Werner Enterprises, Inc. - Omaha, Ne.

sportsoutlaw, I understood that. I was merely asking why not start sharing living space at orientation.

As you know, once OTR training begins, you spend a lot of time in very tight quarters, sharing bunk space the size of a pup tent. Those that MUST have their own room for orientation are in for a big privacy shock
once you pull out with the first load... I was merely asking--why not get used to bunking with someone else? Werner is a 275 (BTW) hour training regimen last i heard..

 

I was actually just agreeing with you, didn't mean for it to come off as any sort of debate. Sorry if there was any confusion.

I guess what I mean is that is why she is stuck paying for her own room, because she had the "option" to share a room. Like you said, she will soon have to get used to it anyway.

 

The difference between sharing a room with a new recruit and then later with a trainer is that the company hopefully knows a bit more about the trainers they have on staff, than they do about the recruits.

Backgrounds of recruits are not fully checked until the person is on site. This is often why so many are cut during training. Werner, like most companies, will do a very limited check in regard to what is on an application, fill their classes with those that appear to be good candidates, and do the costly and more detailed checks if they actually make it onto their property.

 

TurboTrucker,

I've read many of your excellent posts, and have even suggested a few as reading for newbies. I both commend and respect you for your obvious knowledge and wisdom.

The unknown quality of character of forced roommates is indeed a valid concern. However, the risk of a bad pairing is equal for all. It is entirely possible the ones we're offering advice to, are among the undesirable, and worthy of avoidance. Furthermore, not all companies monitor their trainers to what we may consider reasonable standards, be they; cleanliness, ability to teach, or general honesty. There is an element of risk involved when sharing a room with a stranger for 3 days of orientation, as there is with sharing a cab and sleeper with a trainer for 3-8 weeks. As individuals, we make assessments of what is acceptable and what isn't, and adjust accordingly.

If having a private room for company orientation is the only acceptable arrangement for an individual, it's their right and privilege to make such arrangements. I just figure sharing space is gonna happen when you get with your trainer, so get used to it from day 1.. To each his own, right?

 

I went to orientation with Crete Carrier in Lincoln, NE in December, 2006. Every driver in orientation (20) had their own motel room at the same motel in Lincoln. None of us had to share a room with someone we did not know. Working with a trainer in a team situation is better because hopefully the company knows their trainer, and their new employee by then.

Thanks for listening.

 

That's the Crete I knew and loved.

 

Agreed. It's not my stance that everyone would object to that kind of situation, but I am one that just wouldn't cohabitate with a stranger.

We're talking about declining standards here. Not many newbies have an idea what it was like out there before all of these companies hit the roads after deregulation. Even up into the early nineties, bunking people together was practically unheard of.

Okay...it's a petty issue to some. I can see that. And I can even see where it might sound as if I feel that am too good to do something, or better than someone else.

My point is that for the last ten years or so, these companies that cannot keep people are tripping over dollars to pick up dimes.

Instead of fixing the things within their business operations that would lead to them retaining a stable workforce of drivers, they dump sometimes millions of dollars per year in running people in and out of their doors.

Driver wages have fallen. A trend has been underway for years to increase the portion of that a driver will pay for healthcare premiums. Most will have differing standards for healthcare coverage for those who work within the offices, and I assure you that it's not worse than the drivers. It will usually be better. Then you have an issue like this. The dimes they pick up are always at the driver's expense. The dollars the fail to pick up are never considered.

Bottom line? The driver is the point man who represents their company to the customers they serve. When the driver is treated like crap, or is subjected to the decline in all facets of how they are viewed, paid and respected, and in this case, how they are welcomed to a company, how can any company expect them to view it positively?

Again...I feel that an issue handled like this, speaks volumes to what can be expected in the future from them.

Am I better than anyone else? I try not to project that kind of image towards people, but I'm certainly not a dog to be tied on a leash and left in the cold while my "master" is snug and comfy indoors.

