Honest CRST experience

well first off I wanna start off by saying hello. I come here often to read and learn from many of you. Lots of useful info here.
Anyway as the title states I'm gonna post my gods honest review from someone who has work ethic and doesn't just want to get paid for nothing.

I come from a background of trucking, i was driving trucks for 2 years with no cdl, got caught and the officer was real cool about it. I was 20 years old and couldn't get a cdl in my state so he told me once I turned 21 which was in a 60 days or so, to go get it or he'd fine me. Took all my information down and I got his to send a copy of my cdl to him, once I got it. At this time I had no choice other than Cr England and Crst.

So I call Crst they promptly send a bus ticket (which is horrible, fly if you can). I get to the terminal and immediately start orientation. I was tired but wanted this to get done asap. So I got through orientation, flew threw the written tests, and got to driving. Coming from real world to "dots way" is quite a change lol. Anyway I do there pti then backing and driving. All said and done I was in and out in 17 days. Got the dumb white hat and gave it to a kid who got sent home. Went to dmv got my cdl and faxed a copy and the Iowa paper work to the officer. Boom in the clear, that's all I cared about.

Now onto the trainer, they gave me one trainer, who was a complete slob and had poor hygiene and snored while awake, so I refused it, got into a little argument with my temporary fleet manager, brushed it off and found another one. Cool guy, young with only 1 year experience, doing the lease op here at Crst. Like I said super nice guy, but doesn't have what it takes to hang with o/os. When your an owner operator you have to have some serious capital or just be a savage. He made me drive 60mph the whole time which sucked, but I made about 375-425$ a week. Crst does have some serious miles. After I got off the truck with the trainer I went home for my girls birthday, and her sisters wedding. Took about a week off, got back to Cedar Rapids and got with my co driver. I'm making 26cpm at this point. Me and my co driver decides to run for two months out to make up for the money lost during the trainer and home time. Well, even at 26cpm I made about 2400-2600 per month. I went home with about 3100$.

After that, during the holiday rush, I got bumped to 28cpm. We're currently running 1300 miles a day between he and I. Usually running about 7500-7850 a week. Well you do the math. Pay checks aren't so bad now. We've had 1 of 22 late loads, and are always keeping Crst updated with etas and when were empty. I've never been empty for more than 18hrs unless we're doing a 34hr reset. Now this is the holiday season so freights moving quite a bit now, so I'm sure it will slow down here pretty soon.

Now I'm in this little fiasco. Our freightshaker blew a clutch with 182k on it. Gotta love Crst drivers (can't really shift today). So we waited and waited it took them about a week to 100% diagnose it, then we got impatient and demanded a new truck politely. They quickly got us this turd Volvo I'm currently sitting in broken down. The truck was supposed to be a trade in, and Crst needed to get us rolling because we actually make them good money. Also I have home time coming up where I have to take a flight. Which is in 5 days and I'm in Idaho, 2600 miles away from home. The Volvo ate an egr and I'm sure that they'll get us another truck, as we've been down for almost 8 days.

Is it the companies fault? Absolutely not. They're doing the best they can even though it's New Years and the weekend. I think Crst gets so many lazy people who don't want to work, so they smoke em with garbage loads and garbage trucks until they quit because they're liabilities. I've talked to many teams who sit for long periods of time, and complain so much it's ridiculous. "I don't make any money wahhhhh". Well maybe if you delivered the air freight load you just got on time you might have another load. But nope. This company is filled with lazy ### people with the iq equivalent to a hair dryer. Crst didn't hire you to pay you 40$ a day and maintain a body tempature. Get your ### to work and see how it actually operates. I get whatever I want from these guys and make decent change while I'm at it. If you don't want to run hard, and don't like to work, and would much rather sit in the truck sucking down chicken fingers, then stay the #### home. I don't hate crst and I don't like them, but they got me out of a bind, they pay me well and keep me rolling. i cant ask for a whole lot more with only a few months of "verifiable" experience.

Happy New Years everyone
Big John

 

You are aware people can read here without being members correct? If that's what you make of it then that's you. I'm just stating what's been happening to me. They get idiots who expect tons of unrealistic things to happen, figured id set it straight

 

Where are these? I only saw the favorite trucking company and bad trucking company. This isn't my favorite but it's not the worst either lol thanks still trying to navigate

 

I can't move it can I?