Werner - Jacked up.

Training went well. Only needed a month because of previous experience. I'm assigned a truck three days after drop off. Shag a load for 90 miles on my first day with my own truck. Then I get a load going from Dallas (where I was) to the northeast. Then I get to the OH terminal and drop the truck off because they wanted to sell it. I wait one day for my permanent(?) truck and get a nice Kenworth. That was until I started it up and saw none of the gauges working.....all dead needles. They said we'll get right on it and two hours later they do. By midnight I'm asking if its done. Nope. So I sleep in it anyway because it was back in the lot. Next morning I ask when it will be done.....morning guy says it's done. So it was done but they never told me when it became done. OK.

Now I'm ready to get started on the FD account. Yeah, it is tough work but home weekends sold me. My bad. I'm in the Kenworth for one week.....they decide to sell it because it had 500K on it. OK, whatever.

As you can guess, it took two more days to get rolling in another truck, which was sitting in a dropyard and filthy as s*&t.

The rollers that came with the truck? Forget it. All of them bent out of shape. So I tell DP I want to pick out better ones...OK. Too bad none of those used rollers are any good. But I figured as long as they are straight, I'm good.

Suffice to say, they weren't. My first stop was always OK. On time and quick unload. But once I got to my second or third, it was a nightmare. NOTHING rolled. And that's after I soaked them with WD-40. On the final stop, with about 1,000 pieces, it took me 5-6 hours. And it only got worse....

Some of these places you deliver to basically beg you to screw up. In no way should a tractor trailer have any business backing into them. I never hit a thing, though, because I told myself when I started this: No tickets, no accidents, and most of all....nobody forces me into a situation I feel is unsafe. I knew it was going to be tough - and I back pretty well - but some of these places are obscene. Not to mention most of these FD workers don't care what happens to your career.

The worst was the hurricane weekend. Instead of routing me home on Friday (NJ), I get a load for WV (300 miles away from DC) on Thursday to be delivered on Friday. By the time I got back to DC Saturday (Last stop sucked. One person working.) it was already noontime. Think those bridges are open? So I leave on Sun morning around 1:30am. Get home. Appointment on Monday. No reset.

So the final straw came on a delivery where I refused to back into a place that was sandwiched between two busy intersections. It was noon. I would have had to pull up in the opposite lane through an intersection to back in. Asked DP if they could delay delivery to early morning...much less traffic. Nope, need their freight. So I therefore refused to do it anyway. Told the workers twice...in the morning, that's it. I don't give a #### what anyone tells me. You think I'm going to even chance it, you're nuts. Too many cars. Look around, see all the strip malls and gas stations?

So now I'm waiting to start a new account. Switching trucks...again. Been three days. Then Roehl calls. Not kidding. Applied to them before anyone. And I know they are not as jacked up as this place because I read up on it. Much smaller too.

In other words: FD account is hell.

I'm probably go back to OTR and be home a little less. Whatever. It's not as stressful and I won't be parked in bad neighborhoods either. Roehl offers more. On the FD account, I was getting a whopping .20 per mile. I was getting jammed up on appointments because of traffic (I'm in the NE) and bad rollers. Dealing with a qualcomm that constantly put me on line 4 for no reason and running out of my 14 constantly. Not to mention the times I sat waiting for a truck.

Maybe it works for some, but not for me. Plus, if the chance to go to something a little smaller with a better reputation presents itself, why not?

 

They can say what they want. At least you can fight a DAC. All I really care about is my CDL and no tickets.

 

Dude, I can say without doubt that I have looked at the threads. Roehl doesn't get anywhere near the amount of negative attention as Werner does. Also, when you're new, its not like you have much of a choice. I took Werner because of the hometime.