My US Xpress Experience!

Well I thought I would write up a lil diddy on my experience with US Xpress. Well I'll just start at the begining and ramble through till the end be prepared for a lot of rambling and worthless information.

Well lets begin at why i chose to go with them to begin with. I actually began my trucking career with Werner Enterprises, but thats for another post. Anyways I choose them for a few reasons first off I live I Cleveland, TN which is not very far from their home terminal (Tunnel Hill, GA) so I could drive my own vehicle that way if something came up I could just take my butt home. Another reason I chose them was their equipment, lets all face it they do have some of the best and nicest equipment in the biz, automatic trucks i mean manuals are ok but shifting gears is just something I can do without. They also advertised SE regional area that you could select to drive in, I dont want no part of the East Coast. I guess the main reason for going with them was the training process, I loved the fact that you are dispatched solo miles while your training and anytime the trainee is driving the trainer is and was in the passenger seat. You only had to do 150 hours to complete the training which took about 3weeks, paid 60 bux a day wasnt too bad. My trainer was a good guy lil strange goofy even but was an ok fellow. Training went well learned alot 150 hours was up and on to solo driver. Past their lil upgrade test with flying colors and got my truck issued to me. All and all the orentation/training/upgradeing process went well and I was completley pleased. Thats where the crap and lies began. If your not bored read on!

Well after I got my truck issued to me things started going down hill. My truck was a freightliner columbia with lil over 400,000 miles on it but over all it was in good shape. Problem I had with it was it was and automatic yes, but still had the clutch to stop and start with ohh well thats not a big deal, it didnt have the fancy right fender camera either with the lcd screen inside for blind side backing and seeing 6 lanes across in your blind spot, ohh well not a big deal either, no vorad system either, well that just goes to show you that "new drivers" get there older trucks. That wasnt a big deal I mean it was an 04 they trade them out at 500,000 miles so I could live with it till I got a new truck.

After I check off my lil checklist and went and told them truck was acceptable they said lets find you a fleet manager. I said yeah I'm on SE regional runs, he proceeded to tell me that they didnt have SE regional runs anymore they did away with that sometime ago. The only runs they offer is east of I-35 I'm thinking ohh great problem 2 I told myself well I already went through the training invested all that time and effort I will go ahead and stick with it and if I dont like it Ill get some experience in and switch companies to one that offers SE regional. So I get my fleet manager and off I go.

Now they told us in orentation that after we get our own truck to get with our recruiter and setup our tutuion reimbursement. Which I proceeded to do I wanted that money back I mean dang It cost me 4500 bux to go to school to get my cdl. So I got it all setup and was supossed to get 200bux per month back after 1 month as a solo driver, what they fail to mention is that in order to get tutition reimbersement it deducts .02 cents per mile off your pay, after your tutuion is paid back you get a .02 cent raise. Well hell fire they could have mention that its not worth taking it because you can end up losing money. Example if i ran 3000 miles per week for 4 weeks at .02 cents a mile it would equal 240 buxs thats 40 bux more a month than if i didnt even take their stupid tutuion reimbursement. But I figured well what if i dont get 3000 miles everyweek I could lose money so I took it anyways. Good thing I did because I was lucky to get 2000 miles a week let alone 3000 problem is I NEVER GOT THE FIRST REIMBURSMENT! I called numerous times and told them I was not getting that and theyd tell me to call so and so and I would but it still never got fixed. So finally I said the hell with it and just figured I would never get it and of caurse I didnt. By now I got a pretty bad taste in my mouth from US Xpress! But still I hang in there I decided to make it my 3 months so when I did get to another company I wouldnt have to go through training again. Read on if your not bored it just keeps getting better.

Well I continued to work for them and do a good job I might add, even though I knew I was going to leave them as soon as my 3 months was up I still did my job to the best of my ability. As time went on I found out why they paid a lil more than werner, or other companies for that matter it was due to being tied up at docks all the time either loading or unloading. They paid a lil more to give the illusion that you was making good money, when I can remember plenty of times being tied up on docks for 4, 6, sometimes even 20 hours, now technically this is not US Xpresses fault, but in a way it is because when this happens I'm sure other drivers complained as I did they should have told that place that was unacceptable and if it wasnt corrected then US Xpress would not haul thier frieght anymore, of course you and I know that would never happen because money is money and a load is a load, I also would like to point out that when this happend, I always asked for detention pay and never got a single cent. FINE THEN IM LEAVING SOON ANYWAYS@@! Thinking to myself sorry lol........ok so continue it gets better.

Hometime now I was told for 14 days out 2 days at home and for the most part this worked out the way I was told it would. I didnt have no where to keep a trailer and a truck but I had room for a truck. I told them this from the begining, and so being as close to the terminal as I was this round 40 miles you wouldnt think this was a big deal. Most of the time I'd drop my trailer at the terminal and bobtail home sometimes they have me take my empty to a place that we did some business at a papermill, not a big deal. This one time they was a day late getting me home I had to stop at the terminal for my truck service so I dumped off my empty and took my truck too the shop and they began service, which took all freaking day I might add I got there at 7am and didnt get back in my truck till like 8pm so I sent a message and asked my fleet manager if it was ok to bobtail home, he said we need you to take an empty too that papermill bout 10 miles from where I live so I said ok, grabbed and empty and off I went. Got to that place and told the gaurd I was dropping off an empty he informed me that the lot was full and they were not accepting anymore trailers. I'm thinking well this is great, so i called back my manager and told him this and that I only had 1hr left of my 14h he said I'll get back with ya. After all that crap from that day I had like 1hr left of my 14h so I went on home with trailer, dropped it at wal-mart and bobtailed home. After I got home I called him back and told him what I did and he said....You better hope nothing happens to that trailer. That pissed me off so I said tell ya what I'm gonna go get this trailer and take it back to tunnel hill and bobtail home from there, that way nothing will happen to the trailer. LIKE I WAS SUPPOSED TO DO IN THE FIRST PLACE@@! The stories continue.....


