Millis chat room

This is a very informative thread. I am thinking of taking the Mills school in GA to get my CDL and trying to get on with them. Being a complete nOOb this is probably a stupid question but how often are the drivers allowed to take home time? I know I'm going to have to pay my dues but being honest with myself and having two little ones at home I don't see realistically being able to be gone for over two weeks on consistent basis and not get home sick/burned out. I see their policy on their website (i.s. guaranteed 36 hours of uninterrupted home time for every week spent on the road) but is it unrealistic to hope to be home every other weekend with Mills?

Thank you.

 

You can be home every other week with Millis and still make good money...Millis will treat you right.

 

U could also go regional out of Cartersville or Albany which ever you are closer to and get home quite a bit.

 

Millis will try their dang best to get you home when you request~but this is trucking and sometimes crap happens

 

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I have been with them 4 months and from day one I have been home on Friday and off all weekend. Other than choosing to work the weekend they are good about working you towards the house on Friday. A few times it has rolled into Saturday when I got home. Just because my 14 hour clock required me to take a 10 hour break before I could make it home. I was dispatched around 18:00 this past Thursday on an 800 mile round trip . Well I new there would be no way that I would be home on Friday because of the 14 hour clock deal again. But that doesn't happen much. Im sure there where probably a couple guys that refused to accept that trip before they gave it to me. My dispatcher sent me a message Friday thanking me for helping out covering the trip and offered to let me have Monday off to compensate for having to work on Saturday to get home. I'm still having a hard time dealing with a company that actually acknowledges drivers that go the extra mile(no pun intended) to keep their freight rolling. The company that I was with for 25 years before Millis could care less if you did anything extra. I hauled US Mail on a dedicated route and would keep driving (Safely) in ice storms, one blizzard and I think I was very close to a tornado one night. It was windy and hailing and could smell pine trees that were being snapped in half. I would get back to the terminal before drivers that left hours before me. We had about 12 runs that would go from Atlanta to Knoxville and back everyday. When I got back to the terminal and pryed my fingers off the steering wheel from white knuckling it all night and go inside to turn in my trip sheet and keys, they would just say "see ya tomorrow". Not once would they say "good job. So and so drivers are parked at truckstops or hotels because they couldn't make it. Thanks for getting the mail delivered on schedule". It feels good that Millis is a company that appreciates you. And I appreciate them.

 

During training, expect to be gone for the three weeks of class and the two months while you are on the trainer's truck. They will let you take a few days off between class and going out with a trainer (at least they did years ago). Once you are in your own truck I believe you can ask for hometime every 10-14 days out, at the least. Being over the road though, don't expect to be home exactly on the day you ask every time. For important events, request a day or two early to be sure.

With little one, I would recommend regional. I ran regional for two years and was home every weekend with the exception of two weeks. (one I requested to work because I was taking a week and a half off, the other I was asked to run the weekend and only wound up working saturday.) I know other's experiences were different on regional, but this is what it was like for me. Now, there were several weekends where I got home early saturday morning, or made it home friday night and had to run to Albany and back on Saturday morning to complete a load and pick up my load for Monday. (I live half way between Cartersville and Albany and ran out of the Miller brewery most of the time, and I have parking for trucks at my house) I know some who left out Sunday night for their monday delivery, I always left our Monday. Sometimes as early as 2am to make my delivery appointment.

If being away from home is going to be an issue on the homefront, I would recommend looking at an LTL company (Fed-Ex, UPS, Con-way, Saia, etc.). Many hire with no experience now, some have training programs and the LTL freight side is home every day (I run LTL currently) and you will earn about the same $$ your first year out with LTL paying quite a bit more than OTR over time. Foodservice delivery is another route in LTL with routes being out only 2-3 days in most cases. (MBM, US Foods, etc.) Not sure of the pay, but they seem comparable to LTL freight.

If you are looking at Millis to get your CDL and then move on later, I will say their training was good to excellent. The only complaint I had with them was their accounting practices. While they never messed up my paycheck, the money you payback for your training was not tracked very well in my case. My records showed I was paid off when I left, even over paid by $80, but they sent me a bill for around $2400, which I will not pay because it is incorrect. Keep all your pay stubs and keep track of what you owe just to CYA.

 

Pretty much the same experience I had with them. They don't like you calling them on the phone (on regional anyway) but once they see you a runner and don't complain about the hard runs, you get treated a lot better than most.

 

Your right L.B., I just look at it like if I refuse a load I will probably not have a very good mileage week the following week. This is trucking. If someone wants to be home everyday for a hot 5:30 dinner and watch 8:00 primetime TV then go to bed at 11:00. And go to your kids football game on Saturday. They might consider training for another line of work. I missed my son growing up as far as the football, baseball thing. I got him a dirt bike when he was 11 and got into motocross racing. That was a sport we could practice at on our time. a lot of times I had to put in a time off form to be able to go race some. He is 25 now but we had a ball racing and will always have that memory. But the after school sports practices are definitely not gonna happen if you want to be there and be a trucker too. Im planning on getting my own truck eventually and drive a few more years and put someone reliable in the truck then hang it up. I'll have about 35 years of trucking behind me. I have about had enough of the craziness out on the road. Its about time to retire and be out on the lake in the bass boat at 6 am. not crawling out of the sleeper to go in the pilot for coffee while the pilot employee is standing there wiping down the counter in everyones way. lol
Maybe its just my luck, but it seems like they always want to clean the station when I walk in.

 

Thanks very much for the responses. I did not think I could got LTL with no experience. The home time with Millis sounds great, every weekend would be beyond my expectations being green and all.

A lot of folks from GA here, is there any other CDL schools around Atlanta I might need to consider? Millis school seems to have glowing reviews and that's why I'm leaning towards them. I don't want to end up in one of those CDL mills where I learn half of what I should.