Central Refrigerated Truck Stop

Last week I had 5400 miles, this week I finished out with 4600 I MOVE a little

 

Shhhhhhh!!!!!!!! Need to keep things like that quiet. Company already loses enough drivers with out everyone wanting to know where you work at!!!

 

Would have thought you would have done a few more miles @ Bigrig we did 5700 in three days with a flat tire and no clutch!

 

I've been slacking off, sheesh.

Actually I'm worn out, they seem to think Arizona is close to Ohio for hometime. They screwed up my hometime 3 times in a row, 3 strikes and their out. Miles are great, pay is great, but it's useless if I can't enjoy it. I haven't been home in almost 3 months. I told my boss "My job is to get your freight safely and too it's destination on-time, all I ask is for the same respect I give your freight" Just get me to my destination on-time and everything would be fine.

Sooooo I'm going back to Werner to do the Walmart Dedicated thing out of Gas City, In again. Pay wasn't bad, I get a 34hr restart every week, it's a pretty easy gig

 

5700 in 3 days? and the fish i cought the other day was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis big.

 

He says with his arms open wide but thumb and forefinger only 2" apart!!!!

 

This week has worn me out.
Left the house on Tuesday.
Got to Erie to find out that the load was canceled. Due to the plant being closed for the week.
Then they sent me to Chicago. Way out of my area.
Nothing to Columbus from Chicago, so had to sit all day Wed to pick up at 2300 and head to near Battle Creek Mi. A whopping 185 miles.
Dispatch said that a load to Columbus would be no issue from that area.....
Next dispatch was back to Chicago.....
Got that swapped. So made it to Columbus for this morning.
I have a whole 1300 miles in for the week, and I am very glad that with salary I will still make 800 bucks for the week. And they got me 40 bucks layover for screwing me in Chicago.
Headed home tonight.

 

That blows... I get more than that and home every day.

 

Well least you weren't delivering an almost 1200 mile load and find out you left your wallet at home.. Had to have take load repowered near savannah, so I did get most of the miles off it... Still...

 

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to hop in here and share what my family's experience with Central has been to date, for those who are considering it as a company to start with or perhaps stay with. First let me outline a bit of our situation. We have 5 children ranging from 2 to 14. We have only been married for a little more than three years. After a few months of unemployment in which every place we talked to about jobs asked if my husband had a CDL A, we decided that perhaps we needed to look at taking that route to changing our circumstances. We first explored schooling options, and found a school. He enrolled and earned his CDL.

While he was doing his training, I was at home doing all the research I could on the trucking companies that hire new drivers. Through these forums I was able to learn quite a bit, along with a number of other sources. Of course, I had to weigh things according to our individual situation, and then bring all the data to my husband. We chose Central as a great place for our family to start our trucking life.

Central's requirements for employment were above and beyond the standards that were set by the school. He had a number of other pre-hires but Central was our hold out because of the difference between the curriculum outlined by my husband's chosen school and Central's standards for hire. So we talked to the school, and to the company, both worked with us, and made it possible for him to meet those standards so he could go to orientation.

So to orientation he went, on his first greyhound ever! I was so proud of him I took pictures and showed them to the kids along with a little game of "where on the map is Daddy today." He called and I thought he told me he was sleeping in a broom closet (he said it was a room smaller than our boys closet), lol. The next few days talking was really touch and go, if he had time, I didn't, and vice versa. I got to talk to him really late at night right before he nodded off. He couldn't really give me much information, but realized right away that there were some things he could have brought with him to make his life easier (like an extra blanket for the bed, lots of extra socks, some extra money, and some foot spray).

By Wednesday, he finished orientation and was assigned a trainer. They loaded onto the trainer's truck that night and left on their first load the next day. For that first few weeks, I barely heard anything from my husband because he was busy learning the tricks of the trade. Thankfully, he had authorized me to talk with HR when there were a couple of hitches with his direct depoist, we were able to iron them out in short order. He finished off his training having made a new friend, and learned a lot.

Since then, he has upgraded to being a company driver, which had a couple of hitches too when he had to leave some of his stuff in SLC because the truck he was assigned was at Conley. But the people there were nice and helped him to find a place to store his stuff until he is routed there (must contact them if more than 35 days). On my end of the job has been keeping an eye on his paystubs to make sure there are no problems, filing the insurance paperwork, and of course, coping with my husband being gone so much of the time. He has made it home once on home time and has had a couple of runs that took him close enough to home we got to see him for a little bit.

The people at the main offices are friendly and helpful, always more than willing to answer my questions. Some of the paperwork is confusing or must be done on a really tight schedule, but I called the HR department and they were great, walking me through it so that everything got done in a timely manner correctly. The people at the insurance company have been very helpful, and friendly helping me to find the local providers and figure out how the plan works. Overall both my husband and I have found Central has been vigilant about fixing problems as soon as they are made aware of them, and have been very fair in helping us to keep him on the road with decent if not good miles. Some weeks may be a bit lean but I suspect that is just the way this industry works (especially for newbies), and appreciate that the office personnel have been so awesome about answering any questions either of us have had..

All I can say is read any paperwork you get, pay particular attention to any turn in deadlines, if you have someone who does insurance paperwork mail it home to be filled out, if not fill it out...we almost missed the insurance deadline because my husband didn't realize he only had so many days to turn it in after orientation ended. Record all your load numbers, and any (pu/do/miles) information that goes with them in a notebook, and check your paystubs. If there is any problems the office people are awesome and will help you fix it right away. So far it has been a wonderful experience despite the small frustrations along the way .

Keep on trucking as my grandpa used to say (yeah, he was a trucker, lol).Thanks for all the great info you guys have shared in these forums. It has been so helpful.

If you see a van full of kids "honking" at you on I-40 in the forest it's probably me and mine wishing you safe passage