FFE

Most of the time it's their insurance companies. Welcome to trucking!!!!!

 

Its not free to train people.

 

Yes but out of the tons of companies, they're the absolute only one that requires a contract for someone who already has a cdl and they're on the lowest end of the pay scale.

 

Gotta start somewhere. Up to the person.

 

I don't know.

When we ran for them its like any large trucking company (Any outfit in excess of say 400 trucks to 2000 plus) You had many people doing many different things. As long they remembered that you gave them a little sunshine, some love and a bit of running there is a hell of a lot of freight coming your way.

We also knew that if any of the dispatch centers heard the word "no" as Chicago Highland did once when they asked us to award a lucky solo in Detriot with a 2500 paying mile run to Phoenix in the dead of winter while we took his late load across 400 miles of Ontario Ice which we just escaped from early that day... no.

That was the end of our relationship with Chicago. But Phoenix and Denver more than made up for it. Salt Lake could not be bothered and san fran was never home. LA was something else but its all good. Round and round she goes. Its the people.

Two things come to mind. Running 6500 miles as a team paying salary for me and a pittance training pay for the spouse ( I think it was around 280 a week net for her...) instead of say paying .75 to the truck to us. It would have been in excess of about 3800 dollars net per week, so FFE did save some money for some months paying us salary essentially half the labor cost. Among other savings to them. But we took the pay and we were happy anyway.

Why did we leave? Well it's simple. When you finally get around to having a full team after spouse was hired and we are running 6000+ every week and the paperwork in payroll does not clear them timely to provide us with a 0.00 paycheck, we had to take the large legal size journal, each load not paid by trip number and it's specific information brought to a DM in lancaster and they cut a comcheck on the spot for 5 loads unpaid. We go send that cash to the bank we were paid.

The second time that was a 0.00 then it created more problems. This time we have 12,000 plus miles worked unpaid and pending. It was time to migrate to McKesson and run medicine out of Memphis. And we were in the truck by 10 AM the following monday rolling to Memphis.

The money has to flow. Otherwise forget it. It does not matter if it is FFE, timbuktu or JB Hunt or whatever the money has to flow. That was the main thing.

But as a people in the organization? We had some fun with most of them. More or less. It's a people thing. Not a BAD company thing. If you cannot run for a company without being nice and having money roll your way then you need to find another or get out of the industry. Find something that makes YOU happy. Maybe something that does not involve too many people. =)

Early winter, late fall the biggest test of any company I worked for is simple. Pick up the phone and call a company poobah who has a large spending ability and ask him or her for 10 fresh virgin tires for winter to put on the tractor. A couple of hours later we have 10 fresh virgin tires ready for battle in the west.

Could not be a better company as far as we were concerned.

 

I am with them now. I have no problems or complaints. I have always been paid correctly, get my home time when requested and get loads. I work line haul and loads usually go out on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. When I am at a terminal without a load I will help out with local and regional. (Hourly pay for local. Regional is miles, drop pay, plus detention) I am never disappointed with my pay when I am helping out with local or regional runs. More you say yes to helping, better loads you get.

 

I have more questions to your story I am gonna question her experience, how much before FFE and how many carriers has she been with since obtaining her CDL, in a course of say 3 years just throw a number no need throw names of course reason I ask why would an experience driver be there when there so much better companies, mandatory daily per diem never heard a company that requires it, the IRS doesn't I know don't require it I have a few buddies who call that home.
I don't get why you lose a very important document in the first place not like it's junk mail. home time idk I have known people who want home time and miles and complain they aren't getting enough home time and when they get there they complain no miles, sometimes you gotta take a weak load to get to a better load drivers don't see the big picture sometimes they could get a load that's a 1k+ miles and after that another same amount. simple because your home is at a bad location middle nowhere. theres always more to the story then a lot will admit

 

I had intended to go to central tech here in my home state of oklahoma. The cost would have been a mere 1500 since I was an in state resident and a 6 week course was to follow. My recruiter, who was fired the week after I graduated, told me that their school was much better and only 2 weeks long. I should have known better.

I am a graduate of Central Voc Tech in Drumwright OK when they had all the tornadoes in 97? or 98? . That is also where they train OK state police. I flew there from Wa state I was a refresher student & already had a CDL, but no recent OTR. Are teachers where retired tanker drivers. We lived in a mobile home just a walk away from class & they had a paved driving course, skid pad & used KW T-600's I think. They were one of the first recognized PTDI schools back in the 90's $1200 tuition & $300 rent 4wks long. Man you should of went, I had a great time there.

 

I had to make my own skid pads. A few acres of large parking lot somewhere abandoned during a ice storm is the best I could do after dropping trailer. (No safety chain set...)

If my employer caught me abusing his brand new 110,000 dollar tractor on that ice the way I did I would have been so fired. However, that time on ice regularly provided me a invaluble experience necessary to overcome future winters in my life.

ALL schools should have a proper skid pad big enough to throw 18 wheelers around loaded and empty. I think the fun factor combined with actual overcoming fears for some and learning for all would be most invaluable.