what company to pick

mikej123:

My opinion is US Xpress is best.
1) Van Freight is best. You don't want to babysit a reefer and be at grocery
warehouses at 4am for a living. I have done it and regretted it. So screen
with that variable first.

2) You want a company located in the sunbelt. There might be a terminal
near your home but you will always be through the corporate headquarters.
I would rather be in Chattanooga or Phoenix than in some god forsaken bitter
cold place like green bay or iowa.

3) You want to drive good equipment. Most training companies give you good
equipment but pay not much. That is a trade off I am willing to make. Hell if I wanted the big bucks I would drive union locally but I want to see the country
again on someone else's fuel. Training companies have new fleets and you get
regular inspections by safety lanes. Older jippo outfits like Navajo Express deliberately send you out in equipment they refuse to maintain knowing it is
your wallet and license at risk. It is a nightmare. When you have a mishap you
are basically blackmailed (yeah i know it means threat of violence) into working
at that shoddy company forever (as planned) because the thugs in management will put on your dac that it was preventable. As you argue that the equipment was not maintained they will hire professional ex crooked cop accident experts to make things off the top of their heads using software. Seen it all and it is not worth the fight. Better to be babied at a training company and fess up to your mistakes than drive shoddy death traps that pay higher.

4) I just came back the US Express threads because I plunked some cash down
on Alvarado street in LA to get a document that says I got 180 hours of training.
Now I qualify for orientation as a green horn even though I can drive a truck up the side of Mt. Everest with a migraine (me experience and schooling is too old).
I went to the other company threads and reading them was the most miserable experience of my life recently. I even went to terminals and was treated horribly
by soul less recruiters who were so dysfunctional they didn't realize they were really the prey. Schneider and Werner are nightmares. When you see dispatchers and fleet managers high fiving themselves and making uncomplimentary remarks about drivers (like some eighties penny stock brokerage boiler room) you know these desperate monsters are protected by an evil corporate culture. I would rather live in the streets than be abused by these horrible people. My relations
with US Xpress has been the opposite and I did not even qualify at the time for orientation. The companies that dominate hiring at the jippo truck schools
are a lesson in supply and demand. If Werner and Schneider are always hiring?
what does that tell you about the satisfaction of the drivers who went there often
desperate for money and willing to sacrifice everything? I am grateful that I
can now have a shot at US Xpress again.

Hope that helps.
I had a lot of time learning from my mistakes to think about it.

 

Mike, I've been us USX almost a year....Hired on April 19th. Since this is my first every job driving I don't have any previous experience to draw on but it's been good for me. I think you will like it here.

 

ive thought about it but since it's all auto im wondering how it will affect my career as whole. say you get canned. who is gonna wanna hire you if you are limited to auto shifting

 

Personally I think it would be a big mistake to start out at an all auto carrier. You're going to be a professional, learn how to shift.

 

Have done any research? It is all over on this board that USX in moving to all 10 speeds. By the end of the year fully 50% of the fleet will be manual transmissions

 

I will tell you from experience from just going through orientation that they do a very thorough background check. This is the hardest job I ever tried to get, orientation was supposed to be 3 days on day 4 we were still waiting to find out if we got hired. So if you are trying hide something good luck with it, they sent people home for hiding stuff.