my time with TMC

I skateboarded w/ TMC about 8 months back in 2006,
orientation and everything went well, got a good driver trainer, first truck was a kenworth..

think they retired that one and i ended up gettin the huge pete (one like ol' Joe had), it was an abandon with a ton of problems but some shop time and it went and went (till a water pump problem about thanksgiving time that they wanted to ground me for instead of let me keep goin to get home for the holiday... finally convinced 'em nothin was going to happen to the truck because 1) the durn thing turned off when it got just a couple/few gallons below full and 2) i'd been a mechanic in the army for years prior so even if it didnt have the shutoff the engine'd still be alright lol

pay wasnt all that great in my experience, but probably alot better than any other company that takes new drivers. one thing that kinda irked me though was sometimes for no apparent reason the pay to the truck would drop off (even for exact loads i'd ran before)... turned out anytime that was goin on the ol' fart in des moines was building something there (or another yard) or somethin was goin on with his son's racecar.

ended up they ran me ragged up north in the cold to a point where when i happened to get by the des moines terminal for something, i went stumbling into the office (was quite sick, with a fever).. and tmc claims to not be forced dispatch, but they were trying to force dispatch me to montana, while sicker'n a dog (couldnt even walk straight.. wasnt about to try driving). even told 'em i was sick and needed to go home or take some downtime... "we need to get this load to montana" bla bla bla.. even asked if they could just send me back south.. nope they kept trying to force dispatch me to montana and didnt care i was too sick to be able to drive safely to anywhere.

so after having swapped trailers (loaded, not loaded, swapping tarps on some) FOUR times that time while in desmoines, then them trying to force dispatch me to montana while sick as ####, i put the keys on the dispatcher's desk n told 'em i was goin home one way or another... they got me a bus ticket, but ofc they took it out of my last paycheck.

and for an example of how sick i was when i was at DM, even before i got home via greyhound, i couldnt even pick up my baggage (but had to move it to get to nashville)... and when i got there i was doin good to move just myself.. couldnt have moved my stuff myself for a million dollars... the friend that came to pick me up had to get my bags by that point, then ended up it took 3 weeks for me to get better... i was THAT sick, and THAT bad before i even got home, i'm glad i didnt just say flogit and took the load to montana... i'da hated to find out what woulda happened.


maybe just had a bit of bad luck w/ TMC near the end there... or someone's cheerios got peed in... idk. overall i'd say TMC's not bad, if you can handle the pay skimming and waiting around hours for loads (or days sometimes)... and dont have the misfortune of gettin run ragged and sick then them tryin to pull force dispatch crap on ya like they did me

 

1) i didnt know about this forum until very recently.

2) its still relevant wether it happened 5 years ago and i posted it yesterday, or it happened 5 years ago and got posted 5 years ago. from the sound of things TMC hasnt changed a bit lol.

and no, Mr. TMC Daycab, i'm not just badmouthing the company not knowing what i'm talking about. I actually did enjoy most of my time spent there, and i'm sure if you and the other drivers pay attention to your pay you'll more than likely see that bit still going on today.

 

as mentioned previously (in less words), i'd just stumbled across this forum while looking into different trucking companies because i'm thinking about going back into it (as much as i dont really want to). snot like i knew about this forum and just decided to wait years to tell the story of my time in TMC

but yea.. you've probably got one of the sweetest gigs in TMC.. i'da liked to been able to be home everynight and weekends off lol