j.b. hunt

I left for a local job. I wanted to be home more. They had no local work in my area.

P.S. when I was with them they has the 2nd highest safty rating in the industry. They also had great medical insurance and dental. If I did not get a local job I would still be with them.

 

Thanks for your honest answer. I worked for them back in 1993. They were horrible. Couldn't make any money. Sat every weekend at one of their terminals listening to drivers whining about them.

 

Were you OTR with them?

The chicago rail division has a lot of miles. They treat you good there also. Deb is in charge of the Fleet managers and is nice so is Jill. If you get Bunny for a fleet manager look out she will get on you, cause she will be afraid of you making her look bad if u have a bad week(break down or things go wrong). With this being said about Bunny u will still get a lot of miles. Just she can be tough sometimes. Luckily I never had her.

 

Yeah I was OTR out of Houston terminal. Junky old cabovers with no radios in them. Pay phones to dispatch. Sip-seating. Sometimes you would have to wait a week to get a truck. They would call at 3:00 a.m. and tell you to come in within an hour or go to the end of the waiting list.
Every weekend you would sit somewhere,as there was no layover pay on weekends.
This was early 1993, maybe it's different now. It couldn't be any worse.

 

Abble gumble ahu ala cumble lela lumble ga goo gee.

 

I worked for them for quite awhile. Wouldnt catch me dead in one of their trucks now but....while I was there I was treated fairly well, made pretty good money, worked hard and got my home time pretty much when I wanted it. Granted you had to spend lots of time on pay phones waiting for loads but I think lots of companies were like that and cell phones were not exactally all the rage in 93

 

J B HUNT uses OBC now. they have almost all freightliner cascadia's. If u work hard in the rail division you can make 40 to 50 k a year plus go home every 5 days. One of the best companies out there these days in this division.

 

J B Hunt grew fast. Anytime that happens sooner or later it gets out of control, pressure builds and more people to have to deal with ( attitudes ) that makes it tough on the driver. It was not always that way but it was never perfect either. I watched the company grow from 300 trucks and 1 terminal to what it was to 1994. Met a lot of really good people and a few bad ones. Trucking is a frustrating situation for drivers with a lot of responsiblity and yes we can be offended and feel mistreated. Years ago J B Hunt used to come down to the restaurant and buy breakfast for the drivers that were present at the time and sit down and listen to them for just that reason. Later the corporate climbers showed up and that always creates problems. Then you end up with too many chiefs and not enough indians, some of those which havn`t a clue and say dumb things insulting things. My full opinion is with many trucking companies the driver is smarter than most of the personal. Drivers improvise to please the $ 8 employees. This is why they leave.

 

When I first went with them, their minimum experience requirement was 1 year, then 6 months, 3, then they were pulling them straight off the trainer trucks from BFI's like CRST which landed them in court at one point.

The lease program previously required drivers to run company for 90 days B4 they would consider you for it - recent school grads can now jump right into a lease truck after orientation.

Pay was .43cpm ... Intermodal is about .31 ... in the south - can't speak for northern based drivers, as it was always a little more, but doubtful at 50k per year. Running up to your 70 every 6 days - 34hrs off if your lucky - 6-$700 checks - there are much better options out there.

When I left them they pretty much were a trainee company - though they don't train the general public. And you are treated like a trainee - no matter how many years you have in. Hometime is not a priority on most boards there - some dedicated accounts are OK if you happen to live in the right area.

Pay is middling now, road drivers at .35, and at one point they tried to arbitrarily drop it to .33 - which was a disaster of hundreds of driver quitting at once - then they suddenly sent a QC message - and I quote: "Congratulations! you just received a raise to .35cpm! a week or so later.

"Super regional" loops which means you will run just about anywhere and everywhere no matter where you live.

NO SAFETY BONUS - they try to say there is - but the entire region has to be accident free to qualify ... so in other words - there is none.