1st Day with C.R. England...

Hoping this company would live up to how it was presented during orientation, here I watch...
I was able to pick up my tractor & take it home to load my things.
Since this continued true from what my recruiter told me, I was hopeful this would be a better experience than my previous company. It wasn’t like this though during the week of waiting for my truck. My recruiter told me there were plenty of available trucks at the yard & upon passing the drive test, I could take one right away to get home to get my things & hit the road. This is not what happened though. Instead, the staff at the facility said they would call me when a truck was ready for me. Then, that afternoon, I got a call saying I was going to be flown to Arizona to help PetsMart out there. I explained I could not do this this to the man who called me from Arizona. Then, I got a call the next day saying they would arrange a ride for me so I could bring my things with me. Having to wait till the last minute of news of how the logistics would work out was also very stressful. Finally, I got clear answers from a different woman than the other two that explained to me how I was going to get into a truck. She told me a truck was ready for me at the yard after all & I could come check it out the next day.
Once I took the truck, I was told I could take my time getting settled in there & then call Arizona & let them know I was ready to come help. As I was picking up the truck, I text on the tablet if the staff wanted me to take an empty on my way home since where my things were located there was room on the street for the tractor & trailer. The staff that replied said, “Yes! If you can find one.” The first one I saw, I asked her, “How about trailer #...?” She said, “Perfect! We’ve been needing to grab that one for a while now!” I did my pre-trip on it, & everything looked good. Because I was feeling pressed for time as I had a 4pm when I got back into town, I did forget to check the tandems before I took off. I later learned that this was the best move I could've made anyway, as there is a major shortage of empties with this company.
Then, on my way home, I got a call from a dispatcher telling me if I could pick up a load in LA the next day with a final destination of WA. I said yes, yet I wasn’t sure on an ETA for the customer since I didn’t know how long it would take me to get settled in my truck. So she said we will call you the next morning so you can have a more accurate time. I didn’t get a call, but I did get a message on the tablet asking if I was still good for the job. I said yes, but let’s say I’ll arrive at the cut off point. I was so grateful I said this, because after I was done with my pre-trip, I realized the tablet would not route me to the location. This was a little scary because I do not have a backup trucker tablet yet. Thank goodness I am familiar with the area though, so I knew which streets were safe at least to get back to San Bernardino. I called the Main Line Dispatch for help & got no answer (at about 11Am) I left a message & put my earbud in hoping they would call me in route & clear the tablet issue like the last lady did to get it to allow my route home. I even tried to look for the Platinum Science phone number to see if they could help me clear the issue, yet could not find it on the tablet & was not confident any of the numbers the internet were giving me were right. Western Express had this handy right on the home screen of the tablet, which was VERY helpful. Since I knew I was running out of time, I sent 2 priority messages explaining what was happening & that I had to go because if I didn’t leave then I knew I would be late for the load. Western Express AT LEAST got back to Priority Messages RIGHT AWAY.
As I approached San Bernardino county & still didn’t hear back, I tried calling all the numbers that were in my recent call lists as here I was approaching an area I did not know which streets were safe & which weren’t. Plus, my phone, as it did not know I’m driving a semi, kept trying to re-route me the fastest route, which was very stressful as I knew I shouldn’t be doing things with my phone while driving & per the company rules, we can’t pull over on the side of the freeway. So the camera started going off saying I was distracted, which was also a bit upsetting because we were told in orientation that the camera was only facing outside, not inside on us drivers too. Fortunately I knew there was a TA not far from there, so I went there to park & try figuring out how to get back to the customer (which I only had 1 hour left to make it there). My phone told me I was about 30 minutes away, so I took a route I knew was semi friendly & made it there about 10 minutes before 3pm. Once I arrived on the street, the correct address of the customer was not visually clear, so this made me about 5 minutes late. While I was trying to find it I kept calling dispatch with no answers still. I finally called the main help line & still had no answers, so I left a message with HR. Arizona did at least call me back, but they couldn’t help the situation as it was the man with PetsMart & he shared with me that he hears that the phones are regularly not answered out here in California, so if I want to move to Arizona I could be assured they would at least answer the phones there. Here I was thinking too, at least Western Express answers! Not that they always are helpful, but more often than not they were.
