Van Wyk Inc.

Got unloaded, and headed to Chesapeake va for my Midwest load going to Sioux city for Monday and got as far as I can before the 14 hour clock on my e log started to run out. Hopefully they will let me keep this one, this 8/2/8/2 sleeper pattern sucks after a couple days

 

At home...told my travel agent that the load had to be repowered in order to make it on time...so they had me drop it at sheldon and I get to be home...gonna do a major project on my pickup tomorrow morning (heater core in a dodge ram) and then go see the kiddos this weekend.......

 

@Cutty we get detention pay as long as you are on the ball talking to Tiffanie in the office. Normally it's 2-3 hours off free time then detention kicks in, depending on the shipper. As far as set it and forget it, for me not so much. We have really good equipment that is reliable but there's still that off chance that something could go haywire. I rarely have a load on when I'm home, but in the occasions I do I'll check on my trailer a couple times a day. Kind of a pain on the ### but I'd rather do that then make a call to the office and say "uhhhhhhh, I had a load of ice cream on and when I went to leave my reefer was shut down after sitting a couple of days".

 

Thx husker... Ok thats the usual after 2 hrs detention starts.. I was just wondering how that would work. Better safe than sorry I would check it too. VW would probably decide if you would go home with a load depending on how long u r off or need to b off for more than a few days. Only makes sense.. also do you get holiday pay? I didn't c anything on their website...

 

Stuck in traffic on I 80,snowing like a ###### and traffic isn't moving, was going to try to get into the wings in avoca, only about 6 miles from the place and I burned up my 14 hours waiting for the road to open. I called weekend dispatch, told to get off the road, worry about the delivery time later. I had good weather up until Des Moines, then it got gradually worse! Not to mention a good forecast for this area up until this morning.... Seems like I cannot escape this crap, I had 1 delivery screwed up because of weather, another because of someone dropping a trailer with lights busted off, I'm totally wishing I never left the house Wednesday.

 

I was heading home from seeing the kids yesterday and was happy to have 4x4..cause 90 around worthington was a mess....but now I am out and truckin for the week...picking up in sioux city and taking it to jersey....I made a bone head error today I just grabbed an mt out of the yard...I knew better but it seems I was just being a dunderhead and dale let me know it...but no harm no foul....

 

I've been running for them, now, for about a year. With kind of mixed results. There's a few things I'd like to see different. But, this is largely due to me. Primarily, they run midwest to east coast, with a lot of loads going to the southeast, mainly Virginia. I've always preferred to run more midwest to west coast, but you don't see much of that with Van Wyk. While they are good about getting you home weekly, or so, it seems to be hard to get more than 34 hours when you do get home. In the past, I've generally gone out for two to three weeks and then when I get home, I expect 2 to 3 days. But, if I had something important I wanted to get home for, they've been pretty good about that. So, overall, they rate good on the home time thing. My pay rate, when I came on board was 22%. After the first 90 days, it went to 22.5%, and I think go up another fraction of a percentage at the one year mark. I have about 30 years in this business, but it hasn't been constant. I've gotten in and out and back in a couple of times. Been back in, now, steady since 2004 for what that's worth. One big plus, from my perspective, is they really don't micro-manage drivers that much. I think they tend to want to hire more experienced drivers and then they hope they can just get out of the way and let them doing. Before going to Van Wyk, I was with Gordon/GTI for about 5 years and they seemed to be getting a little silly with all the Qualcomm stuff, lots of micro-management, etc.. Van Wyk pretty much loads you and leaves you alone. You fuel mostly at Pilot and Flying J and pick what you think will be the best route. Unless you get ridiculous, they don't seem to worry much about that. Really, the only thing I'd like to see different is I'd like to be running a bit more of the country. I like to see what's going on out there. More varied scenery. And, what not. I'd say if you've got a little experience, and you're looking for a good, responsible, solvent, and family run operation, with really nice equipment, and reasonably good pay, they're worth taking a look at.

 

Great info two thermos! Ive been debating about making a,move to VW and things considered I am... Only thing I dont really like is no holiday pay and no dental... Other than that all sounds good!

 

The health insurance here isn't all that great, but I still Aflac from when I was with my last company. As for holiday pay, I've only worked at 2 companies that paid it, and miles sucked at both of those companies. I've already made more at vw in the past 8 months than a whole year with my last company, so it makes a difference, plus it's nice that I haven't had to sit between loads all the time.

 

Yea nowadays holiday pay is hit or miss... I was kinda worried about % but it looks as if everyone is making good money regardless..