Am I making a mistake leaving Werner?

i got my CDL in november. i tried for a month to try to get a local job, nothing materialized...... same story everywhere. the insurance wont allow us to hire recent cdl grads you need experience. so i decided to go to werner because they had the highest training pay, they assigned me the family dollar because i expressed a desire to be home as frequently as possible. they brought me to the allentown terminal and i sat in a hotel for two weeks. this was before the Christmas holiday. The recruiters told me a fish tale on how i would go to allentown, go through orientation and then get a week of driving in before i went home for christmas. i went through orientation and sat in a hotel. the had probably 50 some people sitting there with no ability to train them, trainers had gone home on the holiday. the biggest issue i had here was the dishonesty. being told one thing and then sitting around doing nothing, seems like a total lack of communication between recruiters and the terminal.

i returned after the holiday and i sat again for another 1-1/2 weeks. they finally placed me with a trainer. i was with the trainer about a 1-1/2 weeks. he actually was a decent trainer, he was on the dollar tree account. after we were out he informed me that he was going home for a week and i would have to sit in a hotel. i had already been out for about a month without seeing my wife or child. i went on a leave of absence and went home to see my family. i stayed home for 4 days and once again returned to allentown.

i sat there again for well over a week, finally i got assigned a second trainer. i stayed with this guy the full term and got all of my hours in 250+. this trainer was so so. he only gave me 10-15 practice backings in the week i was with him, and he did not allow me to send qualcom messages or go through the macros. he ran the truck as a team with me sleeping while he was driving and visa versa. he started out by trying to run me overnights. i told him i was not going to be able to sleep and that i was concerned for my safety. i do not sleep well during the day, and its even worse when the truck is moving. i think the first night he had me run i got 3 hours of sleep. sure enough about 4-5 am i started to feel myself nodding off. i had to roll both windows down to stay awake. the next day i informed him of my difficulties sleeping and he attempted to get me kicked off the truck. i do give the company credit because the FM informed him that i was staying on the truck and that he would have to change shifts with me driving during the day. this did improve things somewhat, but then i had the vibe that he felt i was a burden. the entire time i was with him i felt he was using me just to run more miles.

after i completed training, i tested out in the company truck. i passed the program but did not feel that i had been trained very well and i am no where near ready to be on my own doing a dollar account none-the-less. i have heard that these are nightmares to back into sometimes. i could go back and pick up a truck if i wanted to but i decided to try something else. i found a company located in my region that does north east regional freight. the company is called rist and its a division of wadhams. i found my experience at werner to be frustrating and i dont hear much good about rookies starting on a dollar account.

rist/wadhams is a family run company and they have 3-400 trucks. rist is the dry van division. they have told me that i will go there wendsday for a physical and get a micro-tel for wendsday and thursday night. wendsday is the physical, thursday and friday are orientation and smith systems. at the conclusion of orientation, i will meet with a dispatcher and he will make the arrangements for a trainer. they have 4 trainers and they are all highly experienced and vettted, they dont allow just anyone to train. i will go home for the weekend. monday morning i will meet up with the trainer and drive all week. i will go home every weekend during training. besides the first 3 days i will not be in a hotel. i was told since i already drove quite a bit with a trainer, im only going to be required to get a week or two of training. normal training length with them is 20 driving days. once i have completed training and go solo i will be home on the weekends. they have told me that they do not run weekends, i will usually get home for 55 hours per week. this all sounds allot better for someone who has a family and is try to keep their family life intact.

i was formerly a raw milk receiver, i happen to know allot of truck drivers. i have kept in contact with them through facebook and phone. the all more or less say the same thing, try to go work for a smaller or medium sized company as soon as the opprotunity presents itself. are they giving me good advice. they say with the big guys you arent anything more then a number, the have too many dispatchers, load planners, managers, ect ect. wadhams has 4 dispatchers and they all work out of the same room. being a milk receiver, i actually unloaded quite a few wadhmans trailers at my former job. the have a dry van division, fuel division, and milk division. after one year i can transfer over to the fuel or raw milk division and be home every night.

am i making a mistake leaving werner in the opinion of everyone here? i know that dollar account is probably not a good fit for a new driver and i would like to avoid OTR. im not interested in the type of driving that will keep me away from my 5 year old son and my wife of 12 years for 2-3 weeks at a time. that would be more like hell.

 

i went to another forum and they said i was completely wrong in my assumption with the way things have turned out. i went to truckingtruth.com they called me a failure because i have decided to leave werner.


wadhams/rist payscale
35.5 cpm to start
38.5 cpm after 90 days
41.5 cpm after 180 days
44.5 cpm after 1 year
$2-300 per week in what they call soft pay. they pay you for post trips, pre trips, and any wait time.
paid personal days
paid vacation time
1800-2500 miles per week

 

1,800 minimum, that's 1,800-2,500 miles so i could easily run more. plus they pay for pre-trip and post-trip, how many companies to that. i figure on the low side 1,800 miles + $200 soft pay they talked about, about $840 per week starting pay at 1,800 miles per week. it doesn't seem too bad.