Recent truck school grad,off to company in january,need somegood & helpful advice!

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Welcome
And good luck

 

Welcome to the forum! Glad you wandered in!

Stay away from England and Covenant. Swift or Werner would be a better choice among the ones you have listed. Go browse the threads about the various companies that you are interested in, jump in and ask questions. You'll get plenty of input!

 

Hey and Howdy! Looks as if you have come to th place to help make your decision. Like Lilbit said read the threads on the companies you are looking at and then you can make an informed decision. You won't be going in blind, and will have a clue or two about what to expect. Good Luck.

 

Just dropped in to say Hi and Welcome ....... hope you find what your looking for .... and wanted to wish you and your a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for the comng New Year!!!!!!!

 

I'm nearing graduation from driving school and hope to be in a truck with a trainer by mid-January. I'm curious why you've heard not to go with any reefer company. Any experienced guys want to comment?

Thanks,
IronRydr

 

Reefer is no big deal. Handy thing to know how to deal with, as it gives you more options.

 

Hey ther RCRobin...welcome to the forum and best of luck in whatever you decide to do

 

Hey and welcome. I am new to this site myself, it was actually a student of mine that told me about this website. I will try to answer most of your questions if I can.

Picking a trucking company:
Instead of listening to everyone's different opinion, keep in mind most happy people don't feel the need to complain and therefore the internet is very lopsided in this regard, look at each companies web site. Gather the information that is relevant to your situation. Like - What type of runs do they offer? Is there local opportunities? How much dedicated freight do they haul? What are you specific needs for home time? The larger the company the more opportunities they may have. What about your medical insurance needs? Do they offer a good family plan with a decent out of pocket expense? etc.. get the information that is fact based first, then once you narrow down your options to the best two or three companies, zero in on those drivers and ask them what they like or hate about the company. Most will complain about home time, some complain about miles, others don't care and don't complain. You have to sort through the bull and listen with alot of salt. For example a lazy non-motivated driver may complain that he/she doesn't get enough miles, what they don't tell you is they refuse to drive the northwest, the northeast, they don't go to Canada and they don't do New York and they don't have a haz-mat endorsement. Of course they don't get miles, they have made a line in the sand and now the company is starving them until they quit and move on.

Reefers are extra hassle, but if it's all you do it's not that bad. But the learning curve is a bit more difficult because you have to deal with pallet exchanges, buying pallets and keeping track of them. You will have more than one stop and the place you go aren't always on the map. Then the wait time at grocery chains, usually 2 or more hours everytime, sometimes and at certain places it can be over 4 hours. You do most of your breaks at a dock or you would never run. I company that does exclusivly reefer may have a better system than the ones I am familiar with, but I would never run reefer dedicated, and others couldn't think of doing anything else.

I have no personal knowledge about Covenant Transport, sorry.

Take the time you have with your trainer as the last chance you have to figure things out. Your trainier may or may not be a good one, but you can make the most of your experience by taking the bull by the horns and being ready to learn. Some train slow, some just want to roll, others don't know what they are doing and only train for the paycheck and co-navigator. But it is six or more weeks that you will get first hand experience in this business and regardless of how you are trained, you can pick up alot of knowledge in six weeks. Just watch what your trainer does, listen to what they say, and trust them when it comes to driving because school doesn't teach how to survive they only teach how to pass a test.

Detention pay varies by company, lumper policy's vary by company, this is information you need to get from the company web sites. Unfortunately being a truck driver can include being cheap labor. It has gotten much better since I started trucking but the cheap freight is out here and until you learn how to fake the flu when you get one of those loads you will be stuck helping unload it.

All companies are different, all have rotten apples and good apples. I worked for one company for 10 years and then switched to another and have never been happier. Go with your gut feeling, call the recruiters and ask them questions about home time, terminal locations, unload policy's, you wil be recruited in school, take notes then call the company and run the information through another recruiter, don't let them know you have no experince, act like you know what your talking about and mabe you can sift through some of the crap the recruiters dish out and find the truth.

Good luck.