GORDON TRUCKING is a sespool for drivers!!!!

Victor -- nearly every otr carrier releases drivers from responsibility when parked, so pretty much any time you spend "resting" with the yellow knob out can be logged off-duty.


As for scales, many trucks have a drive axle load gauge built in to the multi-meter dash readout so you can often get everything nice and legal (or at least very close) before hitting a scale to verify. 99% of the time, a 41' tandem setting works (as long as you arent going to California).

Having trouble stopping on just the right hole? Place a wheel chock next to your drives however far you need to slide.

 

A Mac 9 is a driver's defense at Gordon against loads that can't be done within HOS or for some other reason. In my experience at Gordon, there is definite push back when you object to a load and the Mac 9 allows you to explain your reason. It protects you. As long as your reason holds water, you'll be okay. I quit Gordon after an unreasonable load demand. I could have Mac 9'd it; could have shown that I hadn't recovered from loss of sleep on the trip in; that I had been up all day rigging a new-to-me truck and getting my gear out of soon-to-be retired truck. I was ready to leave Gordon. Told them I would do it but not promise any further loads and QualCommed and emailed two week notice right then and there.

Gordon does not educate new drivers on how to competently object to a load. It never came up in my Orientation. I learned that from other more experienced Gordon drivers.

 

I'd just as soon get paid for that time... if I'm doing work for Gordon like scaling, fueling, getting in and out of a shipper/receiver I consider it both on-duty and time that I should get paid for... but let's not start that up here. Did I minimize it? Yes. Do I minimize it now working part-time and paper logs. Yes. Even though I don't need it! Habit, I guess...

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Great idea... measure with a tape distance you need, tandems don't move, so mark distance from front or back of drives with a chock. Cool!

10th hole was good starting point on most Gordon loads. Air suspension gauges are wonderful to decide you don't need to scale... You're right, though, I could have used the air suspension to better fine tune the load before I hit the scale. If you know you're close and you need fuel, you need to scale once before fueling to get a ballpark on how much fuel to take on so it can easily turn into three times across.

That's time Gordon fails to pay for. Bites into your pay if the load is a 0-300 mile stinker. No matter what...

 

Hey Joe. You should come on down to GATS and meet Terry a.k.a traffic control and see the beautiful equipment that he drives here at JCT. He will be there with several other drivers including myself

 

I understand where you're coming from, but OTR is not paid hourly. Its mileage. Its like commission... A car salesman can work 30 hours for "free" and then make all his money in a couple of sales over a few hours.

 

Amen. Switching you out a load you had worked to get set for was definitely one of my peeves. Also misleading information about load windows. I learned that some 'Service Watch' loads showed needing delivery in just enough time to get there (to keep you moving) actually had a longer 'window'--it wasn't a rush after all. Gordon just wanted me to think I had to get it there ASAP.

 

The OP here (Wolfin) is frustrated and angry and, maybe because of that isn't very articulate (sorry). All the same he deserves respect because he did drive for Gordon and he apparently worked a year there. I'm going to try restate some of OP's complaints. I'd like to suggest to those who want to jump in with personal, snarky comments, why not just hold your fire?

Hold your fire because a thread about Gordon's shortcomings could lead, perhaps, to a better company. Gordon can be better. We all can. That's a fact. Be advised that if you respond to this post, it will change over the next 24 hours, which is the window Truckers Report gives to make edits. So consider holding your fire.

The OP says it was better before. He does this over and over in different ways. I heard this a lot in the Pacific Northwest when I worked for Gordon. There was a sense of helplessness and lots of frustration. Former Haney drivers I met were angry. I never met a former Buske driver. A mechanic told me that Buske treated its drivers well, despite rough equipment.

Gordon was a lot smaller way back when, too. I am just amazed by the growth--and the cost of that growth--that Gordon has pushed itself through. I live near a small town. When I go into town I always bump into someone I know. In Southern California I might never have a 'real' conversation for weeks. Too many people to do that. Yet, to this day, whether Gordon likes me or not, I do think they knew me in Indy.

The OP says he felt a lot of finger-pointing done to avoid blame. I saw that Driver Managers we're under a lot of pressure, too. So the OP didn't feel 'safe' because he felt likely to be blamed. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, advocates firing the bottom 10%-15% of every department and required all departments do just that--every year. Has been criticized for lack of compassion. I wondered if the Gordons hadn't been influenced by Welch-management-tactics.

