Anyone happy with FFE?

FFE should be poisoned, stabbed, shot, hung, stretched, disemboweled, drawn and quartered.
Place sucks, man.

 

I was very happy with FFE for the 2 years I was there.... untill kllm bought them out... if you go to ffe know this... you WILL NOT BE AN FFE DRIVER you will be placed into a kllm truck and will be a kllm company driver...point blank

So question is... how do you feel about kllm?


...good luck with kllm... they are the reason alot of ffe drivers left to pursue other endevors

 

Concise, and to the point.

 

I just got finished with the training in fort worth texas didn't have any problems their...The recent graduates that came back to see the trainer's ..They was happy saying that they averaged 3,000 miles a week with some saying 3,400 miles a week ...That was 9 driver's all happy ...The people in my class went to line haul because they was all from Texas but they will be with KLLM ..I got a dedicated ltl but I will actually be a FFE driver...So you don't know what name you will be under until you finish the course..I think you will be with FFE because they need driver's in that area so most likely you will get a route from my understanding is Texas to Chicago back to Organ than Texas... I might be wrong on that route but it should be something that take you back to Organ...Hope that help

 

I trained and did my year with FFE. Most of the other students in my class went to the oilfield division. I stayed OTR. The two drivers I kept in touch with who were in the oilfield have moved on. I got my 10+k miles per week but my fleet mgr wasn't a big help and after a 3 hr wait for a lumper check, I quit. I will say this FFE or KLLM.....way better than CR England, or Werner and you've got to start somewhere ... Good luck

 

have fun with kllm/ffe/fflm or what ever you want to call them

 

All of those companies suck. Anyone happy with those kind of companies are either lying or still wet behind the ears with little experience. Just keep asking questions and jumping from one frying pan to another until one day you'll wise up and get hired with a real company.

 

We could have a 15 hour conversation about this, or you could take my and the majority of responses advise- get with Prime if you can, or someone who has APU's and more than one particular style of hauling available (IE:dry van and flatbed or tanker, not just one or the other) this will allow you experiment with what you want to do long term in your career. The APU is vital unless you're in a truck that can idle flat out (and I don't mean some crappy ### opti-idle either); that is unless you don't mind waking up in a 20 degree cab during winter, or a 120 degree cab during summer.

Keep your options open, and bear in mind that training contract is BINDING. Ain't no getting out of it, regardless of whatever whoever tells you. You leave before that year is up (which starts the DAY YOU GET YOUR SOLO TRUCK) and you're asking to pay it back, in effect.

My first six months with FFE as a solo otr driver was an amazing experience, not because they're a great company, not because the equipment is new or they have (or rather, had) some good freight lines. Nope, nope, nope- my first six months with FFE I had a certain Mr.Paul L that was my driver manager.
See, Paul was the newbie wrangler. He got half of all the new trainees, such as yourself, that had just gotten their trucks. Paul and I got along great from the start. I'll break off in a little tangent here, because I'm procrastinating; but you'll probably get a chuckle.

When I first got on the Greydog lumbering on its way to Ft.Worth, I had 35 hours straight to be excited about what I was about to do. I was gon` be me a trucker man! I loved the idea of it, still do. Still love driving, which is a good thing to love as a driver
The day I arrived in Ft.Worth I caught a ride down to Mony Street with another guy who was on the buss with me; turns out we were both going on over to FFE. We bunked together over at the La`Quinta (place sucks big time, btw) and got started on homework/relaxing/ect. The next morning all of almost 70 people show up for the first day. By the end of the day, 20 people had been weeded out just for medical eval failures. The next day, we'd lost about another 10. We lost a pretty steady amount of people, averaged around 2-3 a day due simply to FFE wanting us to show we could learn to drive a truck. NOT TO LEARN HOW TO, JUST TO LEARN HOW TO LEARN.
People getting booted because they'd screw up in shifting, or continually take turns too short or too wide.

We lost half the class on the final day. We went from 70 people, to just 9 making it through.

Suffice to say morale was low, we were all tired- we'd gotten our CDL's and made it through the school. We thought we'd jumped through all the hoops, and would get a nice 1-2 day break at the hotel in Lancaster during orientation. The worst was behind us, right?

Nope.

Hit the ground running in Lancaster, orientation starts not even 15 minuets after we get out room keys. 2 days we sit there, bored out of our minds and we'd all come to find WE STILL HAD TO DO ANOTHER INTERVIEW! I was pissed. I was super pissed. I couldn't help but continually think "For the love of Christ, I've gone through all this crap, all this work, got lucky enough to make it through the mill only to have this huge unmentioned hurdle come up!?" Interview went okay for me, not so okay for a couple guys.
We went down to 7 guys.
We were all annoyed at this point.

So orientation ends, and we get shipped to the truck yard to wait for our trainers and work on protread.
No one told us anything about further meetings, up to this point.
Sam, the equipment manager (a real putz-a-roonie and a freakin half) calls up the whole class into a conference room. We're all sitting there, dumbfounded that we have YET ANOTHER MEETING with ZERO NOTICE.
I'm dressed in a Browns Jersey and flip flops. I see Paul L in the corner of the room, Sam walks out, I lean over and tell him "Ambushed us with the meeting, nice."
Turns out Paul was a safety manager. We #### chat for a few minuets, Sam walks back in and looks at me. "Oh what the hell son, you couldn't even get dressed up a little for this?" I mutter something along the lines of "Well no one told us about a meeting..."
Same says "What would your teacher say if you walked into school like that."

Now, something you folks need to know about me; I'm pretty easy going! I have a temper, and sometimes I have a short fuze. But on the whole I'm 90% levelheaded.
But this was two steps too far. This was bull ####.

We stare at each other for half a second. He's clearly expecting a reply, or an apology.

I keep my eyes locked on his.
"Well sir, I was home-schooled, and my teacher was a b-****."

Paul's standing in the corner, silently laughing his ### off.



Paul became a driver manager in the time it took me to get my solo truck, and just happened to be mine when I started.

He was great guy, still floating around somewhere, I'm sure. Last heard he was heading back to the rails.


Boy, that guy would bend over backwards to make sure you didn't get screwed. And in the off chance you did; he'd make it up twice fold at least.
Always concerned about the driver, ALWAYS!

I wish I appreciated him more while he was my DM, he left due to health concerns and hating his job as I recall.
After he left I had a few lemons for DM's and really hated my job.



PS- I just wanted to also mention that Sam and I always had a jovial relationship after this. He's a bully, but only if you let him be one. And Sam, on the entirely off chance you're reading this- miss ya bud. And all the cigarettes your cheap ### bummed off me, but hey that's life.