 

I can't believe some of the posts are actually talking down to the original post for paying for her own room. She did the safest thing during orientation by getting her own room. Werner is a scumbag bottomfeeder company with very low standards of anyone they hire. IF they indeed did promise one room and then at orientation they said they are 'booked',that is already a red flag right there. Even as a newbie there are much better options than werner.I would at least try Crete.They are a much better company to start out with but I wouldn't even stay with them long-term.

 

Greetings Everyone, here's my story of a year with The Big Blue Screw, it's a tad like War and Peace, I joined after having been taken in by the lying recruiter who came to my school NETTTS:

On the Werner website they quote: 'Annual average pay for a solo driver with less than one year, $37,306 @ 35.2 cents per mile.' They also quote a hiring bonus of up to $3,000. I didn't receive one dollar of any sign on bonus. Regarding layover pay, they make no mention that there is no layover pay for Sundays on their web site. After one year I had gone from a start of 26 cents per mile to 28 cents per mile and earned $19,842.83, a shortfall of $17,463.17 and 7 cents per mile less than the average they quoted on the web site! I started OTR at 26 cpm and left at 28cpm. When I checked back I found I was averaging 1400 miles for previous 24 weeks and when I got to Omaha Terminal I went to see my dispatcher to ask why. He said the average on his board is 2000 miles per week, 'so why is mine so low?' I asked.

Basically you need around 3,000 miles per week in order to make a decent wage, the recruiter who came to my truck school said they guarantee 2,400/2,800 miles per week and I made neither the miles they claimed and nothing like the $37,306 claimed on the web site. My dispatcher said it's because of where I lived i.e. Arizona, which is where I lived at the time. As I'm a 48 state over the road, long haul driver and usually out for 6 weeks at a time, this didn't make sense. I still wasn't getting enough miles. I had booked home time, in advance and invariably, they never get you on home on the day you requested and mostly nowhere near the date you asked for, but, I had booked home time for Dec 29 in Laredo TX intending to spend new year there especially as I had worked through Thanksgiving and Christmas. I had received a message that my dispatcher was trying to get 57 drivers home for Christmas and in an effort to release the pressure on him, I postponed mine until the new year, much good it did me!

On Christmas day, I was in Pennsylvania and they gave me a load to Maine, 500 miles in the wrong direction, and 2,500 miles from where my home time was booked! By this time I had been on the road for 9 weeks due to them constantly messing up my home time requests and this was the worst, especially on Christmas Day!

Naturally I wasn't at all happy about this and the subsequent loads involved going back and forth with empties, including putting an empty onto a train and then at one shipper I was accused of causing damage by a man that turned up in a pick up truck 10 minutes after I got there. It was evening, very dark and drizzly. The first words out of his mouth were 'did you just get here?' I said yes and he then went into a loud tirade about Werner and it's drivers shouting and screaming, we've had enough of Werner drivers and more invectives, he then wrote down the number of the trailer and tractor. He also said 'don't go anywhere the cops are coming!' and then drove off. A cop turned up after he left and also started a similar tirade about Werner and it's drivers and dispatchers, shouting that he'd called Werner 15 times before and then said I'd knocked over a pole and a mailbox! The man who turned up said nothing about a pole or a mailbox. The cop then handed me a citation for leaving the scene of an accident! I looked at the trailer after they left and there was not a mark or scratch on it, let alone I was not aware of hitting anything; if I had been, or felt anything, I would have stopped.

Having missed that home time I asked to be routed to Phoenix where I lived at the time, instead they routed me to Laredo! So, you ask to go to Laredo and they send you to Maine, ask for Phoenix and they send you to Laredo! Once in Laredo they hauled me up to Omaha involving 7 changes of greyhound buses and taking over 30 hours for a skills test due to the accusations. At the accident review, which is their usual procedure, they wouldn't accept my side of the events and apparently my accusers had added a fire hydrant by the time it got to Werner and they came across as if I did what I was accused of. I passed all the computer based training tests with 100% or very close to it and for the driving test, I was the only one of nine previous testees that passed and did not hit the trailers backing in between them and passed that with flying colors. All 9 previous testees had failed and hit the trailers they were backing in between!

