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

Well Just completed my 7th month as a new driver.

.30/mile
2500-3300miles per week I take home $700 average.

They just started a new bonus, I am not sure if it is only for August, or if it is gonna run indefinatly...

$15 for every ontime delivery, kinda nice, as I am ALWAYS ONTIME, only ever late 2 times due to mechanical, and 2 times due to shipper delays on a HOT load.(lates are for the entire 7months.)

Finally got a decent fleet manager who understands my want and ability to run, he ususually runs me out of hours in 6 days, and ususually schedules me a long load that allows for a 34hr, when I get close to hours.

Hometime is good and better than most companies I have looked into.
1 day for 9days out
2 days for 14days
3 days for 21 days
4 days for 28 days
etc etc etc....

Hometime is also guarenteed, if you dont get home on day you requested, you get $40 per day untill you get home, only ever been 3 days late, that was my own doing as I did not want a 600 mile deadhead home and did not really need to necessarily be home when i asked.

Layover pay is $50 a day, and you can ususually get them to give you layover on poorly scheduled loads, such as a load I had for 200 miles and 3 days to complete. Load sucked, but when they need something moved you gotta take some bad sometimes.

Detention pay after 2hrs at a shipper or reciever $16hr for company drivers paid on a 15min basis. BUT YOU HAVE TO MAKE SURE TIMES NOTED ON BILLS!!

EQUIPMENT IS GREAT, Volvo CONDOS, with mostly Cummings 400 motors, not a lot of power, but pretty good.

Summer was slow, miles in summer closer to 2300-2700, but miles have picked up, I dont know if freight is picking up or my fleet manager finally has a relationship with me.

I always am willing to take emergency loads, I have even dropped better loads for a load that was needed to be taken, it might temporarily hurt me for the day, but the favor is ususually returned by a killer next load.

I see good and bad in all companies and I dont think I am gonna stay with them forever, I am currently looking for local/dedicated jobs, as I want to be home more, BUT need a little more experiance to get those jobs.

I have had 2 offers from other companies, better ones, but untill those companies have openings in my area for local, I will stay here and Build my resume, no sence going with company B for 2 months then trying to switch to company C when a local opens up. Better IMHO to wait for B or C to have local opening and jump right in.

I am also leary of one company who said I could do a local dedicated, home every other night, weekends off, but they would not guarentee it and it would depend on if it was still available after orientation, and I dont need to switch companies, just to be given keys to a OTR 48 truck. That company had a worse HT policy so I would not want to be a 48 driver with them.


I think most people I talk to who have had problems with or are having problems with this company are probably not putting an effort forth and probably complain alot to their fleet manager.


For all people looking for a company to start with on the ground floor....

2 week CDL training
4 weeks paid training with trainer
then in your own truck


I will also BRAG that I am one of the two people out of 12 that trained in a 3 week peroid that have made it this far. SOme walked off the Job, a couple failed drug tests, and many had accidents.

That is the only problem I have with the company, they need better screening of drivers, there is really no interview process and as a result we end up with alot of worthless drivers, people with bad work ethics.

Although, had they took more notice of my previous colored driving past, i might have seemed like a gamble, no accidents, but had a slew of tickets resulting in a 3 year revokation. I got my licence back in 2003 and have been a model driver ever since, so I was passed up by a few other companies, but Central gave me a chance to prove myself.


You can also take HT anywhere you want, for Thanksgiving I am meeting the oldlady in Cali to spend TG with her brother.

K

 

I understand this business is not like a regular job, YEAH companies promise 35-40cpm but unless you get the miles to go with it you might as well make less per and do more.

See if you wanna change, it is hard, BECAUSE, you never know what your actual experiance with another company will be, it is hard to judge a company by testimonials and company recruiter.

That being said, alot of drivers I talk to HATE this company, but I can tell right away that their negitive experiance and lack of miles, comes from them having a bad attitude, if you put crap in you get crap out.



I real big tip for people newer than me.....communicate with fleet-managers, most of them are paid on how well their fleet performs, so if you can perform he will hook youi up.

 

OH, i will admit, there have been times where I would have LOVED, to DRIVE MY TRUCK THROUGH THE TERMINAL, but i refrain, keep my anger off the phone and qualcomm.

One instance, I had HT planned, doctors appt and wedding aniversery(sp). Get a load on friday, pickup on saturday, and delivery tuesday, suppost to be home following friday.

Load was from CT to to Dallas. 1700 miles. delivered on Tuesday morning at like 0300.

I also needed 28-30 hrs to complete load with fuel and such. I only had 27 available, further hurting my situation, as i would then, even if i made it to the reciever, have to take a 34hr......so it would be impossable to make it home.

I immediatly call my fleet manager(not wanting record on qualcomm, as company is technically forced dispatch), was informed my fleet manager was off for the day and I would be transfered to "NNNN" who is handling his drivers for the day.

I explain to "NNNN" my situation, that I will be out of hours and how it is very important I make my DOCTORS APPT, and joked that if i dont make it home for anny....i might as well make an appt with a divorce lawyer.

He told me, that was not his problem, and "if you dont make it home you are intitled to $40 a day till we get you there" .

I had also informed him about my lack of hours, and he seemed to think i would be ok, even though at 60mph average log, i would need almost 29hrs to complete without logging fuel stops.

