Boyd Orientation

In a nutshell, I am now at the end of the 2 weeks (1 week of orientation, 1 week of securement training) and I am lukewarm about this place.

Orientation week was ok. Extremely boring. Get a taste for coffee if you don't have one already and make SURE you get adequate rest every night. Shuttle to terminal leaves at 0630 every morning on the DOT. I mean David literally watches the clock and hits the gas as soon at it ticks to 0630. He does not stop. Do not test it. Be on time. David is very knowledgeable and very to-the-letter.

Load Securement week was good. Rodney is a great guy. Very informative, laid back but no nonsense when it comes to safety. Rodney emphasizes knowing WHERE TO LOOK for answers over memorizing them. I very much prefer this approach in an industry that demands us to remember a ton of information, and constantly changing laws and regulations. His way is simple: "Make sure you know where to go if you don't know. When you do this enough, you will eventually memorize the information anyway". He understands TRUE memorization comes with time and application.

The Friday of the 2nd week is where my issues began. FIrst off, I found out the hard way that for some reason these people wait until after you last class to start fixing any issues your assigned trucks have, which I cannot understand for the life of me. You KNOW WELL in advance that you will need trucks for these guys on this day; why not have them ready to roll? I am currently sitting in a hotel waiting for a guy to drive 2 hours to Birmingham to give me a ride 10 miles down the street to the terminal so that I can finally get my truck, get my equipment and drive home for hometime (because apparently though they have roughly 6-7 company vehicles on the lot, NO ONE could be found to come pick me up. Yes, you read that correctly.

I'm iffy about this company because from experience, companies that are very disorganized also tend to cost drivers money through their inefficiency. I am in no way trashing the company, but I will be honest in my experiences. So far Boyd strikes me as yet another company where the right hand has no ##### clue what the left hand is doing and those types of companies will get you your 2800+ mile weeks at first, then the true face shows itself and you find yourself dealing with ridiculously incompetent dispatchers, egotistical supervisors and moronic/lazy mechanics that take 5 hours to replace a tire because they prefer to #### chat about the football game, costing YOU money (he's paid hourly; the slower he goes the better). You would think given the effort they put into recruiting that they would take the time to put forth a good first impression to brand new drivers, yet almost everyone in my class had to sit around the yard for at least 4 hours after class was over on Friday to have repairs done. Some even minor like mine. Some of the trucks, like mine, still had some trash and items from the previous driver in them, but that's cool. I'm not picky. They were all relatively clean and we can just throw away what little trash is left. My issue, again, is that it seems they put no effort into sending us off on a strong leg on our very first loads at least.

So yeah...I'm excited to start rolling, but I will be keeping my eyes peeled wide open for those red flags I have learned to watch for over the years.

Notes for prospective drivers:

- They double you up in hotel rooms. I don't care WHAT you recruiter tells you, they double you up. If you want your own room, you have to pay half of the rate. WHether that's a big or not is up to you.

- They charge you for lots of things here. Your physical, your hard hat, your pull bar, your 2 inch straps, decent work gloves, decent safety glasses, TWIC card, etc. You pay through deductions, but if you notice, everything listed is something you MUST have. I kind of have an issue with my footing the TOTAL bill for equipment I MUST have in order to drive for Boyd as they benefit as well from me having the equipment. Their fuel card seems very unstable, so I would highly suggest you set up direct deposit though be warned, doing so initially will have your very first check mailed to you, as it takes some time to fully set up the direct deposit. bring your birth certificate as they do pay for a passport card and will send you up to get it during load securement week.

- Boyd also strikes me as a company that requires you to grab your beanbag. What I mean is, if you allow them to run over you (dispatchers, fleet managers, etc) they will do so. You will have to be mannerable and cooperative, but assertive. If you are busting your butt and you are due some hometime and someone tries to sneak you out of it, you will have to stand your ground. I did NOT say complain and whine. I am saying you need to know how to get your point across and play politics. They will dump on the whiny underachievers all day long, but if they see you as a valuable driver, they will make things happen for you. Again, they are frantically recruiting right now, offering nice amounts of money for referrals. They want to keep the productive drivers they already have hence the reason they have so many Million Milers. They see you as a money maker, they will do whatever it takes to keep you happy. The best trucks, best pay, best loads, best hometime. Use that to your advantage.

- Pack efficiently. You may be asked to change hotel rooms several times due to people leaving and therefore, in order to make sure folks are doubled up, they will move drivers around. No way around it unless you pay for half of the room.

- Bring comfortable shoes and socks to class, you will be walking, climbing, etc. Don't buy any steeltoe boots as they offer a great discount on some Wolverine work boots. They also deduct these and mail them to your home. The price in my opinion is a very good deal.

- Hotel has free wifi and it's pretty fast, so I'd bring my laptop.

Will update occasionally, but as I said...lukewarm so far. Let's hope it gets better.