R&J Trucking

What do you want to know? I worked there for almost 7 years and know the owners. Good company but they're feeling the pinch of a down economy right now also like everybody else

 

There is a couple of posts on here about them

 

I've been gone 4 years. They keep an ad going but doesn't necessarily mean they're actually hiring. They're telling you right on the first year average. When I left I was making over 75k a year. But I also left before they went elogs. I am actually trying to go back but they aren't hiring owner operators at this time due to the down economy. I still talk to people who work there and they're not sitting but they also got the seniority. Dispatch for Monday is seniority based then the rest of the week is first in first out basically. In almost 7 years I only worked 2 weekends and that was by my choice because I was wanting to run. That was on a coal run to ardmore oklohoma that they no longer have. All other weekends I was home. I was also home every holiday. What terminal would you be running out of? I ran out of the boardman terminal. I was on the road board.

 

I only ever shoveled two loads. One took me an hour and the other 3 hours. Both loads were frozen. One was due to the liquid calcium I put down being to diluted and the other because I didn't treat the bed at all. There is several tricks you will pick up on to keeping your bed from freezing. A few I used to do I won't post on here but if you talk to some drivers in person they'll tell you some hints. Overall it's a good job and a good place to work. Most places 15-30 minutes to load and unload

 

On the dispatch also if you and another driver get empty around the same time it will be seniority also.

 

Like I said, I'd go back if they were hiring owner operators out of boardman right now but last time I talked to the head of operations for them he told me he wouldn't bring me on because he didn't have enough work for me. He wants me to come back but just doesn't want me to come back and lose everything. So it would probably be next year before they start hiring owner operators again. But I made #### good money as a company driver there. One hint is watch and study. Learn the freight lanes. Watch scrap prices. Sometimes the long loads that look like they'll pay good won't have a good load coming back. They don't pay deadhead until after 250 miles I believe and it's not much per mile. Alot of times not even enough to turn in a pay form to get it. I want to say like 20 cents a mile or something. So learning freight lanes is key. Also is percentage pay based on weight. So get that truck loaded as close to 80k as you can. Try to load low on fuel. Alloy loads do have a 22 ton minimum on pay rate so if you load 20 ton you will still get paid for 22 ton. When I was there they would pay you up to 29 ton. You don't want to go over that though and don't go across a permanent scale that heavy because you can't get the permits and they don't have the axles. That rule may have changed and most places have gotten to where they won't overload anymore anyways