The miles were not improving and on one load I got a buzzed message on the qualcomm, which means it's something important. I was on a farm to market road where there was no safe place to stop and as usual, when a buzzed message comes in, I would call my dispatcher to find out what the message was as you cannot access the qualcomm when moving. 'I'll ******* strangle you one of these days', he said, I asked 'what for?' he said 'phone calls!'
I asked what I was supposed to do for a buzzed message where there's nowhere to stop and he said 'stop and read the message!!!!' I stopped about 50 miles down the road where I was able to stop safely and it was to split the load!

I wasn't going to be talked to like that and put in a request for a new dispatcher. This would be dispatcher number 6 for me! The day I got her, I had thought that maybe a lady dispatcher would be better, I was given a 500-mile load, a good start I thought. The next load was split at around 200 miles and I had to deliver it where it was split, a team took my load, but the consignee was closed! I went to a truck stop and signed off with a macro 46 (end of day) A little later I got a message saying they open at 4 p.m. be there. I sent a message saying I can't as I've signed off and got a message back saying you've got hours you can drive! I sent a message asking what's the point of doing a macro 46 then and no reply came. I went back and the consignee told me the appointment was not until 06:45 the next day and they couldn't unload me until about 08:00!!!! I wasted from 1 p.m. Sunday to 07:30 a.m. Monday as they allowed me to drop the trailer and pick up an empty. I sent a message asking for layover pay and got a message back that they don't pay layover for Sunday!!!!

The next load I went to, I signed the papers for the load and went back to the truck where a message was waiting that the load had been cancelled and to stand by for a new load. 20 minutes later the woman came out and asked what I was doing. I told her the load was cancelled and she knew nothing about it! I got another load from the same place and again 200 miles down the road buzz split! This time another team took my load and had brought me an empty!

For the next load I had to deadhead with the empty trailer and was coming through Wyoming on the I80 East, between Cheyenne and Laramie, when I saw a sign saying 60 M.P.H. winds. As it was somewhat icy and there was snow and wind blowing furiously across the interstate, I slowed down to 45 M.P.H. and after about 5 miles I noticed the trailer sliding round to my passenger side, near to mile marker 325, I started making corrections and as I got the trailer moving back into the correct position i.e. directly behind the tractor, I was suddenly spun round like a spinning top but managed to control it enough to get into the median, not having hit anything and upright, not rolled over, although jackknifed. A cop came, did an accident report and issued no citation. He was then called to an accident behind me and about 50 yards in front of me; two trucks slid into each other and blocked the highway! The wrecker, who the cop called, pulled me out and said he usually takes Werner trucks to Denver, in fact he spoke to Werner, but I was towed to his yard in Laramie. The left fuel tank had been punctured and the wrecker put a temporary patch on it. But it was still leaking. They got a shop to come out that was supposed to have bypassed the fuel tanks. He didn't and it was still leaking! Next day they got another shop, they took one look at the leaking fuel tank and then drove off!

I later got a message to run to freightliner in Cheyenne 50 miles away. I sent a message saying I thought it was inadvisable and unsafe to drive with a leaking fuel tank, let alone the air bags on the truck were wrecked. I got a message back saying, don't worry about the leak we'll cover it when you get there! I sent a message back asking if he was serious! I then got a reply; 'a supervisor sent the last two messages not the dispatcher!!' I decided, because it was a supervisor to go at 3 in the morning to try and avoid any traffic. I got to Cheyenne at 6 and at 7 when they opened they said they could look it at the next day (Friday), but, they were not a body shop so they could do nothing regarding the left rear of the cab, which had been damaged from the jackknife. On Friday they said they couldn't look at till Monday!

