Central Refrigeration Service, Inc. - West Valley, Ut.

The 52 trailers were Simon marked trailers. Had the Skunk, but also had the 2 red stripes.

I have been with Central since June of last year.
Before that I have done many things. When I got out of the Army I went to truck driving school at DDAI in Baton Rouge LA. That was around 1991/92. I cannot remember exact dates, and have not bothered to look it up.
I tried OTR for a few months with my Cousin as a team. I hated it, hated him, and went local in Southern Maryland. This job was primarily driving 10 wheel dumps, with the occasional lowboy thrown in.
I worked for the same company there for several years, saved some money and went to community college for a while while working, then to a 4 year school.

My 2 dream jobs were always truck driver or park ranger.
I majored in Wildlife Management for 2 years, then switched to Recreation and Outdoor Education. While doing an internship in Western NY, I met a girl whom I eventually married.
There was no work in this area in my field, so I went back to doing other things. Marine Mechanic, log home building supplys sales and ran the warehouse, childcare councelor (for court placed youth), ski instructor, ect...
I went back to driving local a few years ago, driving a mixer for a local concrete plant, also end dump, bulk trailers, and lowboy, all for this company.

Was not making enough money driving local, so I took a refresher with Central and have been with them since.

I hope this long story helps lol.

I love being on the road. My wife hates it. She is a special Education teacher, and she wants me home. But I want to get all our debt gone. I figure in the next 3 years if I stay OTR, we will have all our debt gone. Most of it already is, just need to pay off her student loans (undergrad, I paid for her grad degree driving), and morgage.
I make double morgage payments every month, so will be paid off in the next few years.

Though, I am still thinking of buying a truck soon, and having it paid for in 3 years. That is the trick on a used truck, you need to have it paid off before you can no longer depreciate it, and they can only be depreciated over 3 years.

I live on XM 171 by the way. There is allot of good info on Dave's show and Kevins.

 

I though you'd been with them longer than that.

 

Seems as tho everyone in these blogs have something to say wether it's positive or negative about a company of their own interest.
Why not take this forum and put it to better use,(not that our personal experiences are not worth hearing about).

How about discussing what these trucking companies are writing up on you in a let's say, what they might call them "personell history jackets".
These are records that they feel they can say whatever they want about anyone of us because the likely hood of us ever seeing them and being able to respond to "the negative garbage" they write about you is very slim.
The companies do not hesitate to pass this info on to other trucking companies that call them as a stipulation to prequalifying you to possibly drive for them. They give them the 4-1-1 as to possibly why they should or in all likely hood shouldn't hire you.

Personally, I think this is what Central is doing to me.

I was pulling a load from Idaho going to Pennsylvania. I had made it to the Indiana/Ohio line before I recieved a call from my niece.
She called to tell me that while my wife was out riding her bicycle with her brother, my wife was hit by a car. We live in Maryland.

I immediately called my FM. explained the situation and was told I could take my truck and load to a drop yard a little ways outside of Columbus. I figured that would work out well because the nearest airport I could catch a flight out of to get home was in Columbus. FM told me to unhook from the load so someone else could get it and to leave keys to my truck in office at the dropyard. I did exactly as instructed, caught a cab to the airport.

Hate for this to sound like a novel but for those inquiring minds out there, my wife suffered 2 fractured vertebrae in her neck, a bruise on her brain, a fractured pelvis, collapsed lung, a fractured wrist, crushed left knee cap, femurs in both legs fractured with the left bone poking out of her skin, right tibia fractured in 2 places and a fractured right ankle. She is still going through rehab as I speak.

Back to Central.
I got a call the second day from my FM wanting to 1st know how my wife was doing. She said that my load got picked up and delivered on time.
If I couldn't get back to my truck in about 4 more days they were going to send someone for it and she could not guarantee that I would get the same truck back when I returned.
My immediate response was that I was going to have to quit on account of my wifes situation and that I will try to get my stuff out of their truck hopefully before they got there to pick it up.
On the 4th day they had done 3 ops on my wife and still had 3-4 more to do.

