6 months with PAM

I too have recently passed the 6 month mark. I can second videodrome's basic overview of the company. Compared to horror stories, even in house, it has not been that bad at all. Yes the money could be a lot better, but hey at least I have a job.
I have been lucky in that I was assigned a Freightliner as my first truck. ran well till I met a deer on the interstate at 65. Not much cosmetic damage but busted the radiator, so they are retiring the truck. Just picked up my next truck, an 07 Freight.
I actually am a Decker driver but we are all the same, we just get home every two weeks and do a lot of east coast.
Communication is the key to getting anything done or gathering information. I have come across some situations where the person on the other end of the line was giving me a easy answer to get me off the phone. In these situations I slow down the conversation and insist on a more definitive answer or help. I am assertive and polite. Never lose your temper or resort to rudeness. It just doesn't work. Good luck to those of you just starting out.

 

pam hasnt really been bad to me either, granted freight is slow, its slow everywhere, every company, so you have to make the best of it, as for my truck, my old century was always in the shop, so kay got me a prostar when i went to the driver lisaion and she said i only averaged 1200 miles a week, before the decline. Well hopefully these loads pick up and the broker loads stop.

 

My wife and I (team) are with PDS as noobs since October. Been slow, but steady. Very happy so far with the people in general. The auto industry mess plus time of year is not helping freight for us all, I'm sure....We have an 06 Freightliner Century with 490k but runs great once we shopped it like crazy to get the bugs out.

 

yea the auto-shift is real nice when you in bumper to bumper traffic saves the left leg lol

 

DH is a Decker nooby and has an automatic Freightliner. During his 5 weeks on the road with a PAM trainer in Oct/Nov '08 they spent 11 days broken down in AR before they were finally given a "new" truck which also broke down more than once. DH got his Decker truck (with 400K+ miles) in mid December and it was in the shop within a week. Luckily it was over Christmas so he was off anyway. It's still not running smooth..knocking hard and whatnot. But hey..he has a job..and the dispatchers have been great.

 

I was a driver for AFS, a PAM sister company and they screwed me on my tuition reimbursement. I was told that in order to get my ESCROW money back I'd have to take the truck all the way to the Jacksonville, Fl terminal even theough I picked it up from the Irving terminal, really close to where I live. That was not in my contract and I ended up having to take a 1,000 dollar hit because I didn't know any of this until after the fact. Seems like any trucking company will take advantage of you until the very end and Pam/AFS is no different. Oh well, I'm with a much better company now with better benefits and about 30k more a year.

 

Can anyone tell me if the trucks are clutchless automatics, or do the automatics have clutches?