Henderson going downhill fast

I've been driving for 23 years. Mostly local equipment but have 7 years OTR experience. I left the business for 3 years to try something new but found my way back in the drivers seat. Now back about 5 years ago, Henderson Trucking was a place where drivers were beating down the door to get in, which is why I chose to go with them when I started driving again. Been with them 8 months now and was hoping to make it to 2 years to meet insurance compnies requirement of 2 yr recent experience for a local job.

Please be warned, drivers can't get out of there fast enough. Operations center is in complete disarray, they don't even have a fax machine that works. Most of the office personnel are family or friends of the family that recently bought the company and none have ever even seen the inside of a truck, little lone driven one, other than one of the planners. They dontctrust any driver. The load assignment have appointment times that are false most the time and they don't tell you if there is a window for P/U and delivery times.

They run the PC mileage zip to zip so you are always shorted miles. They tell you to go someplace at 8am and when you call ahead to double check the load is going to be ready, you find out the product isn't even on the dock yet...won't be here till tomorrow you're told. That happens with every load out of Imperial Valley. Good luck getting layover or detention. You have to constantly wrestle with Bryan Henderson to get any of that. Then its $50 or $25 for two days of sitting.

Their shop in Caseyville won't authorize a hotel room if you have to put your truck in for maintenance or repairs unless you're down for 34 hrs. Then they come and wake you up in the middle of the night and kick you out of the truck because they can't have you in it when it's in the shop. Their driver room consists of a couch, love seat and chair. A 20x20 room that hat has a big screen, vending machine, a filthy microwave and a table. I had to sleep on the couch twice now when my truck is the shop. You're better off just getting a room on your own dime, then wrestle with Bryan to get reimbursed.

They just bought about 20 new Cascadias but half of them are single screw and they all have a new trmp control system that replaces the APU. They spent all that money on new trucks that nobody wants to drive. Thry made 178 million last year and can't even get a washer and dryer in there little lone improve the drivers facilities. Don't even want to get into the fuel bonus program they hype or their leas program.

Old man Earl is retired and the company just took dive. It's a real shame, they used to be one of the best out there. Now they're at the bottom of the barrel as far as a good company to drive for.

Ye hath been warned.

 

Single axle power. The third axle is like a tag axle. You cannot lock your differential in if you get stuck in a dip or need the extra power to the drivers. They don't have the ability. If you look down at the drivers on a typical 3 axle truck, you will see two differential housing cases, one for each axle. A " single screw" only has the one for the 1st drive axle. They ordered them like that to see if they get better fuel mileage than the typical duel screw configuration.

 

Granted....fuel is a huge expense for a trucking company, in fact it's the biggest expense. But that single screw thing is ging to far. That could leave the driver really hanging in the wind.

 

It still has three axles. Shortens the wheel base by maybe a foot. But that poses problems when none of the trucks we run have sliding fifth wheels. We only have refer units and some of our trucks are KW T660's. So when a solo in a KW picks up a heavy load and drops it in a ysrd for a team in one of the single screw Casadias for repowering the load....the team might get....screwed. Chances are they'll have to run with half tanks or less. They've created a real cluster @##$.