A quick, complicated simple sort of question?

I am having a bit of an issue getting back into the industry... I went to a cdl school, finished at the top of my class, passed my cdl test with flying colors and signed on with a local Reefer company in Springfeild mo...not prime.... I started training with them, made it roughly 3 months and my home life exploded, medical emergencies, relationship issues, lots of complications so I parted ways with that company and got off the road to try to fix things here so I could go back out without being distracted. Now in that span I was very honest with the company about what was going on, tried to keep them updated on any and all things pertaining to my employment with them. I am a natural driver, I've wanted to drive flatbed for many years...pretty much since childhood, I'm currently trying to get back out on the road and having some rather negative reactions, alot of companies dont want to deal with me at all, they look at my application and turn it down without much hesitation, Tmc flat out told me that they were gonna have to pass due to the abundance of better qualified drivers available, I realize that with only 3 to 4 months of experience on my mvr I probably look pretty bad on paper. My main company of interest at this point is KeimTs I like everything i've read about them, talked to Daniel a few times, passed over an application and he seemed positive however I spoke with Peggy and she seemed less than thrilled about my application basically saying that they arent hiring any kind of student thru the winter months, is this also a more standard practice in the industry?

My main questions to those of you familiar with the industry are 1. what can I do to try to get past my lack of experience with these companies? 2. does anyone know of a smaller company that pulls flat bed that I might have some better luck with?

thanks in advance any and all help is greatly appreciated.

J~

 

All of my experience has been in 2012, I started driving back in may and stopped around the end of september/beginning of october, I have no problems with driving, navigating, planning my trips, fuel stops, rest stops, The company I pulled for was all Paper logs and in that time I only had one error I had to fix which was basically I accidentally started a new month in my old book, I was finished with Training with the company and was basically waiting to get back to springfield and take my 2nd seat test.

I drove for Trailiner, I've been to tcsi as part of my driving school training for Elogs, nice place friendly people they only hire experienced flat bedders and last I talked to them they wouldnt take me because i hadnt stuck it out for 6 months with trailiner.

I'm open to other companies, I had tried Maverick out of school one of my previous employers decided to not talk to maverick, wouldnt confirm dates of employement and it screwed up the application process.

I talked to System transport a couple weeks ago as well and the guy I got ahold of basically said they dont take students.

I have no issue going back in as a student, I love to learn and feel that trainers all offer their own unique take on things that will benefit me later in my career, I'm just not eager to go run for a swift or schneider monster, alot of horror stories and bad feelings seem to circle those companies.

I am currently talking to prime as well, either their tanker or flat bed division, I'm not a huge california fan i dont mind east i dont mind northwest i just dislike cali, beautiful state but its slow as hell getting thru and my experience with produce has been a lot of hurry up and sit tight, Trailiner stranded me 3 times in various states I sat all weekend in Ny because of a trailer someone elses loaded and didnt check and didnt get paid for my weekend, my last trip out of cali I sat for 12 hours while the dispatcher decided where to send us then took another 18 hours trying to get loads because everywhere we went either wasnt ready for us or had a partial load and last minute decided to send us across the state for something else.

I'm also looking at the oilfields, Nd sounds interesting, I dont mind the weather, I grew up off road with various sized vehicles and drive better in snow than I do on dry ground most days....I like a challenge in my work anyway.

Oh almost forgot I ordered a copy of my dac report as well, most of these companies are all excited about my application and start the process and then they just sort of lose interest after they run thru things.....always leaves me scratching my head, I ran 20,000 miles with a week off that month for trailiner because the "A" seat decided he wanted home time its not like I wasnt pushing while I was there.

Anyone Know someone I could talk to at Keim Ts and maybe explain my situation and convince them to give me a chance?