My 16 Week Experience with TRANSAM

Well crap, am now officially depressed. TA has a new lady working accidents and was told today that she had given me bad info. Long story made short, am not going to get paid any money for sitting while waiting for the truck to get repaired. Sucks to be me at the moment.

 

LOL!! That nails my "training" experience exactly!! It was over 20 years ago, and for a different, now defunct company, but exactly like that! One "trainer" I had was so nuts he often wouldn't stop for coffee at a truckstop (waste too much time), but would instead (I swear this is true!) eat the coffee grinds right out of the can (had a little 12 volt coffee maker in the truck, but would run out of water).

Thanks for making my day with that description, I had forgotten about all the "fun" I had while learning this business!

 

OK, read this whole #### thread (24 pages worth!), and I see both sides of the story.

OG56, I feel for you and your bad experience, sounds like you got the shaft, for sure.

OTH, I have to come down on the other side, the side of "what did you expect?" I started in this industry in 1986, with no experience in trucking, no friends or relatives that had trucking experience. No one has ever been "greener" than I was.

This was just before the Feds started to get into trucking in a big way, back then we had chauffeur's licenses, the CDL was just around the corner. I went to a two week school, and when I "graduated", I could barely get the truck out of the yard, and around corners. Best truck the school had was an old beatup International Astro (I think that was the name).

One recruiter came to the school, for Midwestern *something or other*, the infamous "Dollar Trucks". (You went out with a "trainer" for a month or so, then got (forced) to lease your own truck for a dollar!) These were short wheelbase cabover Freightshakers with 30" bunks. And this was a team operation. So, if you did get a chance to sleep while the truck was not going down the road, one of you had to sleep on the doghouse (and you were thrilled to do it, because otherwise you were trying to sleep while the other driver was driving, and the only thing "air" in these trucks were the seats!).

Qualcomm and cell phones did not exist, so when you emptied out, you found a truck stop, and went to the "phone room", where you would often find 20 or so other drivers waiting to use the half dozen phones. When you got to a phone, and dialed your dispatcher, it was more than likely that it would take them 30 or 40 minutes to even pick up. Then you would be told, "Nothing right now, call back in an hour." This could go on for days, I kid you not!

My truck (I did lease one for a dollar) had a 300 hp Cummins, the big dogs were running 425 Cats, and how I used to envy them going up the hills, LOL! Nowadays, 500 hp is common, even for company trucks. No "power" anything, and after backing into a tight spot, sometimes I could literally not walk for a few minutes (the clutch was an absolute bear!)

Like you, I didn't make ####, but I was putting in my "first year" so I sucked it up. After a month or so (long time ago, I forget exactly), I was made the "trainer", LOL. Talk about the "blind leading the blind."

My point is, I guess, that trucking is sooo much easier these days. Yes, the regs are much tougher, so that is a big PIA, but physically, it is easier.

Of course, I realize that this has nothing to with $$, but I didn't make much of that first year either. As a trainee, I made 8.5 cents per mile (but that is even while you are "sleeping" in the bunk!! So the recruiters said, LOL!), and then, when it was my truck, and I was training, I got 13.5!

It was, looking back on it now, simply a miserable way to make a living, but make a living, I did.

Fast forward to 2009, and I am probably not making any more money, adjusted for inflation, than I was back then, but I am still driving. And I still can not imagine doing anything else. I have tried a few times, but I always get "homesick for the road." It DOES get in your blood, at least it has gotten in mine.

I am now a company driver again, but I did buy and payoff a brand new Century, so it can be done. I just don't want to have to worry about that stuff anymore.

This has been one of the best threads I have read on this board, and I thank you for starting it. I hope you can make it through untill the economy picks up again, and can go back to woodworking.

To anyone thinking of entering the trucking business right now, I would just caution you to expect some lean times, but I think that is true for almost any occupation right now. If you do get into a truck, do the absolute best job you can, and you should be allright. Just remember that the company cannot make any money unless you make money (barring the "lease" deal, of course). It's the drivers that deliver the freight on time that make money for the company (and, IMHO, the 3-5 cents difference in payscale between new and old drivers does NOT make up for losing good accounts), and those are the drivers that will get the miles. Again, lease deals may be different, I don't know.

I work for a BIG company, and am getting all the miles I can handle.

 

That is called "Recon coffee", we would do that when on sentry duty or up in a LP/OP when we could not sleep, we would take the coffee packs from the MRE and pour into our mouth, take a gulp of water, swish it around, then swallow,, worked great, don't know what kept us awake better, the caffiene or the taste.

 

I alway's liked putting the hot sause in my eye's...... The coffee only worked in the first 24 hours of duty.

 

Thats a little to hard core for me plus I'd spend the next couple of hours with tears streaming down my face and I would not be able to see what I was looking at. In Desert Storm, we literally spent the first two weeks with no sleep. between repeatedly digging in, moving, digging in again, the only sleep we got was from passing out from being in the level 5 mop gear in 120'f temp,
You want to smell funk, smell a rubber suit after two weeks of a sweating, unwashed body being in it.

 

Well I have to say after reading this I will not be going to Trans Am no time soon they sound to much like Werner....I wonder if Steveans Transam and Werner are all the same companies.........Cause they sure the hell loving ripping people off..............

 

Yeah, if work is so great, why do they have to pay you to do it?

 

Hey Old Guy,

Guess you found out about TransAm the hard way like I just did. I turned in my truck also. If you'd like to get together and have coffee and chat I'd really like to hear more and maybe get some advice on where I should seek employment next. I just live up the road from you in Bogart GA.
Look forward hearing from you.

Smokin' Stevie