Am I making a mistake leaving Werner?

KillingTime · Mar 17, 2017

Fatmando said: ↑

Start learning to change old people diapers, because that's the next "good job", for people with no unique and in-demand skills, talents, or training. And that's us, like it or not.
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Lol. That explains my transition from Social Service work with the Developmentally Disabled to driving around a semi.

I was third on the food chain in the rather large agency I worked for (Psych degree, credentials, legal trainings, yadda-yadda-yadda)...... It's a shame that the everyday drama, political BS with the state (working for a subcontractor), the influx of culturally ignorant help (immigrants, 'fresh off the boat' - you have an individual with a thinking, behavioral, speech, etc. impediment and because of the body shortage you shove a warm ### in the seat?..... Someone with ZERO acculturation? Oh! That'll work! - let's make it harder and watch all the behavioral episodes and violence spike! - that said there are a few that were really good, they are still friends I communicate with today) and the BUSINESS MODEL of doing PERSONAL work really ####ed it up for me. I enjoy helping people, it's very rewarding. What is not rewarding is to be stuck with a team of incompetent staff (this includes white people - who were usually lazy as all hell) who you have to babysit more than your direct charges......... I'd never done anything to provoke an attack on my staff, but there were a few times when my reaction would be.... gleeful.... that they got thumped... and probably wouldn't come back to work because they were too scared to do so.

Regardless. I won't be going back to that environment even if trucking becomes entirely automated next year.

Ric Rabbit · Mar 17, 2017

Fatmando said: ↑

Start learning to change old people diapers, because that's the next "good job", for people with no unique and in-demand skills, talents, or training. And that's us, like it or not.
Click to expand...

LOL Wow . . . actually read the entire thing Great Thread!!

It was all I could muster spending 10 days in CR England's Texas "refresher course" (have had a CDL since late '70s) cannot imagine weeks!! Gave 'em 7 months solo *felt abused as 'ell* and "end of job processing" consisted of bob-tailing to Chicago yard and hopping next flight home!

Current local job "interview" consisted of 10 minutes around the block and "yep, you can drive"! That was 2 years ago and have one of the last manual transmission trucks . . . My company has since only bought "automatics", is always hiring and yet has brand new trucks sitting idle!!

Might as well be a school bus, signs are posted everywhere, they're always hiring too!! Problem is, with the current cost of living, nobody really pays well. I probably average 1,000 to 1,200 miles over 5/6 days (half of those empty) . . . .

'ell, for a local company driver suppose a $1.00/mile isn't bad??? Local / city driving is horrific those aren't all "highway miles"!!!

pattyj · Mar 17, 2017

KillingTime said: ↑

Poor gal can't cook either.
Burns the #### out of everything; always setting alarms off at home.
I think she's more successful as a man.
@pattyj.

Oh yeeeeeeeeeah!

'No'. Two letters; one syllable.
They can force dispatch but #### near nothing else. Teams, dedicated, temp positions, O/O or L/O.... drop that 'No' on 'em.... add a 'thanks tho' if you're feeling gracious that particular day.
Sure, the nagging will continue, but it's so easy to skirt.

Class?
Test?

The class was a PowerPoint. Little waddly fellow said about 35 words thru two days. Everything else was CBT (computer based training) - and was just about ####ing useless.

The only real test was the one where you had to mostly fill a cup.

No offense taken for my jaded history by yours truly, Zing.
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Good morning awnry.If I ever made you a meal I would delibrately burn it,

insipidtoast · Mar 17, 2017

I

ad356 said: ↑

i got my CDL in november. i tried for a month to try to get a local job, nothing materialized...... same story everywhere. the insurance wont allow us to hire recent cdl grads you need experience. so i decided to go to werner because they had the highest training pay, they assigned me the family dollar because i expressed a desire to be home as frequently as possible. they brought me to the allentown terminal and i sat in a hotel for two weeks. this was before the Christmas holiday. The recruiters told me a fish tale on how i would go to allentown, go through orientation and then get a week of driving in before i went home for christmas. i went through orientation and sat in a hotel. the had probably 50 some people sitting there with no ability to train them, trainers had gone home on the holiday. the biggest issue i had here was the dishonesty. being told one thing and then sitting around doing nothing, seems like a total lack of communication between recruiters and the terminal.

