Werner Enterprises

Perhaps I am shooting myself in the foot here..but through 04-05 I worked for Werner out of Omaha and you could say that my job involved "relations". I would agree that things have changed greatly over the years. I can testify to this by not only my experience there but also having a parent who was employed there for 13 years and a grandfather who drove from them. Werner has lost the "family" touch. I was treated VERY well in my time there, but that does not apply to all. I am sure we have all had different experiences but with that said I would have to agree with the information that I have read in this post.

 

I started my trucking adventure with Werner, right after the CDL school. Finished their training and drove for them for 7 months as a solo driver.

Werner is a training company. Hires people from the scratch. This alone deserves respect for what they are doing.

My own experiences with Werner;

Positive ones;

1-They train you
2-They have more loads than anyone else. If you are on sahara desert with a Werner truck, u will find a load in couple hours at most.
3-Equipment is excelent, and if u drive for them for 3 months and prove them u are the person who can do the job, and then ask your dispatcher for a brand new truck, THEY WILL give you one. Choice of yours, Petes, KWs, Freightliners.
4-Offer training positions, which brings extra bucks but also the risk.
5-Local runs, monday thru friday, day cab, 700 $ fixed paycheck every week, off weekends and at home every nite. Regional runs, dedicated runs and OTR.

Negative ones;

1-It is not a company to drive for long time. Learn what u need to and then move on.
2-0.26 cpm is not correct. They started me .20 cpm and when i asked the answer was becoz i was running WESTERN states. Eventhough they sent me to MD, NC, SC, KY, PA, OH, IN, GA they told me i am running WESTERN region, after 3 months they raised it to .22 cpm.
3-Their trailers are the worst out there. Each time u have to adjust the tandems u will have to get ur hammer and show the trailer who the boss is.
4-They have teams. And teams at Werner are the drivers who they care most. As a solo driver u do not mean a lot to them unless you are trainer. Their teams are divided into 3 groups
a-TeamWerner ( At the top of everything)
b-TeamWerner wannabe teams (regular teams, mostly created because those drivers do not have the balls to drive alone after their training)
c-Trainer/Trainee teams.

So after all these 3 get their own share of loads, as a solo driver, your main role in this company is to get the live load and hand it to them. And if a team arrived early to a shipper, they give them your load, and u wait with their load for the delivery time.

 

I agree. It is a great place to get that one year of experience in but it is a challenge to make it a life long career.

 

dang....you all get up in arms. I swear i hear so much griping about this company. my question is...if you didnt like them WHY work for them?? no company is perfect. Hubby and i are on team werner and we have had our issues with breakdown and such but they were always resolved. Yes, nite dispatch has gotten rather ummm....pissy but they are new ones. Drivers are being let go for being late (not productive) and for high idle times. hell, i dont blame werner for letting them go. If we have drivers that are really continually laggin we lose contracts, meaning we as drivers lose miles. so iffin ya dont like Werner then step off!! go to work for someone else. Other wise sheesh quit yer grippin , sound like a bunch of cacklin hens! For those others...stay safe!
white dove

 

Tell the truth who do you drive for? i was looking into werner but i'm not sure. If your sitting around for a ld,at a truck stop or just sitting at home
can you make money???

 

.20 a mile is low and in fact I don't know how someone could live outside a truck on that.

Those old Wabash tandems really slide like a charm = much harder with 40k+ on them. Hammering is not really the best longterm solution though, a bungee from the inside can be a better solution for that one stuck pin. Getting your Pins set before putting the load on is really the secret. A hammer can work faster it seems though. If those #### Wabash trailers wouldn't last 20 years this wouldn't be a problem, same for the FrankenWeiner trucks.

 

As far as I know, Michael Johnson is in charge of most night dispatching... He's been there 12yrs and I had to explain to him what a MACRO 2 is actually for according to the QC sheet. 12yrs... I figured it out on day 2 before I ever drover their trucks. He's nice in person though.

And after the "correction" from me, he told me he would have the next printing of the sheet reflect "the way it should be." So look for your next printing and see what changes.

I liked the driving, but dispatch and equipment... Not so much. I had better trailers than I expected and there are many new ones out there. The bad ones are really bad, but most I hauled were good'nuff.

As for getting new trucks... Not anymore. They have plenty and are being extremely tight with them now, only issuing those to dedicated accounts as recently as I checked. I needed a new truck and a terminal mgr finally forced my dispatcher to call me in for one. I got one with a red tag on a mirror.

 

Dang, the Werner brainwashing machine is good. Very good. but don't worry, we're working on an antidote as we speak. Don't lose hope.
Seriously, most of us came to Werner after being spoon fed sweet words while at cdl school. I and most of the people I knew had never driven a semi prior to that. We didn' know how closely the schools and companies worked together. So when Werner talked, we listened. We went and found out how things are really run at a very large truck company.
My trainer was a 48 state driver, well, I had two, we would crisscross the country like crazy. He said we pulled about 7000 miles in one week one time. Whether he lied or not is another thing, but i was miffed that his check was going to be wonderful, while I enjoyed my meager $400. Anyhow, when I went solo, couldn't get a good load to save my life. Got to know the people at the railyard in West Memphis really well though.

 

miles are down right now for so many. Our miles are down right now as to a few months ago. We just hang in there. When they send us a load that is pretty much a solo run barely we send a message to our DM about splitting it. She does her best to get us off it. Last winter we were getting close to 7000 a week but we are team. as of late it is closer to 5000 if we dont have any issues with breakdowns. we have a new truck now so hopefully that is done. Any company can be bad. but for us. Werner works. Ask me in a month and the answer may be different. haha. Gotta take the good and bad though ya know.
white dove

 

I have no issues with Werner. Wouldn't work for them at .99 a mile either.

Sooooo.... Let's get this straight. You're a team? And you think that high idle times are good reason for terminating a driver?

Maybe you should show us how GOOD you and your spouse are. And do solo for the next 6 months. But we all know that isn't going to happen. Because you're not really that good, you're just using a dominate position to speak from.

Placing this in proper prospective. Maybe EVERYONE should quit whinning about the economy and fuel prices, because Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have no complaints. So that makes anyone else who complains...a bunch of cackling hens. And they should just "step off" and move to Haiti or someplace warmer.

Let's talk real teams, not husband-wife teams. Ever done 21K miles in 18 days at Werner? Then take a day off and repeat? I doubt it. If so, then I owe you an apology.

In answer to the obvious question. NO I do not consider the majority of husband-wife teams on the road, to be real teams.