I contacted a brother and cousins living in Ohio and they went to the drop yard and re-covered my personal items out of the truck.

What's happening now.
I have my own truck and I periodically get a copy of my DAC and have resently attained a copy of my MVR. Nothing is that derogatory on either because I own up to the 1 accident on my DAC and the 2 speeding tickets on my MVR.
Every trucking company I fill out an application for and do a follow up call a few days later tells me they can not hire me. Before filling out the app I always look at the minimum hiring qualifications of that company.

Other than my DAC and MVR there has got to be something else going on as to why I'm being turned down so much.

Possibly the infamous "BLACK LIST" that so many of us have heard about.
The opposing company is going to write up something that will shine a negative light on you to keep other companies from hiring you. Regardless if wether it is true or not.
Such as on my Personal History Report (if that's what it's called)may possibly read like this "He abandoned our equipment while under a load".

Now, in my opinion if I were a recruiter finding this out about a potential driver for my company that would take presidence over a non-fatal accident or any ticket and that app goes in the trash.

This is something that we as drivers should be having an open forum on because it is something that affects us all. We should have a voice in it.

This is our livelyhood.

By law anything that has your name or profile attached to it, you have a legal right to a copy of it.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with sitting around and having dialog about what company we should or should not want to work for. Taking someone else's experience into account gives us better insight into hopefully making an informed decision.

I would also like to be able to put companies on notice that when they spit something out about a driver they can not sway from the truth or they can have defamation of character charges brought against them. If there is someone out there that could point us towards this resolve please share your knowledge, if not, WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR!!!!

 

Nope. I just remember things I see, hear, and learn.

Many people don't pay attention to little things, and things they see that don't affect them at that time, so they don't know the answer later, when it does affect them.
So I try to pay close attention to things I see and here, that way I may have an answer when I need it.

I came to Central knowing they were a training company, and what that means. I have watched and talked to many of there trainees in terminals and on the road. Too many come in with the idea of leaving the company in a year or less. They make up there minds before they ever get going.
To me this is setting yourself up to fail.

Is Central a great company? No, not really. They are a training company, same as Schneider, Swift, USA, Stevens, CR England, and many others.

Is Central a good training company? That is hard to answer. I don't believe in the training models of any of the training company's. Is it better than many of the training company's? Yes

Is there pay good? No, they are at the moment lower than most. Swift is now paying several cents a mile more than they are at 6 months and over. And there lease op mileage rate is the lowest I have seen anywhere. Schneider, JB and Swift are all at least 7 cpm higher. But my belief is that Central will get you more miles more often than any of these company's.

I believe strongly in giving my best at all times. The load I am on at the moment is the most important thing in my life at that moment. It must be delivered on time and safe.
Yes I have things planned out for my next few loads, and getting home and having a life is important.
But I cannot put those things first on a daily basis, or I am not doing my best for the customer. All these things for real life are planned out and set up. When I stop for the day I get my paperwork in order and set my alarm. Until it goes off in the morning I am on my time. This is where I talk to the wife and plan things that do not have to do with what is going on with work.

This was way off tangent and I am sorry. I just see too many drivers stress them selfs out over non-trucking things, when they are supposed to be working. If they will separate I believe they would be much happier.

 

Wow, that was a long read.
I can understand why they wanted you to unseat the truck, that is standard operating procedure for the company, any time a truck sits 5 or more days it will possibly be reseated.

I don't know about the profile jacket though. I know they have these, but I am not sure they get passed to other companys. I am assuming that you have the most recent copy of your DAC with all notes.

Why is it you decided not to return to Central? If you don't mind my asking. I know there are better company's around, but I did not see anything unusual about there reaction to your situation. No company wants a truck they are paying for sitting for weeks at at time. My guess is that your not returning to them after a leave of absence, is what is causing them to react negatively. Though the person any company calling talks to will be a file clerk with no idea who you are.

