Heartless Gordon

####! I hate hearing things like this, but somehow I'm not much surprised.

I've been with them for a few years, but I'm sure looking for somewhere else to go. If you'd asked me before applying to them, I would have said, "Run. Don't walk. Away from them." I think there was a time when it was a good company, but like so many of these, it's now being run by the bean counters, the lawyers, and bunch of freaking kids. They micromanage drivers to death, interrupt you several times a day with "safety messages" so elemental that if you don't already know this stuff, you'd have no business being in a truck, anyway.

Another driver I talked to recently had a death in the family and it took them 10 days to get the driver home.

Equipment is not all that much to write home about, either. Trucks governed at from 60 to 63 depending on what your home terminal is. If you get one with apu, and the bunk heater or a/c goes out, you may just have to live with that for days, regardless of weather, til they get you to one of their shops. You can't override the idle shutdown on the ones fitted with apu's.

I'm looking around for a smaller company with a good safety record and doesn't mind drivers calling on the phone if they need a quick question answered or run into a problem. Normally you'll go for days and never talk to your driver manager except thru the Qualcomm. They like it best if you NEVER call. I could go on, but I'm sure the drift is obvious.

 

Spent just shy of 5 years (4 years and 11 months) driving for Gordon.

Left them a year ago last March.

Took a bit of getting used to at the outfit I left them for. I had gotten a bit too accustomed, I guess, to being micro-managed. I even called Gordon up about 4 months after having left to talk about going back. Batted it back and forth for two or three weeks, thought I'd go back, and was then told I had a few "overspeeds" on my record. Apparently I got it all the way up over 65 a couple of times rolling down some of those big hills out west? Well, screw that. Nobody said anything about it at the time. Life is too short to be puddling along in one of those 60/63 mph trucks, anyway.

Anyway, now that I'm settled in here, I may not be making quite as much as I was at Gordon (but not much less), and I've gotten used to something that more resembles real trucking, again. I reckon at this time, there's no way I'd go back to Gordon. Yes, there are some good folks at Gordon, but it's still a bureaucracy. I think most of the time, you're better off with a solid smaller company. Once a carrier gets over 200 to 300 trucks or so, this is what seems to happen. I've been running for my current company for a year and 2 months, and right now I wouldn't think of leaving these guys til I quit for good. Which, I guess, probably won't be for another 4 years, yet.

Anybody that finds themselves in the kind of situation Windjammer did (hopefully he's since got it worked out), what I'd do is look around closer to home for a solid smaller company that has a good reputation. Call 'em up on the phone and chat with them. Tell the recruiter about what happened to you with the Gordon application, and see what they've got to say. Anybody who hires you on, your first 90 days are going to be probationary, anyway. Get through that and if you can drive and are reliable, they'll want to hang on to you. Just realize that anybody running a trucking operation has enormous amounts of crap to deal with and it all comes with liabilities up the yazoo. To them, until you become known, you're just a big question mark.

 

Yeah, that's GTI alright. After 11 months, I made the mistake of looking for opportunities (after they missed getting me home for my anniversary). The FM got a letter from Interstate asking to confirm my employment. He then told me he wasn't going to send me out anymore since I was "looking at leaving". I guess we're supposed to be so loyal that we couldn't even see if someone has a better offer....

 

What happend didnt work with gordon????

 

oh, none of described issues stop until you get out of big companies altogether. they do micromanage you because dispatchers want to put on qualcom as much as they can to show they do work. all the excuses go there, all their "efforts to save load". because they type from their pc and you have to type with one finger and pull over to do so. some are obsessive texters, some love to document one thing and call you to say something different off the record. that's nothing new.
what you've described with speeding at scary 65mph, ####, maybe even 66!! goes to the same bin. that is "if a driver went over regulations and saved the load, those were his dispatcher's miraculous deeds. a simple dispatcher just helped his company regardless of that lazy and stupid driver. if a driver went over limits, say put chains and went over the pass and crashed, that, my friend, is on you! your dispatcher didn't have a chance to prevent you from failing him and the company" you've been trucking for 30 years and still don't get that?
i've been chatting with some folks at a ts and a gordon driver actually complained much about equipment. said he has to run broke truck or he won't have anything to run as it takes the shops forever to fix anything. he said that there are no more good mechanics left and it shows. i suggested that he fixed his rig right there at TA, but he said that won't be authorized.
it seems odd to me. if they don't have mechanics to fix his truck, why won't they let TA fix it? less money then pay for breakdown on the road, pay ticket, get scores down and possibly look for another driver.
i'm glad i don't have to touch anything older then 5 years.