched late, they will say it is your fault for being at customer on time, even thought you just got load info and you're already 3-4 hours late.

Don't expect to get home on time unless you say you have court or another legal issue. I only got home on time once and that is because I had court. Keep in mind, I send my hometime request when I come back out and that is usually 4 weeks out. Also, they are by the book on home time. If you are out 4 weeks, you only get 5 weeks off and if you need extra time for a doctor appt, emergency, whatever, expect $100/day taken from check to "pay" for the revenue loss of you sitting that extra day. That already happened once.

Now they are sending messages that if you drop a trailer damged and it needs repair, you are charged the road call. If dirty (even if you deliver in a town and no truck wash available and dispatched says drop anyway) you are charged the fee of the next driver taking trailer to get washed of .75/mile, the cost of wash, plus an additional $50 fee. This has happened to another driver I know who just quit over it. He delivered in Orlando at 0200 on Saturday and was told to grab trailer in Orlando yard and del that load in Miami by 0800. He dropped dirty and that is what they charged him. The driver that grabbed it went all the way to Wildwood to washout, then cam back for he grabbed trailer at 0600 instead of waiting an hour and washing out around corner. It took 2 hours to wash it out. Makes no sense.

Communication is a nightmare. Nights or weekends, expect nothing to get doone and messages to not call all the time. When you do call for you are home and seeing if you have a load, they hang up on you. You are to monitor your qualcomm in truck, even if it is across town in lot. They won't call you to tell you that you have been assigned a load until it is late and then it is your fault for you said you won't be ready until 0800, but load picks up 4 hours away by 0500...

There are some other issues that I'm not happy with or make any sense. On the bright side, you get to go places you never would have with other carriers. Places like Compton, CA where stores have bullet proof glass on them and you are not allowed to move truck after empty until ok to do so or be charged for it...

Oh, look at most of the drivers there. They are pigs! They are disgusting looking! Dirty, smelly, worn out shirts full of holes, trucks trashed up (interior wise for outside is becasue company won't pay for washes at all, ever!), just the average homeless trash that walked in the door. There are a few exceptions, but not that many of them. Just go into the terminal in Texarkana and you will see what I mean. Don't sit in chairs though. You might get body lice, like I did, and call safety and have them laugh about it after telling you to buy teatment and send in receipt. Yep, I turned in receipt for it! They removed the cahir, placed it outside for a day, then moved it right back in and more than a dozen drivers came down with the Lice issue. This was in March of 2010.

Orientation has 30 plus people in it every week. Not 1 empty seat. That tells you a lot right there! They are constantly firing drivers for the smallest things, hiring new drivers, and most are fired before their 90 days, yet they keep you at least 60 to get that Welfare to work, or Worker Opportunity Funds... They have you fill out the form when you are hired. I bet they get a lot of funds from that right there!

Only reason I came on is my company's shrimp division, out of Florida got bought by them. This happened in December of last year. I just got hired by that company in November and boom, sold... Wish I knew before I got hired by them or I wouldn't have hired on. I am trying to stick around to not have a hit on my DAC, but I'm at point to where it is time to move on. I am even looking at leaving this industry. This company really did for me to where I don't even want to be out here any more.

Good luck in you looking for a carrier to work for! If you work here, good luck! Just remember, Swift is better than here and they will hire you here if Swift won't hire you! Even thise with felonies can work here. A guy in my mandatory "transition" class (which was orientation, but had us 7 that got bought in it as well) had 3 felonies. 1 for drug distribution, 1 for battery on his wife, and 1 for stabbing someone while in prison. He bragged about it the whole time. He was hired under the Convicts to Work Program! And we had a pedophile that the whole class complained about and was hired as well. He is still tehre for I saw him this week! He had girl bracelets, signed up on Facebook, all his 5000 plus friends on his 3 accounts were under the age of 17. He said once his girlfriend reached the age of 19, he dumped her for another 16 year old for it is 14 and above in his state. He was talking how went to Thailand and "played" with a 12 year old there and how the rules there make it legal. half a dozen guys were fired fo fighting with this guy. Sick, just plain sick! But shows that this company will hire anyone that is willing to sit in that seat for low wages!

If I mis-spelled words, I apoligize in advance. It is 0300 and I'm a bit tired, but needed to rant so I can feel a bit better!

 

yep that pretty much sums it up, did he mention the $100.00 charge the driver gets if the tires are under 90 psi,thats each tire.They dont have an inspection bay,to air up the tires for you.Or check out the equipment.When I was there,many people believed that the majority of the accidents were due to faulty equipment.