Central Refrigerated Truck Stop

I will not bad mouth Central I am upset with them yes but they are a good starter company. I however had to resign from my Adventure.

First off let me say that I knew what I was getting into when I started and I didn't leave because I felt I was lied to or miss lead.

I came home because of family reasons and I dont regret it.
Do I miss being out on the road and seeing things that I would never see being in an office. YES
Do I wish that I had done something else for the last 6 months? NO

Do I wish that things would have gone differently when I left? HELL YEAH!!!!
When I found out I needed to come home I let my DM know. And I told him that I would be able to take the truck back to a terminal after I got some stuff taken care of. However they wouldn't wait for me so they sent someone out to get the truck.

Like I said I dont hate Central just sad at the way they treated me at the end.

So I am officially off the road I am in PHX

 

Yeah I am talking about the lease. I was a company driver for the 2 years I worked for them. I got off the road for 6 months for family reasons, then I worked for about a year for Werner doing Walmart Dedicated. Now I am back OTR with a small company called Specialized Express out of Columbus, Oh and having a blast.

Central was a good starter company and good if you wanted to be a trainer, they treated me fair, and I had a good DM on catfish dedicated. I don't have anything bad to say about Central per see, but a lot of people have higher expectations and the reality of the job bites them. Me personally there are things I liked that central did that werner didn't, and things werner did the central didn't that I liked. every company is a little different.

The company I'm with now is like night and day different from the other 2, I am really liking working for a small company and plan to be with these guys for awhile, I am getting good miles, I am more than a truck number, I have the owners cell phone numbers. Yes I am on electronic logs and have to remind the dispatcher of that from time to time, but overall things are going well with them.

 

So now what are they gonna put on ur dac?

 

That is a good question. She will probably have to check it and see. I would guess if they felt for some reason they had to recover the truck it will be noted as abandonment. Which is too bad.
Not many company's will let you go home for a reason like that with the truck, for more than a few days.
They have had too many issues of trucks getting messed up to allow it. And they cannot treat it by a case by case basis, because they are too large of a company to do that. They have to have a blanket rule. No matter if we agree or not.

That being said. I have high hopes that she can work this all out and eventually be on the road again. We need more younger female drivers out here.

Nice to see another Jamestown driver on here. We have at least 3 that I have seen around.

 

they will put on truck abandonment, however she can get that taken off. Like I am getting my 2 incidents off because they are less than $500 damage. One was $97 and the other was $125

 

Sorry to hear that,Smurfette. You were one of the first people I started following here. Hope everything works out so you are able to be back on the road soon. Maybe with Central,maybe another company...you can make it happen if you want it badly enough.
Take care and be safe.

 

well i hate to inform you about this company but they cheat you every way they can. the boss, doug likes to intimidate you, try to get you run illegal, doesn't pay fines, doesn't give you home time, trailers always needing repairs and doesn't want them fixed until it suits him. oh but don't let it run into your running time. he threatened me on stealing his truck because i couldn't just pull off anywhere to call him, because i was running out of hours because of repairs and miss management on their part. he is nothing but a royal hothead and shouldn't be allowed to own any company.
and they put stuff on your dac jsut to keep you from getting any other jobs as well. Marci acts so sweet but even when she knows doug is in the wrong, her excuse is if i could handle running the company she wopuld take her trucks else where but if you are bf abd gf you know that will never happen. both are hot heads and need anger management classes.
i was even told by several of the customers to look for a job elsewhere because of the quality of work they recieve from specialized express.
they took my pay and left me with nothing to feed my children when i got stuck i had to pay the tow bill after a reciever's guard sent me to sit because i was four hrs early oh but lets not talk about that,let's just say i learned to call first before arriving early to any customer,hehehe. cost me the custody of one of my children because of hometime when i needed to be at a court date. so be weary of specialized express, llc located in columbus, ohio owners are doug of the company and marci hinton of the trucks they are both nothing but crooks.

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Not my words but here is a link to others. Personally I'll stay with big ones. I tried to work at a small company for 2 weeks before Central and it (small not trucking related) was like this thread.
Big companies are generally the best. Does your small company give bonuses? Like the $575 quarterly safety, detention, stop and on time pay?
I'm sure there are small companies that treat you like family until... but I don't want to carrot chase. I would need a recommendation by a trusted source. Credit to those who seek and find a good small company as hard as it must be. I'll be with Central for a while and from what those who left say, Central is a stand up company... or start up company.



BOL BRD

I know you'll keep us informed....

Here is the thread you may be interested in reading:

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr.../78741-specialized-express-columbus-ohio.html

You may considering these bashers the same as those that bash Central now that you work there and don't agree. I'll never understand the importance of being more than a truck number. Hopefully these bashers are sour grape throwers that brought this bad news on themselves. If not you can always jump to another since we are in demand.

 

this is kind of funny, I know an guy that was home for almost 4 weeks. He told them that he would take the truck back if they wanted/need it or if they wanted to send a driver up via either bus or plane that he would pick them up and take him to the truck. They never did. He kept the truck and then started driving it again....

 

I have heard of that happening a few times as well. But most instances that I saw were not that way.
It may have partly had to do with the number of trucks available at the time. Or his fleet manager really backed him up. You never really know with Central.
They are a fairly large company. Especially as refrigerated carriers go.
I was not saying that to bash them in any way. Trust me on that. It is their truck. If it is sitting the are not making money with it. And they are still paying lease payments the whole time it sits. Same as the L/O's.

 

However, with l/o, they have the performance bond to cover the payments if needed for 4 weeks while you recover from surgery, etc. For a company driver, there is nothing really to cover their lease payments short of you running the truck.

And, not to dredge this up again, however, we spoke to Cindy Thompson, the payroll manager at Central. All payroll is processed through comdata. Those that have it set up to automatically direct deposit, the payroll hits comdata at 0900 wed and is immediately authorized for direct deposit in full to your account in full. Because you never call, that is why the full amount is deposited. The rest of us get it on comdata, we can withdraw it at that time using any or all of our options, incurring the appropriate fees for any transaction.