Werner Enterprises, Inc. - Omaha, Ne.

Sorry I haven't read through this whole thread, but just wanted to add my 2 cents.

Steele, great post, sounds like Werner has worked for you and yours.

13MWZ, I totally understand what you went through, and I agree.

I walked out of Werner last week on an unpaid leave of absence after 2 weeks solo driving and 6 weeks training. I'm an ex-professional with lots of general business experience, so maybe my perspective is a little different than most.

Here are some of my views and experiences:

1) I had my truck in the shop four times in the first 10 days after it was assigned to me. Sat in terminals for days on end (working for free) waiting for the shop to repair things that they never really fixed anyway. It amazed me that they could "assign" to a new driver a truck that had dead batteries, keys that would not turn the ignition, no license plates, a filthy and disgusting interior, and not to mention the standard stench of cigarettes from the former driver.

2) During my two weeks as a solo driver, and while trying to get things fixed, it seemed like almost everyone I talked to, company wide, was in a bad mood, and/or had a condescending attitude. I learned a long time ago that this is a management cancer that starts from the top and filters its way down through the ranks. When you walk into a business where the employees are positive and treat you like a good customer, you can be sure that company has great management, the employees are happy, and you will likely want to return as a satisfied customer. This attitude is just the opposite at Werner.

3) My fleet manager was one of the most disagreeable and unpleasant people I've ever talked to on the phone in my life. I kept trying to stay positive and non-confrontational, and he just kept talking down to me. Driving a truck is hard enough without feeling that you are not being supported by your direct manager. It got to the point (very quickly) that I'd avoid calling him for anything unless absolutely necessary. Why do they put a person like this in charge of 100+ drivers? Wouldn't a little support and positive reinforcement go a long way in making drivers happy, and encouraging them to work harder to get the job done?

4) After the shop failed to fix the aforementioned battery problem, and assuring me that the batteries would be fine after charging up for 30-45 mminutes, sure enough, they were dead all over again the next day. The engine would not start, the APU would not start, and eventually even the qualcomm would not work. I called road breakdown and the weekend dispatcher at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning, and the tow truck arrived to give me a jump at 1:30 pm (13:30) on Monday afternoon. Hmmm, thats about 54 hours waiting with your truck to get a jump. I did everything I should to get this problem fixed, including qualcomming road breakdown and the fleet manager for as long as the qualcomm would work, placing calls to the dispatchers several times a day, placing calls to road breakdown several times a day (each time a 30-45 minute wait), and phoning the terminal and shop managers several times. What was actually worse for me than waiting for all that time without getting paid, was the utter disregard that I felt as an employee, the feeling that yes, I truly AM a number in this organization.

5) The final straw was when my regular fleet manager actually defended the company in taking so long to get my tractor a jump. His argument: "well, there's lots of bad weather in the Northwest, and breakdown has to deal with that first" (said in his typically condescending attitude as if I did not know any better). My argument: "yes, but it only takes a 2 minute phone call to the local vendor to send out a tow truck to get me started". There's just no excuse for this happening from a business point of view.

Will I return to Werner? Only if all else fails. I really wanted to get more experience before making a change, but I guess I'm the type of person who does not like to feel like I'm being treated like an animal. This post is really not meant to be sour grapes. Every load I delivered for them was on time, and I really wanted to make it work.

I've been around the block a few times and can recognize a rotten company when I see one. I obviously have limited experience working for trucking companies, but I can only assume that this one is the bottom of the barrel. Sorry, Werner, but thats the way I see it.

 

I asked my other half about this one. He says no, if you have 20 years of recent verifiable experience, and a clean DAC for the past seven years, you should not have to go out with a trainer.

You will however, have to go through orientation where you will learn about the QComm, how to fill out trip paks, payroll, road breakdown and all that kind of good stuff (like Werner drivers are never suppose to do U-turns).

HTH

Okay guy, I'm going to try to help you out here with how Werner works, and I also read this to my other half and he agreed with me.

