Bulkmatic, as it happens...

I can't speak for how things are/would be in the Forth Worth area, I have no clue.

Overall it's going okay. I mean hey, no place is ever going to be perfect but I still think I could have picked a lot worse places.

The money isn't as good as it use to be but that is at least partly on me, if not a little more. They have hired a lot more drivers in my area, so even though the overload work load may have increased (which it seems it has) the per person work load is down a bit. Plus I needed to cut back to 5 days a week to help out with oldest generation, and I'm also home almost every night now where before I didn't care if I was getting home or staying in a hotel room, which would allow me squeeze in an extra load every week.

Like everyplace else, some loads are great, some loads suck, you take your turn in the barrel and move one. Be where you are suppose to be when you are suppose to be there, let people know if for some reason you can't or if you are having issues, and you're pretty much left to your own devices, you don't get micromanaged (at least I don't).

I major complaint would probably be communication. With the people I might have to deal with on a daily basis, such as dispatch or the man in charge of the terminal or if there is a large problem during an unload or something of that nature it's fine, but it terms of larger scale communication this place is horrid.

 

No problem, go ahead. If it requires a long answer I probably won't get back to you until middle of the week when I am.in front of a computer. Phone keyboard drives me nuts, this is about the longest I get with it.

 

Sorry, I just happen to catch that there was replies to this thread from eons ago. I have it set to send an email when that happens but for some reason I never got one, or it ended up in my spam or something. I haven't posted anything here since it looked like nobody was watching.

Anyway, yes, I am still here.
Is the honeymoon phase over? Without a doubt.
Is it a good place to work? Overall I would say yes, but you know how it goes, some days/weeks are a total PITA and there are things that drive ya absolutely insane. I think if you break it down just to dollar signs the money here (from what I have seen and read about other places) is a decent cut above average, at least as far as the larger dry bulk companies go.

I actually got fed up last year with this policy during the busy time of the dispatch I work that basically said if you have not requested, in writing, to have both your days off actually be your days off and had that request approved by dispatch then you were going to have to work one of them, and gave notice (there were some other smaller things going on at the time, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me), which prompted a bunch of calls back and forth between different people and myself. I have to give credit where it's due, everyone I talked to after that and aired my crap out to was polite and willing to listen and try and come up with a fix that worked for everyone.

While I was actually ready to leave, I had 2 places lined up to jump to, I do like what I do, so after some back and forth with people they asked if I would be willing to stay and go to a 4 on/4 off schedule, which is a cut in pay because you work less, but comes with guaranteed time off. I said I'd try it for 3 months to see how it went and what the pay averaged out to be. That was about a year ago and I'm still here and on it.

I understand it was self serving, if I stay they don't have to spend time and money to train somebody to replace me, but they also went further then I expected to come to a place that worked for both parties when they could have easily said don't let the door hit you in the ### on the way out, which I had every intention of leaving.

You still need to be able to roll with the punches, there are days when you start out doing one thing and end up doing something else. trailers didn't make it back to where they were suppose to be aren't loaded when they were suppose to be, other drivers run out of clock and you end up having your loads changed to pick up the slack or something like that.

The nanny cam is enough to make me want to beat it with a sledgehammer sometimes. Honestly, I amazed I haven't been canned over it yet. I know these things aren't going away but I still hate them. I'm far from perfect but I'm not an idiot either, just tell me what you need me to do then leave me in peace to do it.

I think dispatch has taken a hit since they went to centralized dispatch. I'm not sure if there is now a lot of turnover in dispatch or if there has just been that much a dispatcher shortage since the move. I know I got a company email a few weeks ago mentioning something about a referral bonus for any dispatcher you recommend that gets hired on.

Overall, it's like every other company, there are things I hate and/or don't agree with, but I think it's a also a place (at least in my area) where the people are willing to work with you if needed, which can go a long way. Benefits are decent, money is good as long as you're willing to get out there and work for it. Trucks are newer (but I still miss my manual transmission).

As long as I can stay on this schedule, pay the bills and not get my ### fired I don't really plan on leaving..... but ya never know either.

 

Stalker! LMAO

I'm a terrible person, I actually had forgotten all about it. I was posting thru training and when I first when out on my own but for the most part it's the same conglomeration or crap every week. How often can ya post about the same stuff?