I informed my dispatcher of this and then got a message to turn off the leaking fuel tank valve. Under the cab are, or, are supposed to be 2 levers, one for the right and one for the left tank. The left tank fuel shut off lever was missing and behind where the lever should have been the two lines were linked together! Informing them of this another message came that said they were going to tow my truck to Nebraska and would bus me to Denver and issue me with a new truck. I was told to clear as much out of my truck as possible and they would route me to Nebraska to retrieve the rest of my stuff. Twice someone called *** called me on my cell phone to check everything was all right with busing me Denver for a new truck.
I asked why they didn't just tow the truck to Denver last Tuesday and he said they should have, that he had been misinformed, it should have been! I sent a message asking for layover pay for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I got no reply and received no pay for those days!

On Friday, just out of interest I called safety and asked if they would consider that it would be advisable to drive with a leaking fuel tank, they said 'Absolutely not!'

The bus company only allows two bags and wanted $25 extra per bag. My dispatcher authorised payment for the whole amount as I had 9 bags of luggage, well, she authorised an advance of $200, which should be reimbursable with receipts, which I did send them. As yet I do not believe I have been reimbursed.

I got to Denver late on Saturday and stayed at a hotel paid for by Werner, they use the hotel for drivers and students and on Monday went to the terminal. I was told to see a lady who looks after what they call fleet assignments, she looked on the computer for another truck for me and she found one, a classic xl like the one that jackknifed and said it was actually in Denver at the terminal, she said it was being cleaned as someone had quit the day before and then she issued it to me on the computer.. I went to see it and then called my dispatcher with the new truck number. She asked if I'd be ready to roll when the new truck was ready, I said yes. I then had to see a guy called Don, whom I thought was going to do the usual accident review. I said I have been issued another truck and he said he didn't know what they were going to do with me so he would put in a call.

I asked if there was enough time to go to wal-mart to get some supplies. He said yes. When I came back he called me in and told me, without a by your leave, that I was terminated and they would get me a bus ticket home, but, I would have to arrange at my own expense getting my stuff shipped home as they wouldn't pay the excess baggage and furthermore they would clear my truck out in Nebraska, box it and again I would have to arrange and pay for shipping.

Due to the amount I had to pay the lawyer to fight the case of 'leaving the scene of an accident' and the lack of miles, my bank account is almost empty, eventually after I called the driver relation's manager and after a fight they agreed to pay for a hotel for that night as I would have been stranded in Denver with no where to sleep!

I decided that I could not trust anyone to clear my truck, as there have been many incidences of stuff going missing. I hired a small moving truck on one of my pieces of plastic although I may well have difficulty paying once the bill arrives, but I had to get my stuff and get home to Laredo. The next morning as I was preparing to go to Cheyenne to get the rest of my goods, I called to make sure it was still there as it was the day before and I was told it was now in Nebraska! Did they tow it overnight? So now I had to drive a round trip of 500 miles to get back to where I started and then go the 1200 miles to Laredo! I got to Nebraska and I'm glad to say nothing was out of order with my stuff and I loaded it into the rental truck.

Having got back to Laredo, I have totaled up my receipts and found it had cost me just under $1500 including the 12-foot truck rental, hotel rooms on the way and fuel to get home to Laredo.

If they had intended to terminate me, why did they go to the bother of leaving me stranded for six days including the two nights in the hotel, including insisting and virtually making me to drive 50 miles with a leaking fuel tank and wrecked airbags, which safety said later was an absolute no-no, paying to get me to Denver with 9 bags of luggage, 2 nights in a hotel in Denver, issuing me with a new truck and then saying I was terminated. To say this is grossly unfair is to say the least of it and also refusing to pay to get me home with all my stuff, seemingly willing to leave me stranded in Denver overnight with nowhere to sleep. Let alone having to hire a small truck and drive 1700 miles at my own not inconsiderable expense?

Would this be regarded as fair labor practices, especially as we were constantly regaled with messages saying 'Werner cares!'

P.S. In fact I have just checked and I ran approximately 70, 000 miles in the year I was with them, therefore not only did I only average 1,400 in the last 24 weeks, that's what I averaged for the year! Nothing like what the recruiter who came to my school claimed or anywhere near what they claim on their website.

Rick The Brit

 

This is a really sad story. Why do the have to toy with us (drivers) like we are little kids? If this ever happened to me i would just get my AK 47 and spray and pray.........................................................................