Looking at Melton. Thoughts?

Best of luck to you.

 

Waggoners Trucking Company pays .50 cpm.
Melton has driver facing cameras.
BT Express Global Services - flatbed - 20 or 30 trucks - Weatherford, Oklahoma
Lone Star Tranportation (lstinc.com) in Ft. Worth now hires with 6 mos. exp.
Earl Henderson Trucking - coast to coast reefer outfit. / .38 cpm starting pay / guaranteed minimum weekly paycheck / trucks have Apu's, refrigerators, etc.

 

Hey, current Melton employee here.. New at that. I've been here about 6 weeks and the numbers do add up. I can confirm the drive cam as well. Get a hard brake and get caught with your eyes / hands off that wheel and your gone. The hiring process is really cut throat but the money is good if you don't mind some hard work.. Securement can take up to 3 hours for me.. I've seen seasoned guys require even more time.. That's something I'd keep in mind when considering Melton.. You will tarp every load.. at least 80% of them.. If I could find a company that matched cpm and gave more miles I'd probably take the offer but after you have a year experience they pay .48 cpm. Hard to find a company that will pay that much flat rate pay and a fuel bonus as well as safety bonuses ranging from $500-$3000 a year each..

TL;DR you'll get the miles, they just won't be consistent. Expect varying paychecks and that tarp pay is worth it to some but some jobs take more than $40 worth of time.

 

My husband and I loved working for Melton. It is by far the most professional and rewarding job we had. No issues being reimbursed for anything that come out of pocket and very easy to work for. We only tarp about 50% of our loads. Be sure to prepare yourself because it's difficult to lift the 90-120lb tarps. You can buy your own tarp, but they do get pretty costly. The camera.... Press the two buttons on the bottom until the light turns green or otherwise you will be recorded. Several times that it has randomly recorded or accidentally set it off. We also had a dispatcher who forced loads, but she didn't last very long. Like I said... very professional. Tarp loads = $40, but you do get paid extra if you cross borders and if you have additional stops. They do upkeep their trucks and trailers more than any other company we have worked for, as well. They don't fire you for hard breaks... We'd been gone several times if they did. They will call and ask if everything is fine.

 

I was leaning towards Melton. I wasn't keen on the nanny cam off of principle, but I was willing to give it a shot. That is....until I spoke to a recruiter and had her tell me that my 2 years of experience running flatbeds, RGNs, and extremely oversized/overweight loads wasn't going to count as experience with them. Why? Because I never had to tarp anything. Something that they even say they teach during orientation. I ended up finding a much smaller company with a fleet of Petes averaging 1.5 years old, pets allowed, apu, no micromanagent, more miles, more home time, and much less work pulling a reefer for slightly more money. Coming from Wyoming and working outside in the winter, tarping that much won't be fun in the winter. From experience, crawling over a load that is slick with rain, snow, or ice is not fun. Throw in wind and it's even worse. I'd rather be running flatbed, but why work much harder for the same or less pay? May I have gotten a different response from a different recruiter? Sure, but she was a company representative who literally told me that I would be considered the same a a driver fresh out of cdl school, for such a petty reason.

 

Sounds like they missed out on a good driver and you found a better opportunity.

These companies want good professional drivers and then place roadblocks to literally avoid doing that very thing.

unloader

 

I did an awful lot of research on them and figured it was worth a shot. It may even be a good company for some. So far, I am happy with the outcome. I was put in a brand new 2016 579 Pete on the 4th day of orientation. It's funny how things work out sometimes.

 

and that's the thing...
As driver paid by the mile you are basically working for free all those hours with securement in flatbed.
That's why in my view flatbed sucks for company drivers paid by the mile.
Yeah you might get .48 but a Van driver can get .45 say at Crete doing drop and hooks.
A van driver gets paid nothing sitting in a dock but are not really doing anything vs in flatbed paid nothing for securement process.
Just not fair to me.. flatbed drivers should be paid a lot more.