Werner May 2018

Where do I begin...

GOOD WERNER STUFF:

- At least you are not driving for Swift, CR England, CRST, Knight, Celadon.... From what I have seen so far, you will make at least double what those guys are making. And my opinion is that you're treated better. As a Werner driver, I believed I have less horror stories to tell about being mistreated by a company. Those drivers often do when I see them. At Werner, I routinely saw "refugees" from those companies coming to Werner. The Werner guys would complain and #####, but the refugees sing praises of joy at Werner. I always pitied and felt sorry for those guys. Poor ########. At least that's what I thought while I was at Werner. Werner is a mega, and is thus hated, but I think Werner gathers less hate and chagrin than say Swift who is the often thought of as the official red headed step child of the trucking industry.

- for the most part, I got along with my dispatcher. I never felt disrespected or anything of the sort. Operations is another story.

- I had a 12volt fridge which i plugged stuff into at work

- if your truck acts up, you will have a better one within 24 hours! "My truck is broke. Dispatcher: Ok, I'm putting in a memo to get a new truck" Bam! New truck soon, and a free hotel stay until you do

-you can idle the truck if the temperature is over 69 degrees fahrenheit. I have never been contacted for idling truck. I was only talked to about idling in the truck in orientation. You have a bunk heater--espar, for when it gets cold. I had an automatic KW T680. There are many autos in the fleet, and still some manuals. I saw some manual 2016 Petes in the fleet. And Werner has begun buying Internationals after not buying them in 15 years or so

- training program is geared for the newbie; trainer not allowed to have liberties with you. You can report them for misconduct--the same they can you. I've seen trainers in the safety office talking to Omaha for alleged misconduct (ALL of the safety decisions come from the "mothership" at Werner, aka, main terminal in Omaha, Nebraska.). When in the truck, the trainer is not mandated to stick to the rubric of info Werner wants you to know. Example, you might get an O/O who wants you to run miles only and not much else, or you will get a million miler who will teach you trucking like your his own child ("earful daily"). When I was testing out, I eavesdropped on a new set of trainers while at Omaha.

- You are often not penalized for arriving late. Namely because you already know you will be late from dispatch. And many times, you will be dropping stuff off in a DC for a company listed on the stock market (Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, Menards, Dollar General, Family Dollar, etc you get the idea). Once or twice you will drop a trailer off at a Home Depot store. At most of the distribution centers, you will be doing a drop and hook. A walmant delivery takes less than 20 minutes most times.

- the trucks are usually new and in great shape. I got my truck with 12,000 miles on the ODO I left with 110,000 and change.

- the owner operators are often happy. I know a few. They always have a pep in their step and they are making money that they are happy with. I'm with the consensus that being a lease op is bad, but I think Werner is an exception because most guys and gals finish their leases, are happy, and got more than one truck. My first trainer paid off 3 trucks, and spent 10 years at Werner! And no, I did not do a lease op.

- personal drive time is very liberal. You are not to use it as a personal vehicle, but many gals use their tractor to hit the mall for a movie or go to the Walmant down the street from the terminal. PDT is a naughty treat at Werner

- Your fuel card is not turned off when you go home on home time. Melton does that

- trucks cruise at 68 mph and pedal drive at 65mph. This is new in early 2018. Oct 2018 they did not have this. At the time it was just rumors I heard from a safety guy at Atlanta terminal. I confirmed this with some contacts I still have from people I went to truck school with.

BAD WERNER STUFF

- In less than six months that I left, I was told that Werner had driver facing cameras by a friend I went to truck school with. The recruiter in early 2017 bragged about not having driver cams. But things change obviously.

- no APUs on trucks, and Werner will never, because each truck only stays in the fleet on average for 2 to 3 years. A new APU adds $5,000 to the purchase price of a truck (that is my guesstimate, APUs are not cheap though)

- you are not allowed an inverter over 150 watts. No joke. That can power a netbook but not the gaming laptop I have now.