Most company's do there black listing straight out on the DAC. They have no reason to hide it. Even in your situation, they could get away with saying abandonment. Hopefully all your conversations with dispatch were on the qualcom though, them routing you to that drop yard ect. That way you would have a course of action if they called it abandonment. Since qualcom records are admissible in court.

The biggest issue is the darn DAC though. If you get a negative comment on it, the only thing you can do in most states is add your own comment explaining the situation.

Good luck. I hope you find a company that will take you, and that you like.
I am guessing it is the accident and tickets that are the biggest issues for you. That is 3 things in how many years?
That is the max for most company's. And most company's are being picker than ever with hiring. There are ALLOT of long time drivers and owner ops fighting for company jobs right now. All company's can be very picky and still get more applicants than they need in this market.

I would hazard to guess that the decent company's all have 4 applicants with clean MVR's and DAC's for every position they have open.

 

For you to learn how to use the enter key? Holy wall of text batman.

I stopped here. I have no idea what you were trying to get at, as your wall of text is very hard on the eyes. I'm guessing you're talking about a DAC report, although what you're trying to get at about it is beyond me.

 

I don't think going to a company and deciding "In a year, after I have experience, I'll consider looking into another company" is a bad thing. Really, at the year mark is a good time to evaluate whether the company you're with suits your needs.

If it suits your needs, great.

If it doesn't, then you need to go looking.

A year's a good point to reevaluate, you've been out long enough to adapt to the load, you know your truck, your company, and how things are going to be. If there's things you're not happy with, it's time to start looking elsewhere.

I think the people who feel they can get 3 or 6 months experience, job hop to somewhere else, and then a few months later figure they'll go somewhere else again, are going to be in trouble. But someone who spends 6 months at one job, and then secures another job that's better paying, or closer to home, or more consistent miles? I can't blame them a bit for leaving in less than a year.

 

Sorry about "the wall of text".
I just started typing and being a little tired, didn't bother to edit.
I will definately watch that in the future.
Chromedome read it through. Thanks for your input Chrome.

 

I did read it thru, though I missed where you said you now have your own truck.
I saw that you said you were going to have to quit, due to your wife being hurt and needing to be home for her.
I asked for why you did not go back to them after. They would most likely looked at it as a leave of absence, and taken you back, though since you have your own truck now it would explain why you did not.

I hope you can find a company that will take you on. Leasing to someone is usually easer to get on these days than being hired as a company driver, with your record.
Even companys that allow 3 tickets/ accidents can and will be much more picky these days. The market is flooded with trucks, and even with company's going under, there are still more trucks than freight. This will change in the next few years, faster with all the company's that are going under. When they equalize, and eventually when there is more freight than trucks again, the rates will go up hopefully to where they should be.

Central and other company's are raising there rates now, hopefully the bigger companys will soon follow suit. They should, the way I have seen the mileage rate for drivers going up recently with some of them.

 

The reason(s) I didn't go back to Central:

I decided that if I was going to remain in the freight hauling business,
I needed to make more than what they were paying.
So, I used some of my savings (monies saved before Central) and
bought a truck.

After researching the industry, talking to other o/ops, I concluded Central does not run o/ops as hard as l/ops or company dvrs.

As a l/op, they're going to give you enough miles so you can make those high truck payments and stay out of the red for a while.

As a company drvr, you're cheap labor. They are going to run the hell out of you because they are making tons of money off running you like that.

I chose to go with a company that was offering $1.77 cpm. (liars)
Realistically, I was only making $1.50 cpm. The payoff was in getting to learn flatbed operations.

Having a non injury accident and 2 tickets doesn't beat having a clean slate, granted, but there are some companys that allow 3 accidents and 4 tickets.
One company that ranks pretty high on owner operators list is Landstar.
They allow 2 accidents and 3 tickets. 1 ticket can be a 15 mph over.

None of these companies will hire me.
That's why I say, "there has got to be more being said than what the companies are allowing drivers to be privvy to".

Yes, I have found a company. Had truck inspected, it failed. Waiting on a part to come in.

Be safe