It obviously sounds like the truck you were assigned had been sitting around for awhile. Sometimes those are the only trucks available, and maintenance is the priority over checking out a "repoed" or "turned in truck" or cleaning up said truck. I mean waiting at a terminal is long enough thanks to maintenance. My other half said he's never gotten a truck that was clean other than when he got a "special edition" new truck for when he hit his million miles years ago. In fact the current truck he has now, all the vents were initially blocked due to dog hair, and the truck was filthy. It took us a good four hours to clean the inside of the truck (Pine sol works wonders!) And sometimes, no trucks are scheduled to be turned in, so thus, it was your bad luck of the draw. And it seems that everytime he gets assigned a truck, there are some problems with it, and wont leave the terminal until they are fixed. You as a driver have the right to refuse said truck if it is unsafe and demand it be fixed before driving it. Safety and driver relations are your friends.

As for the battery issue, he's had a similar incident. He knew the batteries were dying on his truck, as in dead not as in needed charged. He even went through a safety lane (this is the same time when he sat for seven days waiting for tires) and they denied him. A week later, his truck was dead. They had to tow the truck to the dealership (a Pete) and replaced all four batteries. Now, my opinion is that it would have been cheaper for Werner to test and change the batteries at the terminal, instead of a towing bill, and paying for 4 new batteries at a dealership, but who am I to say so? I'm just an idiot.

Road breakdown is ALWAYS a hassle. When my other initially calls road breakdown, he always asks them who they are calling, and a phone number for them. My other half says if service hasn't arrived in two hours, he calls road breakdown back, asking what's up which is usually an answer of "we called them". He then calls them, the service, directly to find out the status. The main reason for delays most of the time is that Werner hasn't called the place back with an authorization after an estimate and thus then he has to call road breakdown again, asking why they haven't called. No it's not right, but for some reason, that's the way it almost nearly is.

As I said before, people who work for a company can make a good company a bad place to work. And I understand your point of view, being an ex-corporate upper-management person myself (who was a corporate trainer for customer service and sales). The trucking world is not the same as an office environment. And you have to realize that most of the lps and dispatchers don't have a clue as to what it's like on the road, so they don't understand. Many times you have to explain to them things.

A good example is the "one inch" story from my other half. He actually had a dispatcher ask him why he couldn't make a trip in 60 minutes that was only "one inch" on the map. He explained to them that "one inch" was 140 miles and it wound through mountains. Make sense? And sometimes you have to be confrontational without being accusational and educational at the same time. It's a trick that I've taught my other half.

And most recently, were the tires. He kept telling them that his tires were bad and asking them to come take a look at the truck. They wouldn't. He got a load that ended up ending in the middle of a recent storm. Part of the way, he called them and had to get a little upset with them about his tread depth on his tires and the snow, they couldn't understand, but they swaped his load out.

When he got back to the office, they were making fun of him and he finally got then to go out to the truck and look. They then understood however, they claim to have no control over getting the tires changed, as long as they are still within DOT regs. At that time, there wasn't a bald strip across the width of one. So, he had to explain it to them. Remember, their experience is with driving a four-wheeler, not a up to 72K pound truck/trailer/load that operates with a pivot point. No, its not right however, its like that in many larger trucking companies.

As for calling the office? He never calls unless he has to. If he needs something, he sends it across the QComm, because then it's always documented and can not come back on him. Again, its not right, but that's the way it is.

And sometimes you have to put yourself in the lps shoes. 100+ drivers to manage. Think of yourself managing 100 people. That's a lot for one person to handle, and he is overloaded. But think of 100 different loads, taking responsibility that they all get where they need to be on time and safely. No one take this the wrong way, but truck drivers can be whiners at times for no reason. So, the lp has a lot on his hands. Best advice, don't call unless you need to (i.e. emergency), use the QComm, its a CYA thang.

And yes, many people at Werner, especially in office positions local and corporate, think its okay to be mean, nasty, rude and unprofessional to truck drivers. But you also have to look at their point of view when a truck driver calls in and is nasty to them. And I know in Ohama, everyone walks on eggshells. I don't know what the problem is there, but it does need addressed.