i returned after the holiday and i sat again for another 1-1/2 weeks. they finally placed me with a trainer. i was with the trainer about a 1-1/2 weeks. he actually was a decent trainer, he was on the dollar tree account. after we were out he informed me that he was going home for a week and i would have to sit in a hotel. i had already been out for about a month without seeing my wife or child. i went on a leave of absence and went home to see my family. i stayed home for 4 days and once again returned to allentown.

i sat there again for well over a week, finally i got assigned a second trainer. i stayed with this guy the full term and got all of my hours in 250+. this trainer was so so. he only gave me 10-15 practice backings in the week i was with him, and he did not allow me to send qualcom messages or go through the macros. he ran the truck as a team with me sleeping while he was driving and visa versa. he started out by trying to run me overnights. i told him i was not going to be able to sleep and that i was concerned for my safety. i do not sleep well during the day, and its even worse when the truck is moving. i think the first night he had me run i got 3 hours of sleep. sure enough about 4-5 am i started to feel myself nodding off. i had to roll both windows down to stay awake. the next day i informed him of my difficulties sleeping and he attempted to get me kicked off the truck. i do give the company credit because the FM informed him that i was staying on the truck and that he would have to change shifts with me driving during the day. this did improve things somewhat, but then i had the vibe that he felt i was a burden. the entire time i was with him i felt he was using me just to run more miles.

after i completed training, i tested out in the company truck. i passed the program but did not feel that i had been trained very well and i am no where near ready to be on my own doing a dollar account none-the-less. i have heard that these are nightmares to back into sometimes. i could go back and pick up a truck if i wanted to but i decided to try something else. i found a company located in my region that does north east regional freight. the company is called rist and its a division of wadhams. i found my experience at werner to be frustrating and i dont hear much good about rookies starting on a dollar account.

rist/wadhams is a family run company and they have 3-400 trucks. rist is the dry van division. they have told me that i will go there wendsday for a physical and get a micro-tel for wendsday and thursday night. wendsday is the physical, thursday and friday are orientation and smith systems. at the conclusion of orientation, i will meet with a dispatcher and he will make the arrangements for a trainer. they have 4 trainers and they are all highly experienced and vettted, they dont allow just anyone to train. i will go home for the weekend. monday morning i will meet up with the trainer and drive all week. i will go home every weekend during training. besides the first 3 days i will not be in a hotel. i was told since i already drove quite a bit with a trainer, im only going to be required to get a week or two of training. normal training length with them is 20 driving days. once i have completed training and go solo i will be home on the weekends. they have told me that they do not run weekends, i will usually get home for 55 hours per week. this all sounds allot better for someone who has a family and is try to keep their family life intact.

i was formerly a raw milk receiver, i happen to know allot of truck drivers. i have kept in contact with them through facebook and phone. the all more or less say the same thing, try to go work for a smaller or medium sized company as soon as the opprotunity presents itself. are they giving me good advice. they say with the big guys you arent anything more then a number, the have too many dispatchers, load planners, managers, ect ect. wadhams has 4 dispatchers and they all work out of the same room. being a milk receiver, i actually unloaded quite a few wadhmans trailers at my former job. the have a dry van division, fuel division, and milk division. after one year i can transfer over to the fuel or raw milk division and be home every night.

am i making a mistake leaving werner in the opinion of everyone here? i know that dollar account is probably not a good fit for a new driver and i would like to avoid OTR. im not interested in the type of driving that will keep me away from my 5 year old son and my wife of 12 years for 2-3 weeks at a time. that would be more like hell.
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is it true that their trucks don't have APUs? If so, what do you do when you're in a no-idle state like CA? Say you run out of hours near death valley and it's August. Does the company pay the fine?

Fatmando · Mar 17, 2017

insipidtoast said: ↑

I

is it true that their trucks don't have APUs? If so, what do you do when you're in a no-idle state like CA? Say you run out of hours near death valley and it's August. Does the company pay the fine?
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Would that make it okay, if they did? It's still your CSA score, your DAC report, and your motor vehicle record...

Nope. You're supposed to die. That costs the company nothing, and creates no infractions, and they have another driver in a holding pattern at their training terminal, waiting for your truck...

