My Quality Drivers/Celadon experience April 2014

Yep, I was seeing their locations map, sorry. "Currently we only have one driving school location. It is located at 9050 East 33rd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46235."

 

Thank ya for this lovely information.

Good luck at the BMV if you haven't gone already.

 

I quit my previous sales job for the same reason.....I couldn't take it anymore. I took a low paying job but have to work night shifts and on call. But I know I'm only doing it temporarily, so hopefully I can hang on until I get my car paid off and a a couple of months saved until I can go to trucking school.

 

Noticed this evening on Cals website, "Gadsden, Alabama — We are excited to announce the opening of our second driving school location! Our first class in Gadsden will be on Monday, June 2nd. Call (855) 209-5524 to get signed up today!"

 

Called a recruiter yesterday and this wasn't on their site. Must have just been listed as of yesterday. It is 100miles closer then Indy.


@Dumblon


SWIFT was very similar. Had to wait for 6 people to do all three backing procedures. I personally found it enough and fairly easy. Road time how ever in the three weeks I was there consisted of only 34miles says my logs. Needed more road time if anything.

 

I copied, and pasted, it from their site. It is, or was, there.

Spoke to a lady, from there today, and she was going to email me information. Nothing in my email though.

 

All my dealings with Celadon have been totally exasperating. I called the recruiter number and spoke to someone who couldn't stop coughing and had to put me on hold a couple of times in order to obtain answers to my questions.

She first gave me the skinny about their school but I decided it would not be a good option since I live in NC. I indicated my driving school tuition was paid for through a WIA grant and the school was only two miles from my house so it was an easy commute. That's when the exasperation set in...

If I come from a different CDL program than theirs I have to show employment for 18 months prior to working for them. Well at least one month would be spent at school getting the license. I stated that I have been unemployed for a couple of years and that was the whole point of the WIA grant and career change - to get a job in a high-demand field. I was told too bad.

Most trucking companies I've dealt with thus far only require you account for periods of unemployment. Since the person with whom I spoke was such a ditz, I went to Celadon's FB page to make inquiries. No answer. I went to their web site and sent an email. No answer. I finally called HR earlier this week and left a VM. Still no call-back.

I have come to the conclusion that Celadon wants prospective employees to attend their own school. With the high turnover in the industry, if you go through their program they pretty much "own" you and can wring as much out of you as possible.

 

You have pretty much nailed it. Trucking is a very stressful job. the stress does not begin when you go solo. You are experiencing it now. If this is too much I doubt trucking is for you. Not trying to bad mouth but educate. Stress come in all flavors in trucking. to dispatcher that sent you an a load that is not there, Traffic that seems to target you, shippers that cannot find the load your after. Pay checks that seem to be wrong a lot. Truck in shop cutting into pay. waiting for a parking spot that some one else gets.. Just a few of the many stress invoking things to ruin a day.
How you handle it is the key. Stress is unhealthy. To be successful in trucking one has to be able to adapt to change at a moments notice. Plans go out the window with one phone call. The truck wont start , Customer canceled load and your ready to go. Yes I agree with you that they do want you to go to their school. The biggest reasons is the govt pays them for you to go to their school and to be a student in one of their trucks. They get subsidized for the pay you are getting so it costs them little to put you in a truck and deliver the same product an experienced driver does. The worst abuser of this concept is CRE. nuff said on that. If the desire to be a trucker is strong enough and you have the patience of jobe you will succeed.
High turnover rate is too high. At near 100% industry wide you wonder how do companies survive.

 

Gordon, since I haven't yet begun school I can't address the issues you indicated. I'm just working on pre-hire letters and it peeves me no end that a company would preclude someone from employment for being unemployed. Even more frustrating is that nobody will answer an email or phone call.