Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

I intend to wait and see. As long as the money is still there every 2weeks I can't see me leaving. If things go south, I will have 2 years experience which should get me hired somewhere else.

 

I just got a call from my DM he told me the same. Abilene got sold! and Knight is the owner!

 

I'm not worried about the money. I'm worried about losing all the intangible benefits that come from working for a small, cozy privately-owned organization where the Powers That Be seem to be reasonably decent people who aren't out to squeeze every penny of revenue they can out of us.

I like the fact that as long as I get to where I'm supposed to be on time, the Powers That Be are happy. I'd hate to see things change so that I'm being told when to take my breaks, where to take my breaks, when to fuel, where to fuel, yadda yadda yadda, and having to explain why my break lasted 45 minutes instead of 30, or why I wasn't on the road immediately as soon as my 10 was up.

Having to deal with that will have me looking for another job in very short order.

 

I use to drive for Knight years ago and I had a reason why I left them! "Micromanagement" My DM said that Kinght was not going to be involved in changing Abilene method of operations..... Time will tell me if that is true! But for now; I don't believe it.

 

I can understand that. I suppose it remains to be seen how much I am willing to put up with if the money is still good.

 

My DM called to give me news and reassurance that "nothing will change". So I said "you mean we *won't* be getting the enhanced benefits and technology?". The reply was "Oh we will be getting all that good stuff, just no negative changes".

So much for nothing will change at all.

 

Checkmate!

 

I made delivery's there and what I do is take a picture of my bills; and if they are asking me to send in proof of delivery I send accounting and to my DM via email the picture.

 

Give me a day or so to digest this. 2 positives I heard was this, the number one priority will be to revamp our disgusting health insurance. From what I gathered, that was a major issue with Abilene. We’ve lost a ton of drivers since this new insurance came out. Number two is our 401k is being looked at also. Apparently there’s room for improvement and Knights is much stronger.

This acquisition has been in the works since September. It was finalized yesterday and was announced this morning before the stock market opened. Knight is a publicly traded corporation, by law they had to announce it. From my talking to Dave Jackson, the president of Knight, in Kimberley’s office, they will be doing the same thing here as they did with Barr-Nun, leave it as it is. We were bought because Abilene is a very profitable company, so is Barr-Nun. If you see a Barr-Nun truck on the highway or at a delivery, nothing says Knight. They too were bought because they were profitable and Knight said nothing is to be changed that will disrupt the profitability.

We will not be pulling Knight trailers, they won’t be pulling ours. We will not be using their terminals and they won’t be using ours. I’m sure changes will happen.

In my discussion with Mr Jackson, he asked me my concern, and I told him. I told him I just celebrated my 40th year OTR. Drivers like myself aren’t looking for another company, we are leaving the industry altogether. I also said to him that the reason I stay here is because of the complete package Abilene gives me. I told him some of it needs to be corrected, but overall, I make great money, get home when I want to and drive great equipment. He assured me those things won’t change as long as Abilene is profitable.

I don’t know what the future holds. I do know this, if in the next year this whole thing goes south, then I’m gone, as in out of the industry. If this turns out fine, then I hang around a while longer. Let’s see how this plays out.

 

Question John.. Does this mean that "US Express" will no longer use our terminal for parking and we cannot use there?