Ryan423 · Mar 17, 2017

If you have a CA clean air sticker you can idle. New trucks have the sticker.

Fatmando · Mar 17, 2017

Ryan423 said: ↑

If you have a CA clean air sticker you can idle. New trucks have the sticker.
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Werner used to ride me about my idle time, during the dead of winter in Pennsylvania. They had some numeric threshold beyond which you were supposed to be disciplined, regardless of conditions. I warned them once, that I was idling the truck to keep it running; the next time they gave me crap about it, I shut it off. The fuel gelled in the fuel lines and the fuel pump. They tried to get me to clear the problem, myself, and prime the fuel pump, and I told them that if I was not qualified to determine when to idle the truck, and when not to, then I was certainly not qualified to fix it, when their decision resulted in a breakdown. After that, they kept me in the southern states, until spring/summer.

I doubt that this would consistently work, at Werner or anywhere else, today. They'd just can the driver and put in the next warm body out of their school. But I was pretty fed up with people at a desk, who didn't have a CDL, telling the guy in the truck with the CDL, how to run the truck, so I didn't care if they did fire me, by that time. I had enough time in to be able to find something else.

ad356 · Mar 18, 2017

well i spent my first week at wadhams and i will go into some detail
-hotel was much better, not a flee bag unquality dump. no roomates everyone got there own room, there were 6 students so they could have cheapened up but did not
-wendsday physical was more depth. they did a physical stress and agility test werner did not. pee in a cup only, only did the government required drug test not the invasive hair follicle test.
-thursday orientation was nice. fill out that government paperwork and listen to someone from recruiting talk about the company. the guy from recruiting was a CDL holder who came off the road after many years. seemed like he knew what he was talking about. professional and too the point.
-friday did smith systems class. did 4 hours in the classroom followed by road driving in a car to put what we learned in the class into practice. they took as part of this process they took us out to lunch. went to an Italian resturant and had a nice fishfry dinner. i think my plate was $15 and they paid for it. they bought all of the students lunch. werner's version of smith systems was less in two hours and no practical application.
- after the driving exercise we returned to the terminal. they introduced me to dispatch and they already had the arrangements with my trainer. before i even left i was talking and texting with the trainer and having a great conversation. the guy is 26 years old, got his CDL when he turned 21. he comes from a whole family of truckers and its in his blood. his dad works for walmart trucking, he twin brother also works for rist, his uncle is an owner op down in florida. guy seems awesome. he WILL not run me as a team, he says that's not quality training. he has been married 2.5 years and he loves the company, says they get him home every weekend and sometime as much as twice during the week when he doesnt have a student. he gets home consistently every week. he is home enough for his marriage to grow and prosper. he also said he has a great supportive wife. this guy says that rist is a very positive company he could not be any happier. all of that home-time and he averages 2,200 miles per week. sounds great. if he is getting the 2,200 miles per week at 44.5 cpm he is making $97K per year. sounds awesome.

neither of the two trainers i had with werner were married, the guy i was with for 6 weeks was just downright strange. he was 25 years old and still lived with mommy and sister. he had no clue what it was like to be a married man with a child. that guy smoked Virginia slims, sprayed himself with woman's body spray, wore woman's hair accessories, drove around blasting back street boys. the guy was just weird and i was glad to be off of his truck. he is going to be disappointed when he finds he is not getting the "retention bonus" because i left town, oh well he really didnt train me much anyways.

one guy in the class came from usx, the other guy came from werner. the guy that was formerly with USX sat in a hotel for 4 days doing nothing, got pissed off and left. the other guy drove with werner. werner started him on a dollar general, he did it for a few months and got tired of the backing and unloading part. they re-assigned him to sears dedicated which went OK for a couple of weeks till they chopped his miles. the last few weeks he got 800 miles per week and made $250 per week. he got upset and left.

i made an excellent decision. im actually looking forward to going out with this guy Monday morning. will be with him all week and go home

Ryan423 · Mar 18, 2017

Omg your trainer listened to backstreet boys! What a weirdo!

I'm interested to see if you will be in trucking one year from now. Good luck.

MACK E-6 · Mar 18, 2017

Ryan423 said: ↑

If you have a CA clean air sticker you can idle. New trucks have the sticker.
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...Unless it's one of the stupid kind that shut off every 5 minutes.

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