Ferguson Enterprises

Well, Ferguson is easily the best trucking company I have ever worked for, hands down, bar none, there is no equal. I have worked for a lot of different companies - a lot of the big ones and many of the smallers ones, but finally found the one that I will retire from.

Ferguson owns one of the largest fleets of trucks in the U.S., but many don't know about them because this company owns it's own fleet in order to deliver the products it sells versus simply a trucking company with drivers that are dispatched to wherever/whoever/whenever to pick up and deliver any particular company's transportation needs.

First, the greatest thing of all is the benefits. I took 28 paid days off this year. Yes, I am paid by the hour, I go home every day, I don't work weekends - ever, I don't have to stay out for weeks at a time, missing my family and not really having any friends outside of the trucking industry. In other words, I have a life outside of trucking.

If a truck breaks down, I don't get hell over the phone from some geek in an office a thousand miles away who starts demanding to know "what you did to the truck to make it break down", or some other junk like that. I don't have to get numbers and go through all kinds of hell, I just call one particular person in our company who has been designated the person that will take care of such problems, he calls whoever needs to be called, the truck gets fixed, that's it.

Full medical; disability; good 401k. Management is superior, at least in the division I am working in. I don't have to sit in a truck all day long, I go to construction sites and make the deliveries and forge relationships with the contractors. Although many drivers would hate this aspect, I love it: I get to pull my own orders and load my own truck. I like this aspect because if there seems to be one problem truckers have - it's obesity and overweight brought on by the lack of physical activity. I only pull flatbed trailers, which guarantees physical activity even if I didn't load my own truck.

Also, in recent months, I have learned how to do counter sales, shipping/receiving, and a lot of other things that are necessary to learn to help run the business. I have not been promoted, yet I have been entrusted with all kinds of duties that are FAR from being "just a truckdriver". Again, some or even many drivers might not be attracted to that kind of thing, but I got sick of staying on the road and never leaving it a LONG time ago. It took me 5 jobs in local-only driving before I found this job, which for me is the "perfect" job, I have no intentions of leaving it.

Oh, my pay. 50k per year. That's somewhere in the middle. But remember, I'm home EVERY day, at about 4:00pm. I don't work weekends, they aren't opened on weekends, and I don't WANT them to be, at least not the Waterworks division. I have no stresses about "when am I EVER going to get home". I received fully 5 bonuses this year from the company, LARGE bonuses at that.

I've worked for Werner; J.B. Hunt and several other companies, I've done my time on the road, I can say I've found the perfect job.

 

It's the first company I've ever worked for, or even heard of in this sense, that treats truck drivers like everyone else in the company. After only 11 months, I started earning 6.6 hours per month of paid vacation. After 90 days, I was earning 4.4 hours per month of vacation. The "after 11 month" thing earns you 10 paid days off per year. Plus paid holidays, paid floating holidays, paid sick leave and paid personal time. How many trucking companies give you - over a month off if you include weekends that aren't paid? Okay, forget the weekends, 28 paid days off is almost a month in itself.

It's truly a family-oriented company, whose "mother" is Wolselely, which is based in Europe.

I feel lazy compared to the rest of my life working 12 plus hours a day, 6 plus days a week with hardly any breaks. So I gave up 10k per year to get 50k, who cares, I have life now. I have a HOUSE I go home to every day, my living room no longer is described as asphalt with white and yellow lines drawn on it.

Don't get me wrong, I loved trucking in the early days. It was the chance of a life time - I drove to every state except Hawaii and Alaska - almost got Alaska a couple of times, but was ousted by other drivers with seniority. Oh well, guess I'll have to fly up there some day and check it out. It was an amazing adventure for the first - ohhhh - several years I guess. After 20 years of it, well, I dunno how to describe it except to say that on the Interstates, it all started looking the same to me. The heart of Texas looked the same as the Rockies in several states. Flat plains looked the same as - green rolling hills. In other words, it was getting OLD, and QUICK.

I'm NOT a recruiter, I'm not in management, I just love the company I'm working for. I drive almost every day - some days I'm "stuck" at the store, doing counter sales, pulling orders. Lovin' every minute of it. I really love just going home every day. It's just plain wonderful.

Ferguson - as far as I've heard - isn't hiring right now. The housing crash and the mortgage crisis have hit the company pretty hard, they have put a freeze on new hires for the most part and aren't replacing people that quit or retire. They actually started laying people off - 10% will be gone by the end of January. But, that really doesn't include truck drivers. We deliver the product they sell, without us, the company folds. They HAVE to have truck drivers, regardless of the economy. I guess all of us drivers have a little edge on the rest of this financial planet: there will never be a day when anyone says: We don't need truck drivers anymore, let's discontinue that job title.

If we shut down, America shuts down. Maybe ordinary folk don't want to acknowledge that, but it's true. Take a week - have all truck drivers just stay home, at a hotel, whatever, and do nothing. What would happen? Rail can't handle it. The economy would collapse, period.

Whatever the case, I ain't dissing other drivers who are driving for different companies, I definitely have my rather-strong opinion about certain other companies, but, we aren't in a war against EACH OTHER. Or, at least, I used to think that. Hmmm, now I dunno. What is with these newbie drivers out there? Cutting off other trucks, not letting them into traffic, acting like ##*****. Haven't quite figured that one out.

 

Wiseguy:
Ferguson has stores in all 50 states, and is buying up more companies in areas where Ferguson doesn't have a presence, even in these difficult times. There are several divisions: Plumbing; Waterworks; Fire; Tool and now they have added a cooling heating division and an appliance division. Take it back, they have also added a lighting division. My pick is the Waterworks division because they sell large, heavy, underground pipe and the valves to go with, along with huge, heavy fittings, fire hydrants and a lot of other stuff.
I like it because - they have more semis. Otherwise, you are relegated to driving a 24 foot International piece of junk. It all pays the same, but - I would far rather drive a semi than a 24 footer any day. They do like to hire drivers that have prior flatbed experience, though. If you are really interested, I would suggest simply looking them up in your local phone directory wherever you live and see if they have stores in your area - but, I think Ferguson only takes applications online. Simply go to Ferguson.com, go to the bottom of the page, click on site map and you will see hiring information. Again, I make no guarantees that they are hiring right now, but I do know that most drivers are pretty secure in their positions - I also don't guarantee starting pay, you pretty much have to hash that one out with whoever you end up talking to at the branch you might end up going to - it took me a while, but I got what I wanted : )

 

Lol, the CEO of our company just posted a news flash: on top of all the rest of the time off, they are now going to give a paid day off for your BIRTHDAY. That's a new one on me, I've never heard of that at ANY company.
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