Roehl

Roehl is not currently a decent company to work for IMO. The terrible stories are mostly true. If you want to hear mine from 3 months of training and solo driving send me a message and I will spell out the nastiness I endured...

 

post it here!

 

Trucks I had, (3) were all in very poor condition. Turbos and head gaskets and injectors. Not aesthetic or comfort, but functionality.
Hours every week sitting in Gary. OMG. Terminal is ok but nowhere to go. No breakdown pay. But...the 1 time I went for a personal issue, knee problem from the clutch, I was barraged by the dispatcher about my productivity!!!!

The truck I recovered was a POS. Not the companies fault. But headlight wiring was broken. After taking home 3 days, on my typical out of house run I asked if I should pay truck stop labor or move the delivery so I don't have to run in the dark.... Repair shop asked.. if I've been running it like that for a week what's my issue now.

 

I did get the headlight wiring fixed. Took 4 separate trips to the shop. Older guy working the quick bay bay started at 5am. I slept in the yard and rolled in at 5am. Rolled out at 7. Forgot to log my pretrip. Called HOS. Some ####### on the other end decides that my pretrip needs to get logged at 5am....not 7. He doesn't want to put the shop time as working hours, just wanted to throw away 2 hours off my 14.
Says he's not gonna argue with me, that's how it's gonna be. And basically hangs up on me.

 

I never made it past the phase 3 babysitting dispatcher. Don't know why. She wouldn't talk to me, never said anything about me doing something right or wrong. Messaged me a few times when I forget to log sleeper at a receiver. Ask for feedback, crickets. Ask for a different truck (clutch) crickets.
2 weeks later I'm diverted back to Gary totally screwed up my clock...
Oh, BTW here's a truck for you. Drive from Chicago to Philly, find it, clean it, and pick up in Bath tomorrow at 3pm.

Jackwagon operation

 

You will be called on if your 10 is an 11 more than one or two times.

Malfunction during the time out with your trainer will be your fault. Not my experience but a classmate of mine was told to take a tunnel in Oregon by his trainer.... that apparently had such a right hand turn in it that he ran the side of the flatbed against the wall and got written up for it.

Mudflaps cost you safety points.

If you can't make a schedule, even if you call it when you get it, they will tell you it's because you took a 2 hour DOT break 4 days ago or some kind of crap....

I'm serious...

 

Did a drop and hook in Atlanta. Trailer I hooked to didn't lock the tandems.
Leaving the guard shack it suddenly slides into place.
Guy in Marshfield says to me you should have seen the look on your face when it slammed into the back....
That's just awkward. What am I supposed to say to that. I just threw up a little bit, thanks... WT.. AF...

 

I seldom take less than 12, and often more, so I guess they would be calling me quite a bit.
With all the issues you mentioned, you should have quit a long time before they let you go.

That tandem thing, though. You should have made sure they were locked before getting to the guard shack.
If it had been in a harder braking situation you could have ripped the axles clean off.
Never take a trailer out that you know has a serious problem. You can always find a different empty, or simply bobtail out if there are no others - after reporting the trailer to your company for repairs to be done.

 

I quit, they didn't fire me. I knew I would owe them for the CDL unless I worked for 12 months and I knew I wouldn't be able to last 12 so I left after 2.
I never checked the trailer I hooked up to. It had never happened before and it was totally off my radar. I always locked mine when I put them back for loading, and locked them forward after empty. Didn't do much drop and hook. It was a way worse cluster fck than that and the begining of the week I decided to quit. But you are totally right, and I did used to check. Until now my back side don't slide no mo....lol spread axles lol

 

Well, I'm disappointed to hear that about Roehl, in the Badger, they were always considered one of the best, with good equipment. I went through Marshfield a lot, and always saw nice trucks. If it's any consolation, they'll be next to pull the plug. I don't mean to be harsh, but just about everything you said, can be chalked up to "trucking". Not sure what you expected, and bailing on them before the year was up, probably wasn't the best decision. I'd have toughed it out, may have gotten better, sounds like "trucking" may not be for you. And there's no excuse for not checking the trailer pins. I knew a guy where the whole tandems came out from under the trailer when he hit the brakes. Can't have that, sorry.