USIT Talk

What were you hauling that required such vigilance? If your uncomfortable, sleep in a hotel. They pay for it. I was in Vandalia just last night, check my truck into service to replace an air bag, sent a message to dispatch and got a hotel room. No questions asked. They didn't even work on my ride till this morning.

Yelling and being unreasonable, whether or not your justified, is usually met with the same outcome that you have experienced. Hope you find something that suits you better.

 

It distresses me to hear that the majority of the conversations involving good things about this company only concern the decision to quit. I've only been out solo for 2 months and other than maintenance issues on my truck, I don't really have any complaints. I suppose, being a C1 contract employee, I could use the 1 year option and go too. I just hope it doesn't come to that. I have a FM that tries to keep me rolling, keep me happy, and keep me paid. I haven't gotten screwed on home time. Hell, i haven't even had anybody at the company treat me bad. I get treated worse by the customers than anybody else. I just hope that things on this job stay positive because honestly, some of you guys have me worried about the long-term outlook.

 

A trainer at a terminal told me of one of his students several years ago. This student upgraded and drove about a month. He was driving a 9400 and his AC went out. According to the trainer this driver was told by weekend dispatch (breakdown I was told by trainer he could not remember which) to get into a hotel till the next morning. To get into a hotel required driver to call a cab and go quite a ways from the Truck Stop. The way I understand it the hotel would not even let him park bobtail there. The driver put a company padlock on loaded trailer and left.The next morning Driver returned to Truck Stop to find his trailer doors open and most all of his load gone. It was a load of truck tires. When driver called in to report it his FM asked who directed him to leave his truck. He told him who but FM retorted that he must have misunderstood the instructions because it is against company policy to leave any USA Equipment unsecured in that way. The company fired him and put an abandoned truck entry into his dac file. Trainer told me he still speaks to this guy every once in a while but he is out of trucking because nobody would hire him with little experience and that entry in his dac.

This was my problem those 2 nights, I tried every hotel in the area none would let me park the truck on their property. Because of this I did not feel comfortable leaving load. You can say in a generic way get into a hotel, but if you are not with load and it gets stolen the company will come back at you as being irresponsible and you will be lucky to keep your job.


As far as the yelling and being unreasonable comment, well while I did vent I did not raise my voice and if telling this man at Van Buren his people at the terminals can't fix an APU after 3 attempts is being unreasonable then I guess I was being unreasonable.

If you leave your truck/load in an unsecured way a lot you might go your whole career at USA Truck without a problem, but trust me, if something happens you are taking a chance with an abandoned truck dac entry and being terminated. You will never get dispatch to place an entry on your q com directing you to leave a loaded truck in a Truck Stop in this manner, and if you do get told to get into a hotel and something happens dispatch will say they did not mean for you to leave the truck like that. I don't care how careful you are, if the load gets stolen and/or the truck damaged the company will come back at you, they will never officially take the responsibility. USA Truck is self insured and they pay all the claims. I am not trying to be cynical, but this is a chance I will never take. My frustration came not because I had a bad miserable night, but because most of the shops simply can't fix APU's with a hard to find issue like this unit has, and they won't send the unit to Thermo King and because of this this night becomes multiple nights, so yes I became unreasonable.

 

You and I had a different view about logging as I recall, so its no surprise our view differs here too. Find a place to park, there are multiple solutions. I agree that maintenance is shoddy, but there are ways around that too. Every situation has a plausible solution, what else is missing from this story? But really it doesn't matter, as you are better off, no more stress or short paydays, no more incompetent service department, at least for you to deal with. Some of your posts here describe your time here as miserable so this is for the best.

 

Doesn't surprise me they couldn't fix the APU. I saw one in the shop here in Roanoke. The unit was apart and the tech looked at it, and ask the other guy how it goes back together...LOL...really, and you are a tech that works on these things.

Brought my truck to the terminal Fri morning @ 07:30. Told them ac was in-op and had an air leak I was unsure where it was. They fixed the ac, and I ask about the air leak. The tech said I didn't know there was an air leak. I told him. Oh it's on the card just not the work order. So he brought it back in. Fixed that too. This is the 9th time it's been in the shop for ac. 4/dealer 5/USA.

Woke up Sat. to a ld assignment. Cranked the truck and the tanks were completely empty again, and the ac was back out. I sent a message to dispatch, and then to R/A. They said get to dealer Mon, and then bring back to USA for air leak again.

When I got to dealer sent email to new FM. Told him I needed a cab to hotel, and a room. Waited 30 minutes with no response. Then I sent a QC message asking if he got it. He said yes. I sent another and ask was he working on it...No response. After being there for 2 hours I sent another email and ask was he getting me a cab and room. He responded he wasn't going to, that it was my responsibility since I was there. He didn't know who to call and I should be able to get one easier than him. I said well thanks for letting me know 2 hours later. Then another driver was there and had a cab on the way, so I rode w/ him. I sent another email and told him not to worry about the cab as there was another driver who's FM called for them one. Can you please have my room ready. Well I got no response to that either, and when I got there the room wasn't reserved. I sent another email telling him I was here, please fax the papers. About 15 mins later he finally sent it...Glad I got this new FM, that claims he is great with communicating.

 

Well after 4 days it looks like I will be going to orientation next week. At this point I feel better not revealing the company, once I leave their orientation and get into a truck I will come back and say the company. My main reason for this post is to report something about USA Truck I was told this morning. I was worried they would poison my dac, it seems that they just reported I was terminated but no real reason was given. I will give them kudos for that.