The customer was very kind & understood why I was a few minutes late, so they took me anyway. When he asked me for the BOL, I could not access this information because my app was saying that I was still driving so I could not look. I switched the tablet to On Duty & this still did not fix the problem. Fortunately, the customer figured out which BOL I was there for & loaded me up. When I left to get scaled, I tried to use the card to pay & it got declined. I tried calling the number on the back of the card & it said it didn’t recognize my card. So I tried to call the main CR England line again & still no answers. So I had to pay for the scale out of pocket with no guarantee I will be reimbursed. Plus, I was overweight 3,020 LBS on my Drive Axles, yikes! When I went to try to slide the tandems, this is when I saw they were unable to move. So I decided to come back to the terminal to see if I could get all these problems taken care of. As I entered the Service Center at the yard (which at least is 24 hours), the techs that helped me said the problems are because this is not one of our trailers. Which another woman tried to tell me on the tablet, yet was not telling me what to do to fix the problem. I was so concerned about being late to the customer, I told her I didn’t have time to deal with the trailer issue at the moment and if we could please deal with it while I was getting loaded. She did not reply. I was being told it was the wrong trailer number, yet I was confirming with her that these were in fact the trailer numbers. No one explained to me that an Extra Lease trailer in our yard was not actually one of our trailers. The original lady that told me to take the trailer said take ANY TRAILER that’s empty. The next day a different lady said yes this is one of our trailers, but just leased & not owned.
The technician that helped me called his boss & explained to him what was happening. He said I should call roadside service to get help. I tried calling them, and after holding with them for over a half hour I gave up. The tandems were thought to be welted in place, so there is no way for me to slide these tandems. Plus it is completely unsafe to not be routed by the tablet all the way to WA. Plus with my card not working how would I get fuel? It is a very unsettling feeling being out there with no guidance from a company that we are supposed to follow their rules. What is also unsettling is knowing now that this load will be late & I don’t have a way to let the customers know what’s going on. Finally, the next day I got a call from a lady that noticed the load wasn't moving & wanted to find out what was going on. After I told her everything, we decided I should go back in the shop & see if someone else could fix the tandems. There was a trailer tech in that day & he in fact discovered it was missing its lever so I did have no way to slide those tandems unless he fixed it. Yet he was off work in 10 minutes, so now I gotta wait till he comes back at 6:30 am. Still the load isn't moving.
Aside from all this, it is also very unsettling not knowing how much I get paid. Yes, my recruiter told me the average earnings of CR England drivers, & I heard about the $20 bonus for each successful load during orientation, yet no specifics yet about how much CPM or hourly pay. Also, unfortunately I was unable to ask during the orientation how many miles we are permitted for PC. This is also unsettling because it was stated that if we want to use PC, we need to get permission. Yet, if no one answers the phones, how can we ever go to the store?! Micro Manage Anyone??? Further, when I got in the truck, the mattress was so used it felt like a box spring & not a mattress, plus there were skin flakes all over it from the last driver!Western Express at least gave each driver a new mattress. They also guaranteed me home time when I needed to get to a medical appointment, which the C.R.England recruiter told me its highly unlikely since the Dr. is only open on weekdays! Another huge concern I have is when I was doing my pre-trip on the truck, the chains are rusted so badly they look dangerous to touch. Infection anyone??? I asked the techs if I could get new chains (Western Express gave us new chains with our trucks) & they said we don’t give new chains till the ones you have break! I don’t see how this could be safe, as if needing to use them, we are in a dangerous situation already, where would this leave us except stuck in a snowstorm?!?!