ATS Lease Program?

I'm pretty sure I did get the extra insurance, though they gave us so many papers, I can't seem to find it now! My FM was pretty pushy about this load for some reason. He sent me the load offer, then less than a minute later he sent the actual dispatch, then less than a minute later actually called me, and basically put me on the load with very little input from me.

I'm thinking this was the last time that's going to happen. I've been doing this a little too long for that crap.

OH, and I can't wait to get out from underneath this trailer I have. It's one of the (I assume) older stepdecks that only has a few winches attached. I had to use a bunch of portable ones, as well as run to the truck stop to buy some 2" ones for this load!

Having trailers with no winches on them has got to be one of the goofier things this place does...LOL...

 

Sounds like somthing Dewayne would do, And with the A/C,if you do what most drivers do and what I have done a few times (though it is not much of a stretch for me) is play dumb, my favourite is "It must have happend when they loaded it, that fork lift driver did look a little shifty"

 

Sorry, I read the first few pages, but couldn't make it all the way through before replying, maybe later.

I worked for ATS for awhile (can't remember exactly), 4 or 5 years company, then 5 or so as lease/purchase. When I did it, it was a new, factory fresh, truck that you owned at the end of the lease (with a balloon or a few more months of lease).

I have to say it was one of most honest companies I have ever worked for. It's a Minnesota thing, I think, but also that Rollie (the founder of the company) was just that kind of guy. Rollie retired, and his son took over, just a few years before I quit them, and things started changing, but not too much.

I quit, not because ATS is a bad company, but because I was just sick of my dispatcher. It was a deal where I was due for hometime, but he had this load going in the opposite direction that I just had to take. I figured that I owned (yes, I had it payed off at this time) the truck, was paying for the fuel and was ready to bounce 300 miles to get home. It turned into a "do this load or you are terminated, #### you, I quit!" thing, but in fairness, this guy had never been in a truck, and I hadn't liked him since I got him. There was definately a "personality" problem between us, but I had worked under him for 4-5 years, so it was just the final straw. Not really an ATS thing.

My point is that ATS was a very good company when I worked for them. Still? I don't know, but the heritage is there.

 

Maybe that's what they teach these fleet manager folks. My guy was really pushy about this load and also acted as if I didn't have a choice in the matter either.

To add to it, when I got to Faribault, there was another guy that was loading and had been with ATS three weeks. He tols me his FM had also given him an ultimatum situation about taking a crappy load of AC units right up against the holiday.

I think I'm seeing a pattern here....I certainly hope not.

 

ATS was founded by Harold, Rollie's father, Harold died in '02, '03? Rollie took over, we all thought that his sister would have been a better fit 'cause she was a Harvard business school grad and Rollie (rumor has it) was St. Clouds resident playboy. I did not know Rollie retired, I left ATS in '04 when Rollie tried to make ATS to big to fast( I had seen it before with Burlington, DTS and others) and figured the company was headed for a buyout but I was wrong. They were a good company, I bought my first brand spankin new truck at Harolds freightliner dealership in ST. Cloud and they gave me a good deal, though my truck burned to the ground due to electrical, was told by insurance adjuster that it was probrably a bad wireing harness but was told by another driver later on that ST. Cloud Freightliner had a few trucks catch fire the scuttlebut was they were hooking up the computers wrong causing a short, I would tell anybody that they are a pretty good company and treat their drivers reletivly great

 

Rollie seemed like a nice guy. Rollie has an IT degree so he isn't stupid. I never dealt with Rollie on a personal basis though. ATS was a good company to me. They do noone any favors and they don't screw you over either. You will make money at ATS. Some weeks are better than others. Dispatchers are bull headed and they do get angry if you tell them no. They have a lot of good paying loads(for them) and some of them require a lot of nonsense to load/unload. There were a few places I just told them I'd quit before I would load there again. Excessive wait time, difficult tarping, etc.

 

I never met Rollie, other than shaking his hand in passing one time, what I liked about his father, and I think this is what the industry is missing now, Harold used to give his card out with his office and home phone number on it and demanded that if we (owner-ops) ever had a problem, to call him and he could take care of it. I never used it but I heard another driver say he had a problem and Harold made sure it got resolved. I think the only other owner that come close to Harold was maybe Mike Starnes who owned M.S. Carriers, other then him having a hard time keeping his pants on around the opposite sex(again, just scuttlebut) he treated us pretty darn good

 

How much experience is Anderson looking for?

 

That depends on the division you're looking to get into. You've asked a very generalized question. A little more in specifics would be good.

Anyway, since my initial hiccup with Memorial day weekend, freight has been great, and I have been as busy as I want to be. I've even managed to sneak home twice. I'm not taking much time off at all because I may need four whole days off later this month, which is going to be tricky.

The girls in driver services asked me what I thought of my first week, and I (very nicely and politically, lest I step on a land mine) told them that I was disappointed with the judgement call on my classification, and that my first load was a disaster, but looked forward to working back through the ranks€, and that since then things have been good. So yeah...I did something very uncharacteristic of me, and even threw in a a little brown nosing.

In retrospect, I think unless I can work with my fleet manager in advance to keep moving over a long holiday weekend, the best bet is to just be home. Sitting away from home for holidays sucks, is asinine, and a huge waste of time and money.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed, and honestly I didn't think I would be.

 

Mr Sinister,

Best of luck to you, friend. Once your fleet manager figures out that you wont drop the ball in the big game, he/she will throw you the long passes. One suggestion tho: plan your vacations around your fleetmanager's vacation.


I worked through Christmas and wound picking up a 5 stop load for Texas. Dropped the first one off on Monday and the last by Tuesday noon. My fleet mgr was on a 2 week holiday and was due back the Friday after NewYears. After I MT south of San Antonio, I call dispatch and ask which way to go to wait...Houston or Laredo. Dispatch tells me to go to Laredo. 20 miles from Laredo, they tell me to go to Houston for a load to Canada. Cool!

Load description required metalpipe stakes and dunnage and so I picked them up. 40 ft steel bars, 44000 lbs. Trailer was a 53 step. Get to shipper and they put a bar on the trailer and asked me if I was okay with it. It stuck out 3 ft over the rear.

Nope. Cant haul it.

Dispatch sends me 4 different areas around Houston to find a 53 flat. At 1:30, they inform me that I needed to get back to the shipper because they were closing at 2pm. I told him that I didnt have a flat and even if I did, I was too far and traffic too heavy to make it back. So we lost the load.

Dispatch: Ummm, we lost the load. You probably are looking at Monday for another load.

Six: I emptied out on Tuesday. I did everything I was supposed to do in order to get a load. I called you before I hit my last drop to tell you to expect me to be empty and you just want to sit on your arse for the rest of the week and paint your toenails... that aint good enough.

GET ME ANOTHER LOAD!!!!

Dispatch gets another load for me, loading in Longview Friday after NewYears, shipper closing at noon. Still need a 53 flat tho. Dispatch tells me that he has a driver coming to Houston from Laredo and will be there Wednesday evening. Okay, that will work.
I wait. And wait. And wait. Friday morning, I am still in Houston waiting. I call dispatch and my fleet manager answers. Hallelujah!!!! While I am on the phone the driver arrives from Laredo. Slacker.

My fleet manager takes only 2 hours after being off for 2 weeks to find me another load that picks up Saturday and delivers Monday AND pays me for all the running and detention time.

Needless to say, when my fleetmanager isnt there, bad things happen to me.