Operations definitely documented every little thing. The Gordon office had a running tally of everything; it wasn't always right and my Fleet Manager might try flaunt the negative at me and hide the positive. The Recruiter did the opposite--"You get credit for that..." So Gordon has this very subjective, ongoing driver evaluation system. My hunch is the DMs are under the same scrutiny in Jack Welch fashion. Cut the bottom 10%%-15% every year.

The OP says that Gordon is retaliatory with a purpose to keep you at Gordon and make it difficult to go elsewhere. If you look around here (Truckers Report) you will run into claims of such retaliatory treatment. (I think a lot of drivers would decline to say anything negative about a former employer for just that reason.) So is there a Gordon glow on you when you get approved and signed up that kind of goes away once you get absorbed into the Gordon system? I think so.

But I was impressed again and again how I could walk into the office and, unprompted, they knew me by name. Gordon has 2000 drivers, after all. Would Gordon retaliate if a driver left... ummm, maybe. You'll find credible reports here of drivers fired for even thinking of leaving. Driver turnover is a big headache.

Responders who attack personally, claim you're not the 'right kind' of person and make snarky personal comments do make me wonder how many Gordon recruiters have signed up here. Like sharks in a feeding frenzy swarming in on you from all different directions at the same time. Now, that's fresh meat for you! It's the 'other' side of sour grapes. You left, got a better job and somehow that makes you wrong.

Absolutely. But it's only fair to warn others.

Having said that, I would not hesitate to recommend Gordon because of excellent equipment, terriffic driver support and a safe place to park your CDL. I don't regard Gordon as a 'bad' trucking company. There's room for improvement, especially on pay for what GreyHound called 'short ruins' (short runs, 0-300 miles). Despite the short 'ruins', Gordon helped me improve as a driver and I'm thankful for that.

Gordon has it down to a science how to keep you moving, whether by 0-300 mile 'stinker' loads or longer runs. However long you stay out, whether the 5-1/2 day Mythical 5-and-5 or 3-4 weeks, you will rarely twiddle your thumbs. At one point the OP complains about sitting and I'm just not sure what he means there, unless he means the time waiting to load/unload that Gordon does not pay the driver for. Overall, Gordon's pay did not add up to much.

Surprisingly, one of the other knocks the OP makes on Gordon is too many miles. I did hear this, too. One driver, for example, said that when the Indy recruiter was a DM he always overloaded the driver with miles and wouldn't get him home--"until we had it out one day." Said he always had 3500 miles/week that he didn't want until that blow out.

Seems like I'm always knocking the Indy Recruiter but there's a guy with plenty of experience as driver, DM and recruiter. A good guy, I liked him. I just wonder now what he did in there when he had that office door so conspicuously closed. And whether he's logged on here right now reading this with that door shut. Could very well be!

Anyway, as CougFan said, "you can't be a truck driver without a black belt in pi$$ing and moaninng."

To the JCT folks posting here: This thread is about Gordon. Go find a room. (There is a JCT thread under worst--probably one under best, too.)

 

I don't have a dog in this fight. I have never, nor will ever, drive for Gordon. Not because they are evil, or because they are great. I have no desire to run OTR when I can make just as much working local (although if I needed to I would go OTR in a second). What's my point you ask? Simple. If you are not happy in your job, quit and go find what makes you happy. Life is way too short to work for a company that you are not happy with....

 

Well you should believe it. I have only been with JCT a short time but last week was 3647 mile week on e-logs. Now I don't know where some people learned how to do math, but lets break it down. 11 hours of drive time a day and lets say that you only drive 10 of those and average 60 M.P.H that is 600 miles a day. You can drive 70 hours in 8 days. 600 times 70 is 4200 miles then you would be out of hours and need a restart or at least wait for recap hours for a day or so. So we can see that 3200 to 3900 is realistic even with e-logs. Before anybody starts arguing it the e-logs keep you legal and therefore out of the scales and inspection bays, saves you time at fuel stops and on pretrips. No more 15 minute increments eating up that 14 and 70 hour clock.

 

“There are essentially two things that will make you wise -- the books you read and the people you meet.”