Systems Transport

Any driver can teach you more than what you learned in trucking school because by the time your done with trucking school you will know less than nothing. You'll think you know a bunch of a #### and it's mostly all worthless ######## because all trucking school does is get you a CDL which you'll figure out after about 6 months out here. As soon as you get out of trucking School and get into a truck and start running loads is when you start to learn anything about trucking.

You don't have to actually share a bed with him because the trucks are double bunks (bunk beds) but your living in a truck together and that 72" box isn't even big enough for one person let alone two. Especially when he's a power hungry ### hole like most all trainers are. The best trainer you will ever work with is someone who isn't a trainer or didn't want to be a trainer. The trainers who sign up for it do so because they get off on hoarding their power over someone else forced into a confined space with their sorry incompetent dirty ###. They do it for the money to and some even start out with good intentions, but it's short lived. I always have fun demeaning these power hoarding trainers in front of their students telling them what their poor naive student can't yet say to them, but wishes they could.

Don't waste your time arguing with a recruiter they don't have any power to do anything, but get you a plane ride up there. Talking with dispatch if you could get their numbers would get you somewhere, but you wouldn't even know what to ask. Talking with John or Bobbi would get you somewhere, but they would tear you apart in a second and end up getting what they want anyways. They do it all day everyday. If you don't have experience negotiating and dealing with people in a business setting you don't have a chance.

The truth is your going to be the green horn,FNG however you like to put it wherever you go. That's not just trucking,but life. When your new to something you always have a little of the "pay your dues" and "prove your self" BS to deal with. I tried to ignore it and went in with a chip on my shoulder much like you reassured my intense research would mean something. It just caused me more trouble than it was all worth though.

Now for the 3rd time your just going to have to give it a shot and see if you like it. You keep sucking me back into it, but I'm really done now! LOL

 

I just got the call from recruiting to. Watch out MILKTANKER YOUR NEXT! Seems they hired a lady out of Virginia to try to bring back all the people on their eligible for rehire list. She just told me of the new pay scale i posted up earlier. Told me i would have to go through orientation which is 4 days currently, but they are switching their orientation process over to a computerized system where you do it on a laptop in the classroom which could cut it down to as low as 3 days once that system is fully operational.

Just for fun I punched the new #'s into my 2014 spread sheet for them to see what it would have been like. This was for 10 months working with them.

Old pay scale
[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl73, colspan: 3"]Overall Performance Evaluation 2014 YTD[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl69"]weekly avg gross pay[/TD]
[TD="class: xl67"] $ 1,103.95[/TD]
[TD="class: xl66"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl70"]Avg paid miles per week[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]2653.93[/TD]
[TD="class: xl66"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl70"]Pay per mile[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65"]$0.416[/TD]
[TD="class: xl68"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl70"]Calculated Gross income[/TD]
[TD="class: xl64"] $ 49,843.56[/TD]
[TD="class: xl68"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl70"]# of weeks paid[/TD]
[TD="class: xl63"]37.16[/TD]
[TD="class: xl68"][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

New pay Scale (.40CPM) Averaged out across the sliding pay scale as my average trip length for 2014 was [TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"]1349.51Miles[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl65"] [TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl75, colspan: 3"]Overall Performance Evaluation 2014 YTD[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl71"]weekly avg gross pay[/TD]
[TD="class: xl69"] $ 1,249.92[/TD]
[TD="class: xl68"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl72"]Avg paid miles per week[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65"]2653.93[/TD]
[TD="class: xl68"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl72"]Pay per mile[/TD]
[TD="class: xl67"]$0.471[/TD]
[TD="class: xl70"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl72"]Calculated Gross income[/TD]
[TD="class: xl66"] $ 56,433.93[/TD]
[TD="class: xl70"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl72"]# of weeks paid[/TD]
[TD="class: xl65"]37.16[/TD]
[TD="class: xl70"][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

It comes out to a solid 7k per year raise no matter how you cut it for us long haul guys and working at Systems is not really hard work. We run E-logs so you can't run hard even if you want to. The trucks are all newer with APU's and go into the shop for even a light bulb. I #### you not I have put a truck into the shop and they charged 50 bucks to change a light bulb because i didn't feel like dealing with it and the company didn't even bat an eye over it.

The downsides are you are going to be their ##### no matter how long you work there.

They're going to tell you
-Where to fuel and how much

-You don't have any say on which loads you get

-what roads to take. I ran backroads all the time and they occasionally threatened to fire me over it even when i cut 130 miles off the overall miles for the trip.

-Not tired when that E-log tells you to stop? Too bad. You can drive when your tired 10 hours later because you weren't tired enough to sleep when it stopped you 10 hours earlier, but now it's legal.

-They always threaten they might have to fire you if you don't like something they're doing or vice versa. I couldn't care less, but it's still annoying them trying to hoard that power over you even when you have enough money saved up to take the next year off and you've told them that.

-want to make a pass real quick so you can get around this 64.5mph truck. TOO ########## bad. Your truck does 65 or in my trucks case after it got new rubber 66mph and THAT's it unless your going down a hill.

-You will live in the truck when you work with them. They have very few local positions and they pay like ####. You'll spend more time sitting around in the truck than moving because of those E-logs.

Now i remember why I quit. #### that #### I'm not going back lol.

I'm an anti-authority introverted contrarian. If your just an average guy looking to make a living and don't care about being home too often or too long then Systems long haul is a great set up for you. It's pretty easy and pays pretty good.

 

Listen to him. He's the kind of guy you want to be if your going to work with them long term.

Glad to hear your making the jump. I don't know if it will be the best move for ya having a family and all,but time will tell and you know better than me what's best for you obviously.

I'm not going to tell anyone what to do,but I would prefer to keep the referral bonuses out of this thread. My goal in making this thread was to make a valuable resource for future Systems drivers that didn't exist when I started so that those who are willing to put in the research have a source to draw from.

The referral bonus gives a driver an incentive to lie in favor of the company. I won't lie to make them look good or to make them look bad. I'm free to tell it like it is as I'm not being paid either way and i believe that freedom is worth more than their $500 referral bonus or whatever it is now.

Anyone who has been out on the road long at all has heard other drivers trying to recruit them with their BS lines. ######## like this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5diL8D0BW20

We don't need any more dumb ######## like that...

/Rant off

Good luck with your new career though man and keep us updated. Happy to hear it's working out for ya.