01/21/10 Update on good and bad at Marten
Discussion in 'Marten' started by Kabar, Jan 21, 2010.
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Blade, I would rethink coming to Marten. My miles have picked up, but their communication is still ####. I've heard mixed reviews on the Tx. regional board. I know the upper midwest region is not what i expected. They just don't seem to give a #### in the office. There are better companies to drive for in your area. I'd keep searching if I were you!
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The lot we have there is mostly filled up with unassinged trucks. Today when i arrived with an mty, there was no room, had to go 30 miles out of route to drop it at our other and much better drop yrd in Saginaw. Then bobtail back to Irving for service.
They keep saying they are building a new much larger termianl, but as of 6/27 they haven't broke ground. -
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Thank you for all that reply and i really will listen and consider all opinions -
I'll chime in: I'm actually moving from OTR to Upper Midwest Regional in the next couple of days.
The communication issues that River complains about are genuine issues. It seems that they've been doing an ENORMOUS amount of shuffling of people at HQ. The end result seems to be the most problematic for drivers, but the communication between all the folks in Mondovi is bad enough that they don't even notice how irked the drivers are.
I don't know how to boil this down without being too glossy. It seems that nobody in the corporate office, except a few very committed fleet managers, will spend one single extra calorie of energy to get you the information you need as a driver. They seem to be very committed to the mentality of "this is my job, that's not my job, let me transfer you to the person whose job that is" and then you get to a voice mail box. The end result is that you, the driver, wind up chasing down real people to get answers to questions that you would think should be able to be answered by a functional dispatch tree.
The primary way that this manifests itself is in the efficiency of dispatch. I've found that the way I can keep my miles up is by constantly lobbing salvos of information into my FM's lap. What's my eta, my hours after mt (all information that's in the daily check call macro, but doesn't get read) and often nudging him in the direction of what needs to happen. Example message:
I'm one of 2500, and I have to remind myself of that. I don't want to be one of 2500, but thinking like I am just a number and going out of my way to get noticed and stay ahead of the curve seems to keep my miles up a little higher than others I talk to.
Why am I switching to UMW regional? I figure if there's no way I'm going to see a 3000 mile week more than once every two months, I might as well see my wife and my son a little more often. My miles OTR have been pretty consistently in the 2300-2800 range (if I'm not going on or coming off of home time), and I figure I can get the same mileage rate, mostly the same miles, and be home more than once a month on regional.
I've given up imagining that the system is capable of producing 3k mile weeks. It just doesn't "think" that way.
Am I giving up on it just yet? No. Is it the worst job in the world? Hell no, contrary to what a lot of folks here will say. There are definitely worse companies to work for.
The per mile pay rate here is actually pretty high (even factoring in per diem) compared to other places I've researched, but please, for your sanity, don't expect the moderately high mileage rate to go hand in hand with constant high mileage.
Best advice: Be positive, be proactive, don't take things personally, and know your limits. It can be tough to keep all four of these in sight at once sometimes, but it'll help. You're going to work for a big company that has developed a lot of the blind spots of a big company in the last year or so, and remembering that they're not out to squash you on purpose will help. That way, if you find that it's time to move on eventually, you won't come back to these boards with a chip on your shoulder about Marten Transport Ltd. for the rest of your life. -
arrived # Laredo terminal on the 1st of July, been sitting here with 30 other company trucks. And 1 onwer op 488 miles for all of last week. I want the f***king Marten Cheerleaders please explain how someone can live on 468 miles?
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Kabar would explain it,
but I think he bailed !!!!!!!! -
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