OK so I went on dying by now to get my 3 months in and get the hell outta there, comming out of my hometime had a load at the terminal for me to haul to dayton ohio, got dispatch and off I went. Got into the top part of kentucky and decided to call it a day didnt have to deliver till 3pm the next day and was roughly 60 miles away, so I stopped at a pilot got parked and went in to eat that subway we all love to hate. I got shut down about 6:30pm got up the next morning about 8am and took off, after i got to the other side off cincinattii my qualcomm goes off, I'm figuring its my next load pre plan so I wait till I'm at my delivery point and check it, saftey needs to speak with you hummmm wonder what this could be???? I call them up and they asked me if i stayed at a pilot in so and so kentucky last night, I said yeap sure did got there around 6:30pm and left round 8am, did you happen to remember hitting a swift truck and tearing his passengerside mirror off, ummmm no I sure dont I didnt even park near a swift truck, well the driver of the swift truck wasnt the one that called us it was another driver that saw you do it, well I was there for a long time looks like if i did that the driver would have said something to me or called and got a police report, well we just wanted to call and ask you about this its not a big deal, ok ty and you have a great day......end of that.....or is it remember this part of the story..... read on

Well i went on doing my job hatin the hell out of it and FINALLY MY 3 MONTHS WAS UP@@!! Well before I set out for the week I told my manager that this would be my 2 weeks notice that I was quitting, he asked why and I just said I really wanted a SE regional run and there was a misunderstanding and US Xpress didnt offer it so I was going to go to a company that did. He said well ok you are going out for this 14 days though right, I said sure but this will be my last time after this ill bring my truck to tunnel hill and leave it and get a ride home, he said okies sorry to loose you. Thinking to myself "Well I aint sorry to get away!!!" So Off I went to pick up my load at the terminal to nyc wonderful, they kept me on I-95 from Richmond, VA to Boston, Massachusetts for my entire last 2 weeks running lil pissy runs 200 to 400 miles back and forth, 2weeks up I'm heading to Tunnel Hill, GA to turn in my truck and get the flock outta there. Made It FINALLY, turned in truck said all my good byes and left. Now I want you to keep in mind that I never once got pissy with them, never griped, never complained, even though I was not happy with this company I still did my job...... story ends......or does it@@!

I decided to take 2 or 3 weeks off before jumping back on the horse......that time passes and i started filling out some apps with other companys.....actually 2 to be exact Crete Carriers, and Roehl Transport, after doing some research on this site them seemed to fit me better.....Got accepted from crete first and i told them up front I was wanting to hear from roehl too, so they said ok well let us know wed love to have you.....to make a longer story longer I'll write about my experiences with Roehl later. But I chose Roehl over Crete for mainly 1 reason Crete requires all there drivers to have a hazmat endorsement on their license, I didnt want to fool with it..........the end or is it.\\

Remember when I told you to remember the part about the person who took it upon themselves to call and say I ran over swift drivers mirror.......when Roehl ran my DAC that was on there as a preventable accident......THANXS US XPRESS FOR TAKING A PROBABLY DISGRUNTLED EX US XPRESS DRIVERS WORD OVER MINE@@!! Roehl hired me anyways so have a great company USXpress@@!! One more thing then my rant is over, even though I had the time required by roehl in to be a solo driver I still had to do a 1 week with a trainer due to the fact US Xpress trucks were automatic and they wanted to be sure I could drive a 10 speed......wasnt no big deal............

Hope this information helps or hurts someone thanx for listening@@!!

 

Yeah I had problems getting empties too. Another thing that was bad was trying to get work done on your truck at a terminal, god help you if you had to do that you had to spend most of the time at least a day getting it looked at.

And for the guy who said nothing makes me happy, happiness with a company comes from finding the right one. Your right all trucking companies are flawed in some way, some worse than others. I am happier at Roehl than I was at US Xpress, but with that being said its got things I dont like either. But its not a big deal, trucking jobs are easy to find and if and when Roehl gets under my skin bad enough I will simply try another, and then another, and then another. Until I find the right one for me thats the beauty of trucking, as long as you have not wrecks, tickets, or DOT trouble you can leave a company one day and be in another the next!

Now I am by no means saying switching jobs alot is something you should do, but I have been in this field long enough to know that your gonna have to change jobs, several times if need be until you find one that suits what your looking for. They all will lie, cheat, steal, tell you anything they can to get you to work for them. But the simple fact of the matter is that when I find out they intentionally lied to me and something in that lie was a sole reason for going to work for them in the first place.....WHY STAY?
Peace@@!