I also tried to make the case that it would BE IMPOSSABLE, to even expect I will be home, due to need for 34hr reset, and probability of them actually finding a single load that shoots back across the country in 2-3 days.

At this point, he begins to ask "are you refusing this load?" I know what he is getting at, refusing a load is not a good thing, and possable grounds for termination.

I keep my cool and ask when my fleet manager will be in, I am told he will be in tomorrow, saturday.

Before we part out ways, he adds, "you are doing this load" and then hangs up.

At this point I am FURIOUS, I want to drive my truck to the nearest terminal and park it in the office, of course this is figurative, I am not a maniac....

I was honestly at the point where I seriously was contemplating quitting....

Well next day, I get a hold of my fleet manager, explain situation. With in 15sec he was figuring out a drop plan for the load that would re-power it to keep me in the North East, but busy for the next week.

So I did pa to ohio and back a few times, squeeking in as hours came back to me, kept as busy as hours allowed for. Was alot of bobtail and empty running around rescuing other loads that for different reasons got delayed, atleast in dry weather, I love running bobtail.

Made it home for DR.......Kept from getting divorced, and all was good.

I guess what anyone should leard from this, is to be patient, calm, and professional. Had I gotten angry directly at anyone at anypoint, I could have expected to be stuck with the load or just plain fired.

Since then I have had many, ummm BAD, experiances with this same substitute fleet manager, as well as another, but I wait it out and let my regular guy know, and It all gets worked out.


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Another crappy one, got a load, NOT POSSABLE to GO TO LOAD, PICK UP LOAD, and DELIVER load in time allowed.....

Load required 12hrs to drive, DID not have time for a break, as there was only 16hrs between time i was given load and del time.

the 12hr was a conservative extimate, as a good deal of my 300mile journey from Western ny to near harrisburg pa to get load were 2 lane.....also i needed 30min to fuel, 15 to scale, and 30 to get paperwork and p/u from shipper.....i would be at 14hrs sitting on the deliverydock, reciever has no sleeping policy, and closest t/s 30miles away....not a good place to be, possably getting a TOS violation for a load that should not have been given to me in the first place.

anyway total load 650+- miles zip to zip, on 2 different maping sites, google and mapquest

Also I was comming off the same ht as above, and my FM, neglected to put in the CPU, my location as home, so I was dispatched a load from my previous DEL.

The FM I talked to switched the location, so i would get paid for the deadhead, but refused to remove me from the load, she said "OH, I think you can do that no problem." "I only show total trip as 600 miles" (of course she probably doesnot understand that is probably the 'paid' miles)

I was smart enough to makesure this was all documented on qualcomm as well, every step, was a message and phonecall.

See it did not matter to me, the load was a good one, BUT, I need to make sure they knew, it could not be delivered ontime so I did not get #####ed at for delivering late.


Last message from substitute, on QC was "dont worry, you can make it, and if you dont, it can be late"

well I get to p/u, send message, saying I will be 1hr short, and will not make the delivery till after i get break.

I get a basically "WHAT YOU CANT BE LATE ON THIS LOAD" message...
"this is a national acct, blah blah blah...."

My message back "I tryed to inform "NNNN", but she thought my mileages for trip were wrong, please see previous messages"

well I stopped for the night, with the night fleet manager panicing about the late load.

Ended up being 680miles total....took 11.5hrs to drive, .75hrs at shipper, 1hr for fuel(line out the wazoo and forced fuel stops), and .50hrs stopped for scale....

sometimes you can stretch the truth a little and figure out a way to make it workout, but honestly I did not want to, I wasn't sticking my neck out for someone who thought that they knew my job better than I did, I take alot of pride in planning stuff down to the last little detail, and when possable leaving time for delays.

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See I am not 100% sure, but i think the fleet managers get paid on the productivity of their drivers, so when you have a substitute, it seems they dont want to help you, as they are not making anything off of you, so they are not gonna waste their time on finding solutions for you.

Every industry has a game that you have to play in, play the game well, and sometimes you will be rewarded.

I always claim I am 70-80% happy with this company, it is the truth, there are things that could be better, but there are things that are worst. I am choosing "the devil I know" for the time being.

K

 

1. Assigned trucks, if you are close to terminal they like you to leave it there, but it is not slip seat, I take my truck home, and I think most others do too.

2. unless you are in a specific region it is hard to get on dedicated, most dedicated runs take 6mo to get. Especially out of school.

3. Pet is under 50 or 60lbs, and i think it is a $500 deposit. Rider is $125 annually I think, over 12years old, I am not sure if it is specific to a person, or just $125 per rider at a time...

4. Trucks have opti idle, so they turn on and off to maintain battery and temp, inverters bought by you. Max is 1000watt in a company truck.

5. school 14 days, then 3day orientation, then 4 weeks in a truck with a trainer. Might as well wait to get permit.



All this being said, it is a decent company, I have found alot of the peoplems people have are due to therir lack of ability to communicate with the fleet managers.

You also might have weeks of little or no $$$$, so be prepared. Same with all companies.

MAKE SURE ANY AND ALL TICKETS AND CONVICTIONS for anything are disclosed to recruiter, if you dont you may get to orientation only to get sent home.

K