But then again, who am I to say all this? Im a idiot who has a significant other who has driven for them for into his 18th year, a driver who is nearing 2 million miles accident free, and holds a pretty good share of stock in the company. I've in fact been told by the account manager via the lp to "When it comes to Werner and 'your other half', keep your F****** nose out of Werner's business." [The guy didn't have the balls to say it to my face and told the lp to tell my other half to tell me...... the account manager's avoided me ever since then...] And, my other halfs grandmother use to babysit the Werner boys when they were young with his grandfather who was a truck driver and knew CL on a friends basis when he was in Iowa. And he's still treated like crap many times from office personnel in Omaha of course, but he doesn't brag about those facts.

For example, he actually has two IDs. One is the blue one that everyone has, because at the time, they didn't have the gold ones for the million milers. Then a couple weeks later, they mailed him the gold one. He hardly ever wears the gold one, and wears the blue one with the gold one behind it so when someone questions him, he just flips up the blue one to show the gold one. He has no million mile stickers on his truck. He has talked about putting all his patches on a Werner jacket however, he's probably not going to do that, and I'm still trying to figure out how to put 17 patches, along with the million mile patch, on time patches on one jacket.

And he's not arrogant on the facts. Drivers once they learn how long he's worked at the company and a million miler ask him for advice. He tells them all the same thing. The day you think you've learned everything there is to know about driving a truck, is the day you better hang up your keys, because learning never stops. He learns something new everyday about driving a truck.

But ultimately, even in Omaha, when he calls, and they can see how long he's been employed, and accident free, they still treat him with some serious disrespect.

I can't tell you what to do, only you can answer the question as to whether to go back or not. I can tell you the frustraitions you feel are normal for a newbie Werner employee. Welcome to Werner. You can try calling driver placement to try to get on a different account and see how that goes. Just a thought to ponder.

Oh one thing you should know about leave of absences. If you are on a leave of absence more than two weeks, your truck has to be turned in. After you come back to work, you get reassigned a truck again.

Just another thought to ponder.

Learn to work the system.

 

Steele,

Thank you for your lengthy reply. I cannot say I disagree with anything you've said, and, in fact, I have thought similarly as you about alot of this stuff.

Regarding the leave of absence, I had to turn in my truck without them even knowing how long I would be gone for - they didn't give me the 2 week option. I looked at this as a good thing: it was a way to rid myself of the stinky truck with dead batteries! So if I go back, I get to enter the lottery again and maybe, just maybe, I'll get a better truck. What I didn't say in my first post is that this was actually my 2nd truck issued. The first one (issued a couple weeks earlier) had 375K miles on it, no APU, an air leak, and a 5th wheel that wouldn't lock into place. So I actually give my FM credit in that he was proactive in finding me a truck with an apu, and about 100K less mileage.

Those are some good ideas regarding road breakdown; next time I will have to be even more proactive. But in this case, someone finally called me back from road breakdown about 24 hours after the initial calls I placed, and due to my own fault I missed the call. He left a message for me to start the apu and the rest of the batteries would charge up, as if I would NEVER have thought to do that on my own. OF COURSE I had tried that several times the prior day. So when I try to call him back, its a unlisted number. So then I had to call back and start the process all over again. My fm confirmed that I probably got put back to the bottom of the list all over again cause they had assumed that they cured my problem by just leaving that stupid message. But, my fault for not being near my phone when they called.

Yes, and I totally agree with you regarding the empathy involved in realizing that your dispatcher has to put up with 100+ drivers, and with a certain percentage of them being pains in the #####. That would put me in a bad mood also. But again, this is where this is like a cancer. If he allows himself to become infected with the negativity, he will then in turn pass it on to drivers who are not negative at all. As a result, eventually everyone is in a bad mood, and negativity and condecension are considered standard operating procedure. And believe me, I did my best to never call him on the phone unless I absolutely had to.

Regarding your comments about corporate attitudes and employees in Omaha walking on eggshells, again, thats a perfect example of my theory that this company is just poorly managed. I do understand that it can't be fun to have to listen to drivers complaining to you all day. But why are they (the drivers) complaining? Maybe because management won't listen to them? Its kind of like, what comes first? The chicken or the egg.

