USX drivers...how's your day??

Almost all of our families still live in the same area that we do and maybe that's more of a curse than a blessing because there just isn't enough time to please everyone in the four days that we're home usually. I've been doing this a long time so my side of the family is used to short visits or maybe going out for ####tails, but Patty's family is another story all together. They aren't used to her not being there to jump when they say jump.

I love all of them, but man they can be needy sometimes. I regularly suggest to Patty that its time for her mom to "cut the cord" so to speak and that she needs to do the same with her grown kids. I think she never realized how demanding that they all were to her until she wasn't available 100% of the time to do everything for them. By being away from home so much now, for the first time in her life she is able to set boundaries with them and I think she is starting to feel liberated from her oppression!

I'm sure we are definitely going to enjoy these holidays whether we feast and lounge in the hot tub at a motel or just have some Denny's and keep on trucking.

Alright, finally loaded 10 hours later, time to kick up some dust and head to the northwest corner. Catch you all later.

 

Sounds too famaliar to me. Run into several ex USX teams lately, all with same complaints. Even Craig and Anne have moved on...sorry guys but you did, and because you were experiencing the same issues we are hearing from others and are experiencing ourselves. Even USX recognizes it and put out an audio promo piece acknowledging it and thanking drivers for sticking it out. Seems that thi.gs have changed since Pat passed away. Fairness, we ran into a team in Texas that seem happy still after 1.5 years, but they seem to be the exception. For us, things need to change soon, or we will be on the list of former USX you guys can pick on and call names after they leave. Before you do, ....never ever late, good customer relations, never damaged a load, try to keep FM informed, but they rarely get back with you, keep ourselves, our truck and the trailer clean. Possibly its the division we are in, maybe our FM, but we used to think theh had our back...who knows, but we are no longer in the USX recommend category.

 

We are no where near the complaint level, so you should keep us in that still happy category. We are still averaging over 5000 miles per week, even on the short week that we take our hometime. Even this week we will be sitting at about 6000 miles by Monday morning with a 2100 mile PP that delivers first thing Wednesday morning.

I was just stating that we haven't seen that 7000+ week that we all like to see from time to time in a while and that we didn't get approved for hometime in one of the hardest states to get in and out of in the entire country, which we knew might happen anyways.

There would have to be a major meltdown or one hell of a better opportunity available for us to leave anytime soon. Also, I wouldn't say Craig and Anne left the company, they are just following the opportunities given to them by driving a contractor's truck and are still very much a part of the USX family.

 

yes craig and anne did move on.... BTW the truck they are driving has US Xpress on the side and so does the trailer they pull......

just like the truck we have and the trailer we pull..... we were company drivers for over 7 years (and happy) then we got our own truck and lease it on with usx about 2 years ago and we'er still happy

 

I have a number of friends that have left USX and I support their decision. Things happen. They happen in all jobs. We had no major issues with the company. The reefer division was screwed up because Phyllis was no longer in control. We put up with the issue that they did not pay more for temp controlled freight because the miles were awesome. When that changed we had decided to go back to dry van. Never intended to leave the company as we really like it there but we got an awesome opportunity with a sister company.

Must say I am a little offended by the "former USX you guys can pick on and call names after they leave" statement. I do not believe that is true in any way by anyone on here. There are a number of former USX drivers who stop by here all the time who are great folks.

One of the unique things about trucking is that when you have a bad day, you don't go home, grab a beer and tell your wife over dinner how today sucked. That would be what you would do in a regular job and after being away from work for about 15 hours you could deal with the bs for another day. When you drive a truck, you live with the problems 24 hours a day. When things are going badly, it just seems to keep piling on and getting deeper. it is hard to get perspective in the midst of the day to day issues. I have known a number of people that have quit (not just at USX) after dealing with a problem for three straight days. That is 72 hours. 72 hours would be almost two weeks in a regular job but you never get away from it here. We work very hard on letting the crap roll off our shoulders and keeping a positive attitude.
USX has problems, all companies do. I do know that they listen to their drivers and most of the people we have met really do care about them.

And yes, as Flood said, our green truck says US Xpress on the door and my Fleet Manager is in Tunnel Hill

 

Why would you be offended, I never said you maligned former drivers, perhaps I have missed some posts, I am not on here as regular as I used to be. I did notice a bunch of deleted messages. I would like to start a new thread about dispatchers if I could figure out how

 

Sorry, read something into it that was not there.

On the dispatchers, one thing I have noticed and I said something on the USX Facebook page, was that the phone system is being badly abused and manipulated by the Fleet Managers. They disconnect you all the time to keep the wait time metrics low. It is hiding a huge problem from upper management.

 

WhooHoo, rolling to Chattanooga to spend thanksgiving with the grandkids (ok, and their awesome parents too) Going to be a great weekend. Another reason I love this job/

 

That's great!

Things took a turn for us too, we picked up our load going to Ohio and then got a call asking if we would let another team repower our load so they could go home for Thanksgiving, we don't mind helping others out so we did it. Our gamble paid off and we just got a load going to Florida, so a late Thanksgiving with my dad is back on.

Jackpot!