CELADON is not a place you want to be!!!!!!!

I have been here at Celadon for about a month, and I came from the same place you did... I have been offered a dedicated aerospace run ("conestoga") which will guaranty me $1050 a week... Celadon is going to bankrupt me if I stay... They can't keep me loaded, and are stealing from me... (Mandating a practical route, then paying short HHG miles is stealing!!!) Think Smokey Point Distributing, they have freight out of Tulsa!!! BOEING!!! I will be operating out of Wichita...

 

Im surprised I dont hear Celadon advertisements all over the radio like some of the other comparable mega carriers out there.

 

They are running their own school!!! They are also busy buying out other carriers, and hoping to keep the driver pools... While buying driver and customer pools might make business sense, keeping them would even make more sense...

 

'The class action lawsuit alleges that Celadon breached its Lease Agreement with the drivers by deducting from the drivers’ compensation more in fuel charges than Celadon paid to Pilot Flying J for those fuel charges because, unbeknownst to the drivers, Celadon had a deal with Pilot Flying J that Celadon would only pay a lower “discount price” for fuel purchased by the drivers. The lawsuit also alleges that despite only paying Pilot Flying J the lower discount price for the fuel, Celadon withheld from the drivers’ compensation the higher price “pump price” of the fuel."

More here;

http://www.cohenandmalad.com/news/c...s-improper-withholdings-drivers-compensation/

 

Sounds like another fine, upstanding mega trucking company.

 

I was for a while, I keep hearing advertisements from a lot of the other small "megas" on my XM. Part of the deal on XM for a class 8 truck must be agreeing to listen to commercials about how a company with 2000 trucks "knows you by name" and "treats you like family"

What a crock...provides for a good laugh though, I'm not paying for the service, and makes me all the more thankful I don't have to put up with that garbage anymore.

 

Yea...It's typical advertising. It begs the question...if it's such a great company and offers so much income, then why are they advertising on national radio? Usually if something is so great you wont hear about it on commercials. They use tricky language too. Like "drivers can earn up to x a year" and "regular hometime" whatever that means. My recent favorite is "hometime and miles". An OTR driver should know that you cant make miles sitting at home all the time. If you do have the option of regular hometime you have to limit it so you can keep your mileage up. Theres a sucker born every minute.

 

Being a formal lease driver, I can tell you right now that they violate more than just that contract. The school, for example, that is supposed to be 4 weeks is generally a month and a half. They were taking tons of money out for my fuel, more than what I could ever spend in a week, they still owe me for over 2,000 miles which they refuse to pay for, they fight with you when you need to get repairs and all the while the vehicle they sold you should never had passed an inspection; this is just a few of the problems. I'm going to check into this suit as it has my attention.

 

Yet another satisfied driver....Celadon must be the best!!!

 

I've been cupping my balls since day one of their school. Upon being done with my trainer (Awesome Guy btw) and picking up my "abandon" truck, it was in the shop after that weekend for a full week worth of repairs. Even though this truck got fully detailed and blah blah, you would think that someone could've spotted the engine light coming on etc when they look over them? No, that is asking to much. My first load gets jacked from me so i sat a good 48hrs before I finally got headed some where right after the truck got out of the shop. Never got paid for any thing either other then picking up the abandon truck. 35$ which paid for my meals two days in the hotel for the long run. LOL!

The list goes on, so lets name a few.

Slow trucks (63mph) while in speed limits of 70mph? I would've thought that would be impeding traffic, while in the right lane at that. More cars pass me on a day to day basis then I can count. From my experience thus far it makes the driver more prone to being in an accident with so many cars passing him constantly and performing their daily ignorance. Just my two cents there.

Loads I end up receiving are already late (Forced Dispatch) too, 100miles this or 560miles that. It burns up your hours galore and makes for poor trip planning because traffic etc vary day in and day out. I have yet to break 3k miles a week due to crappy loads, shipper/receivers, and this slow governed speed limit truck. -.-

To note, these internationals (Junk) can hardly pull a 24k lb load up a tiny hill much less from a stop. So aggravating. It just got out the shop for another week worth of repairs earlier this month. Had to call in just to make sure I am getting paid for it.

My DM, don't know him/her and they change out every 1-3 days. I prefer the weekend planner I had last week telling me I should get paid for this and that, company needs to do this and that. Ohh, after running mountainous terrain all night of 560miles for 11hours, when its eventually time for sleep that new DM has the nerve to call me and wake me up for another poo assignment before my 10 is up. You would think since forced dispatch, I would already be assigned that load? Why do you need my confirmation? Long story short, don't spam mesg/call me while sleeping after a long day and you know I am tired. Anyway, I can't remember the last load I had over 600miles going some where far that I could actually pick up on time.

Today I had to:

fuel
pick up an empty
go to shipper that was suppose to be drop'n hook (580mile run) but as soon as I grabbed the empty (No) You're not assigned to this load (My 70 is semi screwed) yet again.
So after I having sat for 2 days last week which screwed my 70, I just got another load jacked from me and here I sit.

Every time I get an empty shippers are always like wtf? Clearly they need em and celadon needs more trailers as well.

Payroll, you sit on the phone for 1hr up to 6hrs. Just to get my direct deposit fixed for example took them three weeks. They had the information, so what the hell was the problem? Oh, that last step wasn't completed to see it through huh, wow Geee. Need I say more?

I'm tired and sick of all the headache from this place. It's highly disorganized, they don't care about you and their internationals are garbage. I am looking for another company at this point as of what happen yesterday. I stuck it out through the first few rough times, but the #### pile just won't stop building at this point. This dried out pile is about to tumble if it doesn't cave first. Who is hiring?