I think its easier for your husband. When he started with Werner many years ago, there was probably a much better corporate environment, and a better working situation for drivers. And after all these years with the company he has learned to ignore what doesn't apply to him, and just try to cling to the good (the benefits, the million miles status, the recognition of his tenure, etc.). And there's nothing wrong with that.

The bottom line for me is that it has become very difficult to see any silver lining with this company. I can put up with alot, and I'll bend over backwards to get the job done for the sake of the company, but just give me a little reason to want to come to work every day... know what I mean?

Thanks again Steele for taking the time to help me, and shed further light on Werner! Good luck!

 

that was all great input thank you. i have one other question you might be able to answer. if i am in a werner truck and i break down and i decide to pay for the repair out of my own pocket so i can get back on the road, will they reimburse me for the repair and will it be in a timely fashion? i am thinking if i broke down due to batteries or tires i would just buy them to get going. there would be NO way that i would sit for days or even hours due to batteries or tires.

 

yeah they don't "need" drivers half as much as they need students to haul frieght for $40 bucks a day. werner employs about 7000 solo drivers and about 1500 teams ( that includes training teams I assume ) there are alot of trucks sitting and waiting for a load at any one time. right now the loads are even tighter due to the economic down turn and time of year.

once you are trained, promoted to "qualified driver" there is really no skin off thier teeth if you sit for a days at a time. the company is cash only every truck, trailer, building, and stick of furniture is paid for. if the wheels aren't turning your not earning, but don't worry werner will be getting thier $$.

 

jmmate -

I cannot tell you the answer to your question since I have limited experience with this company. But I think you have the right idea, trying to get these issues rectified on your own.

I also considered doing just that in my situation, but I guess I became a little stubborn saying to myself, "why should I pay for repairs out of my own pocket, when this is one of the largest trucking companies in America, and it has all the resources, so why can't it respond to my (and its own) needs?"

And I asked myself, "if fleet managers (dispatchers) are supposedly there to help you, how come they did not recommend doing the very thing you are proposing? During my 54 hour wait, I increasingly became more and more amazed by the lack of any action taken on the companys part, and eventually just sat back, totally amused, and watched to see how long this debacle could possible continue!

If I was an O/O then I could have, and would have, taken a more proactive approach. But being a company driver earning a whopping 21-26 cents a mile, I think the company should have at least a minimal capability to repair its own trucks in a timely manner, and get it's own company drivers moving and working again. Maybe I'm just asking too much?

 

I ran for Werner for a little over a year. I did it the smart way, though. I ran through Red Hog Express and Eagle, both of them haul freight for Werner exclusively, and you are still a Werner employee, but with a lot more benefits. Lets just say that Werner wont let those companies sit still. I was considered an Owner Operator and I had the BEST dispatcher at Werner. Terry fought for the driver, not the company. He knew what we went through because he drove for umpteen years out here and he's been through it too. There are many companies that haul Werner freight and have just as good benefits and believe me, they pay more per mile and keep you running! Some have sign-on bonuses, etc. Ask around when you are at the terminal. You will see all the companies' trucks in the BT area. FYI: Red Hog Express is out of Bennington, NE, about 10 miles north of Omaha, NE. Eagle Trucking is out of Tuscon, AZ. Red hog's Freightliner trucks are older, I got a brand new Freightliner with Eagle. Keep an eye on your pay no matter where you go. Both companies are fair but will definately get you the miles!

 

i agree with not doing too much as far as repairs etc if you are with the company. however, i think i would way it out. if a tire is $400 and i would lose $600 due to sitting idle and there is a possibility of getting my money back then i probably would do it. however, if the repair is $500-600-700 or something and i am only out $100-200-300 due to sitting idle and a possibility i might not get the money back then i would not do it. obviously evey situation has to be judged seperately.

 

I can't see why a person would ever want to pay for he repairs on someone else's truck. If they won't fix your truck or give you a truck that works then leave, Plenty of other companies will take you, but the freight will still be slow.

