Don't Even Give Them a Chance

I don't post here often and I only lurk once in a while but I feel like it's a public service if I can stop people from applying to this company. I am going to try to give you the most comprehensive review of Western Express yet and why you should definitely not work here so get ready for a long post. I came to Western Express about a month ago and I already regret it and am about to quit. I gave it a shot because I had just been fired from another company after my first year and thought this was one of the only companies that would willingly hire me. I was wrong about that! I already have at least one job offer after calling a couple more companies. Wherever you are in your career you can probably do better than Western.

Yes the hotel is as bad as they say, the rooms are gross and decaying. The food is bad, the orientation drags on and on they are so disorganized it's like a bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off. We spent nearly a week on orientation with no pay. They don't seperate experienced drivers from students, everyone pretty much gets the same treatment. They draw large crowds into the orientation and they try to shepard everyone around the terminal doing road tests backing tests etc but they don't even get to everyone it's so disorganized and some days we just ended up sitting for hours or being bussed back and forth confused and wondering just WTF it was we were doing. Many drivers left and went home before it even finished. All of this should have been enough of a red flag but I really resigned myself to thinking I didn't have another choice. Please reconsider if you are considering this company. There's another way.

When they tell you the pay structure they are lying flat out, doesn't matter what division or experience level. They will try to force you into doing flat bed if you sign up for van. It pays (a little) better (sometimes). Van starts at 32cpm(base) and flatbed is 40cpm(base). Based on these facts it seemed like I would get payed somewhat well doing flatbed work. Now there's a sliding pay scale that pays more or less per mile depending on the number of miles in a trip, but there's no logic to it and they don't really explain how it works beyond telling you that you get less per mile on long loads. As an example I'm flatbed (they told me I couldn't go back home to the west coast for 6 weeks unless I did flatbed) and on a recent 2400 mile run I made 30 cpm which is less than the base pay for the vans. Yet another load of about 540 miles was paid at 55 cpm and another 180 mile load was paid at I wanna say 33. You'll get pay for tarping, detention (depending on the shipper/reciever) etc but it feels inconsequential when the base pay is that low. My first couple paychecks have been in the range of 400-700$.

I have no prior flatbed experience by the way, the work is extremely hard, they only train you for three days on how to secure loads and then give you a bunch of old ### binders that will seize up on you as soon as you need them and throw you to the wolves. The trailers are worse I haven't had a working one yet. The onroad department is no help in getting your equipment fixed as they deal pretty much only with third parties seeing as they don't have many terminals and don't have their own mobile work crews. So it's extremely hit or miss whether whoever they call is gonna fix you right. I had a trailer with a massive air leak for a while and just dealt with it because the guy who came to fix it just told me it was a frozen leveling valve, dumped some brake antifreeze in the line and drove off. I continued to have a massive air leak. My truck broke down in the second week and put me out work for 5 days! I was already home so they didn't pay me but I only wanted one or two days home time it only seems fair they should have paid me something for that lost time.

The dispatch is not available for you nights or weekends. You can call and call that terminal after about 7pm EST but your dm won't be there. They are supposed to have ect crews but I have barely talked with them it seems to be a skeleton crew. Other drivers have been telling me to get unloaded and set up for my weekend load by Friday or else you probably are just gonna sit for a weekend. I haven't gotten a response off Qualcomm msgs either. And good luck getting funds for equipment/lumpers etc. I've spent about 200$ on some securement equipment and an escort into a port and I don't know where my funds are for those. I had them approved by my dm but the funds aren't showing on my efs card or in my paycheck.

In closing this company is just chaos incarnate. I genuinely can't tell if they are true scammers or just the most incompetent company in history. They aren't worth your time they will just waste it over and over again. Everyone I've talked to from their own drivers to the shippers and receivers to the port to other companies have had bad things to say about Western. The only people who praise the company are your dm/recruiters/instructors in the orientation. Maybe it works for some but I can't deal with it any longer. There's gotta be a reason they have such low reviews and poor reputation, I should have done my homework but luckily for me it looks like I have a backup company to go to, and you should work harder to find one too if you are in a similar situation.

 

Hopefully I'll be done with them by next week. I just need to return the truck or get fined 1000$ for"abandoning" it. I've already told my dm to route me to a terminal and fed him an excuse about wanting to get my truck looked at again. Which is actually probably a good idea because there are still two engine lights on the dash even though it came out of the shop a couple days ago.

I'll be ok read what I posted, I have a year of experience driving van trailers prior to this. I already have a job offer from another company to drive dry vans I just need to make it to socal to return this pile of #### truck.

 

So I'm still with Western over a week later. I feel like my "dm" is just dicking me around at this point. He wouldn't route me to Fontana for repairs so I told him the real reason and he tells me the truck needs to be returned in Nashville... Ok so he got me a couple loads and I'm 500 miles from Nashville. I'm sitting waiting for him to get back to me because I don't have the equipment I need for a load again... I offered to pay the miles on my preplan that goes to Nashville and he just seems like he is stalling or not answering. He is really trying my patience. if I just drive to Nashville and pay for the fuel/miles do you think they're gonna put something bad on my DAC report? I mean I won't be abandoning the truck it will be in their terminal...