Marten Transportation SUCKS!!!!!

I hope you are right, because I plan on doing everything very professional. I'm going to take the truck to a Blue Beacon for a wash and wax, detail the inside. It will be in better condition then when I got it.

 

That will definitely play in your favor, Good Luck on future endeavors.

 

Dont know the man but Im gonna call BS on this one!! A man who takes over as a CEO of a trucking co I can assure you!!

 

Opppss.. meant can assure you does not have this attitude towards the drivers that allow for his huge salary

 

Actually, I would overhear this sort of thing coming from "the suits" more often than I cared to. For a while, I assumed it was just they had just had a run-in with a driver who gave them problems.

Now, not so sure, for a number of reasons. I suspect the attitude comes from a combination of office types who do not understand exactly what the driver deals with daily blended with a large influx of new drivers that either don't get what the job really entails (thanks to recruiters and CDL mills), drivers that have always been "problem children," and the growing numbers of us drivers who are bailing on Marten because they have gone from being one of the better companies to work for to one of the worst in just a couple of years.

That this was heard at the main "office" terminal also doesn't surprise me, since they do not really expect any of us to "come down the hill" since they moved nearly all maintenance and driver facilities away from the original terminal, or "up the hill" as it's known.

Since I tend to look more like I work in the office rather than the "typical" trucker, others seem to feel just fine blurting things out (usually in frustration with someone specific). Wandering around the "corporate" area to let the appropriate people know I was quitting, I got to hear all kinds of those sort of remarks.

Unfortunately, when you are on your way out the door, already upset by something they just did to you (as was my case), such statements simply reinforce driver opinions towards Marten when you hear them 18 times in the brief time it takes to quit. Kind of hard not to take that personally.

 

That is all well and good, if Safety had your back. They don't, at least not when I left. They simply told me there was nothing they could do (in my case), and that you are allowed to incur several log violations every two week audit period without consequence.

I'm sure USDOT and their state equivalents would beg to differ, but that ends up with the driver getting screwed and the company playing innocent. With much of CSA 2010 focusing on penalizing the driver, well, there's really no longer an incentive for companies to enforce safety.

Also, I wrote a thread regarding my experience with California EDD when I attempted to file for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. You can be disqualified permanently from collecting UI if you refuse to violate FMCSA HOS Rules at the instruction of your employer, and either are fired for it or quit rather than be coerced (the former being employee misconduct, the latter a voluntary quit without cause). Even if you do as you are told, and are fired by the employer because they want to cover their own butts, you can also be permanently disqualified from collecting UI (employee misconduct).

I got that determination in writing by mail and email, as well as confirmed the bizarre rules by phone.

 

It's heartbreaking to see what the scumbags in the office get away with, and their attitudes towards truck drivers in general. The CEO hates truck drivers, but has no problem collecting a salary and other bonuses. Disgusting. People like that will always get theirs in the end. Hope that they have happy selfish lives in the meantime.

 

I'm home for a couple days and might have an interview with a company 5 miles from my house, where I would make more that double I make at Marten, and be home nights and weekends. I'm not religious, and don't want to count my chickes before they're hatched, but I'm very excited and praying for this job. It would be life changing for my family. I would be making what I did before the Marten coma.

 

Good luck!! hope all goes well!!

 

I collected unemployment out of these clowns for over a year, after being unfairly terminated, in Wisconsin. You didn't get to collect because you quit. Refusing to obey a direct order that is ILLEGAL or would force you to break the law by definition is NOT insubordination or any other kind of misconduct, as demonstrated by the Judge in my unemployment hearing. However, Wisconsin is an "at will" state, meaning that your employer can dismiss you for any reason or no reason at all. Without a good enough reason however, they are liable to pay unemployment. If I had walked, like they wanted, my car would have been repo'd rather than paid off, they still would have dinged my dac, and I wouldn't have gotten unemployment. Thanks for the free money idiots!