 

Well, ..... that's one way to look at it, Ksoul.

But I can see another point of view --- be freight fast or slow.
I noticed you mentioned a driver paying for repairs on someone else's
Big truck, and assume that would also include someone else's trailer.
Lemmie tell y'all a twue story, ............

My trainee and I were dispatched to a paper mill, out in the middle
of NOwhere --- to drop & hook to a pre-loaded trailer ready to go.
CooL! And E-Z too.
I smell miles.

Seems the load had been turned sown by another driver, for no apparent
good reason.
Hmmmmmmmmmm

Upon pre-tripping the trailer, I discovered it had the new HalDeX slack adjusters.
I'd never seen them before.
I also discovered an air-line hose that appeared to be wayyy too long,
and had sizable leak from a fresh wear spot.

I called the company's extended service number and explained the situation.
The voice on the other end of the phone informed me that they called
road service, and the road service said they'd be there
in 'about 4 hours'. It was Sunday evening.

I made my call from the paper company's phone at their repair/maintenance shop
where several mechanics were sitting/standing around with little to do.

I engaged the shop foreman in conversation, and mentioned the HalDeX system.
He had read of them in a shop bulletin though, and together we looked it up.
He found the bulletin and we BOTH learned something about them,
like how to adjust them, as they were unlike other slack adjuster systems
in that regard.

Being curious, we returned to the trailer to take a look at them, and discovered
that someone had attempted to manually adjust one of the adjusters,
having tightened it ALL the way down to brake shoe
contact with the drum --- but hadn't backed it off.

We figured we knew the reason, and proceeded to properly adjust it ourselves.
Once completed, I showed him the air-line hose with the hole in it.

The shop foreman looked at it and said he was pretty sure he had
a hose in inventory that would fit, and that he MIGHT be willing to sell it
to me.
Hmmmmmmmmmm

I asked if $20 would cover the cost, and he told me for that price
it would include installation.
Hmmmmmmmmmm

I had several Jacksons in my wallet, and gave him one, .........
and within an hour total from the time I made the phone call,
we were ready to roll.

Now, ...... IF road service HAD arrived three hours later, and IF they had the hose necessary on their service truck,
and IF they knew ANYthing about HalDeX adjusters --- we STILL would have lost 3 hours of wheels-a-turnin'.

Crunching the numbers:
Back then I was paid around .35 a mile, ALL miles driven --- including the trainee's miles,
I figured I could score about $57.75 in three hours.
Minus the $20 for repairs, I'd still be ahead $37.75.
Not to mention the education I received about HalDeX,
making me one of the first drivers for the company to know ANYthing about the new HalDeX system,----
information that I gladly passed along to others.

When I made my check-call to my dispatcher on Monday morning, --- this was pre-QualCom daze ---
she told me to just write the amount I spent for repairs on a piece of paper,
with an explanation that there was no receipt, "because the receipt fell under the table."

And on my very next paycheck, I was reimbursed for everything.
So, I figured I was ahead by $57.75 because I didn't elect to just
sit around waiting for road service to 'maybe' show up
in four hours.
Might even have been longer, bet certainly not sooner.
While we sat there in the middle of NOwhere,
goin' NOwhere ---- fast.

EVERY company Big truck I've EVER driven, I've considered and treated it
as if it were my OWN Big truck.
And I've paid out-of-pocket for necessities when needed, then and there.
MOST I was reimbursed for, and ALL the big ticket items WERE reimbursed by the companies.

One exception was a headlight that burned out, and I was authorized to
replace it, and ONLY that ONE headlight.
ME?
I don't replace only one --- I prefer to replace BOTH, figuring they're both about the same age and the other one
is probably about ready to take a dump soon.
I already have my tools out to do one light,
why not just take the time, --- while it's convenient, ---
to go ahead and replace both during my, then, 8-hour break.

Total out-of-pocket cost for a second headlight?
About $4 ---> $5.
Piece-of-mind?
Priceless.

Besides, a new headlight is brighter than an old one.
See where I'm goin' with this?
I could see better with a brighter light.