- you don't get many miles at Werner, not because Werner does not have miles, but the solo trucks are run in a relay. Each set of trucks run in a zone and hand off swaps to other trucks, similar to Fed-Ex guys moving doubles around. There are good and bad to being in a relay. My favorite is, say I'm better than a guy or two. I run harder (more miles per day) than he does. There have been times where I've sat in a Werner drop lot waiting for a guy to drop my trailer off. That leads me to the next one

- at Werner you will likely not ever get any detention pay, because you will likely miss your appointments from being in a relay. You have to be a very beady eyed person to get you detention at Werner

- drivers at Werner are in a "caste system" from lowest caste to highest 1) solos 2) dedicated solo accounts 3) dedicated teams (not many of these) 4) teams 5) company driver trainers and million milers (million milers are given many perks and leniency with certain things at Werner) 6) O/O driver trainer 7) owner operators and lease operators (this group avoids many of the "mega carrier" rules and proceedures at Werner except safety, hometime anytime they want, can request loads, refuse loads, its a long list of crap)

- Getting into trouble at Werner is expensive. You are grounded for a few days and wait until its your turn to see safety. Any mistake you make will cost you at least 30 days in probation. Ripped off mud flap, 45 days and you have to see safety. You killed a stop sign in the back-woods using the trailer as an accomplice, you get 45 days probation. Many drivers at Werner are terrified to go to safety, not because safety is bad, but because of the wait and you cannot leave any Werner terminal with the truck until you see safety. Not even PDT.
- Dispatch will pester you to do a Dollar General temp account if you are male. They also ask the females too, but they pester males more. (I know a fellow female Werner trucker I bumped to at a Loves who gave me the details). I think dispatch is either coerced or incentivized to get a driver to do Dollar General accounts. On the flip side, Werner gets the choice DG accounts.

- my average paycheck was about $500-600 per week. That is one of the reasons I left. I was promised more by the recruiter that came to the truck school (I know....), about $45,000. And $50,000 for teams. He didn't mention that you have to be a vet to do the apprenticeship program, which I am. But it was not enough and I was using my GI Bill for something I might need later. I was making just under $500 a week before trucking and I was home every night in my own bed....

- Werner has many schools around the country. The bad thing that its not as cheap upfront because they require a downpayment most of the time, say around $1500 dollars. But I would contact a rep at a school before making any decisions. To the chagrin of many professional drivers out there, Werner has enough schools around the country to fill those seats with fresh year ends on a near regular basis. Many schools do not bare the Roadmaster name. For example, the one across the street in Omaha terminal I was told by my trainer is owned by Werner. And there is one in Virginia which they also use as a drop lot -- that happens a lot BTW.

- No speeding in California. You are restricted to 55 mph. Safety will flag you and have you routed to a terminal to be written up. A buddy I know had that happen to him. Solos do not go to California much. This applies to teams. Yes teams are restricted to 55mph.

CONCLUSION

- With that being said, my experience as a new truck driver at Werner was outstanding. And it could have been better. Like many have said, Werner pays crap, but its just about excellent for newbies.

- Werner is a company who knows what its doing. Drivers are listened to (within limits). The operations are structured, and new drivers can have a positive frame from which to operate as a trucker in the future. You get a good base for your knowledge.

 

I agree with you. I only log onto TTR into post things that I feel may inform or help others. I don't take the screen name seriously because... well I just don't. Everybody is different.

 

UPDATES

GOOD:

- the fuel card pays for scale tickets at any truck stop now. This is convenient as I no longer need to use my money. This was implemented in early October 2017. Just before I left. I was getting buzzed many times to pick-up my new fuel card when I was returning to home terminal the last time

- Werner does fueling at all the major brands; Loves, TA, Petro, Pilot and Flying J. The trick is that there is a list of truck stops to use. There is an actual list, but no one uses that. Instead, everybody and their mother uses the Werner App that shows them on the map. This is similar to Trucker Path app but is Werner specific. You are supposed to get into trouble for using non-authed locations, but I think only if you make a pattern of it. Long story, I was at this one exit that had two Pilots. Left turn or right turn was a Pilot. I was in a rush and I fueled at the wrong one. Nothing was heard of it

EDIT:
The pay for me was average $650 to $700 per week. I would get rollover checks of $800 to $900 per week. At Werner, 1800 to 2000 miles per week is normal (you run relays). Solos fresh out of school start at 35cpm.

 

UPDATE:

- I said that there are driver facing cameras. I was told that. Another driver at Werner I bumped into said it's MobilEye. Which is not driver facing and is not a camera which records. I looked in the truck and no camera lens is facing inwards.

- back when I was at Werner, you either had Wingman or Mobile Eye. Now it's both on all the trucks