But overall would you say it's a good company for someone with less than a year of experience to go out in a couple years?
Sure. I'm still here despite all the ########. Only threatened to quit about a dozen times from stupid crap like going to pick up a load and it already being picked up.....7 loads in ....a.....row.... This is your support staff @ work... Got into it with toilet Jameson a few times really good over the phone and once at the terminal.
Besides you are running team Most of your runs are pud freight shuttles. Got a few nightmare runs every now and then from conversations with teams but most of the timed you are gonna just drop it to the city boys "freight drivers"
I teamed with 2 different people. One was horrible......didn't know him prior. The other was a buddy. 5800-6500 miles was a typical week. 85-90% drop/HK. Quite a bit of hazmat and a ton of Midwest or east coast to calexico/kingman Oregon and wa. (IE long runs) faster dispatch than solo fleet, but still a little slower than it should have been.....but w/ 90% drops it really didn't matter as long as we let dispatch know about 5-8 he's out. This would typically get a plan b4 arrival. Lots of Conway freight to Conway freight and ups to ups or amazon. Money was good, mikes were good but I personally like 3500-3800 solo so of course I felt like it could have been a little better.
Canada is not required but hazmat is. I would echo what cargo said. My only frustrations came from road service but when it went like that I'd let my fleet manager take care of it. I always got reimbursed. If I wanted to go back to OTR driving, Conway would be the first door I would knock on!
Pretty much everything Cargo said. Plus Frequent layovers for solos - and often right before you hit the 48 hours required for the meager $60 pay, they dispatch you on a load that doesn't pick up for another 12 hours. In those situations, the system won't accept a layover pay request so you have to plead your case to the ops supervisor Breakdown/road service that won't approve a hotel until right before the shop closes for the night -- and then only if the shop won't push your truck into the parking lot for you to sleep in. Every 2 months or so I'd have to call payroll about reimbursements or ancillary pay items that were missing. Always fixed on the next check, but you have to keep a close eye on things like local pay (which is $20 + mileage for any load under 50? miles) Operations personnel with no concept of time zones. Expect to get generic fleet-wide messages as early as 630am when on the west coast. And if you run nights? Expect about 3-4 daily fleet-wide messages between 830-11am central. Pray that the volume controls on your old Qualcomm mcp100 still work. Mine didn't - so I always was woken up by employee contribution opportunities, news of road construction near the West Memphis terminal, & advice to drive in top gear as long as possible. On the plus side: Safety is key -- you'll never be pushed to run when you feel unsafe Once you finally get ahold of road service, your DOT-related repairs will be approved. And the non DOT stuff will be fixed when at Joplin - no matter how minor. The vast majority of con-way personnel will treat you with respect -- even when you screw up. Parking fees are reimbursed, hand truck washes are provided at Joplin & Laredo (or paid for if you haven't been to either in a month), showers on the road are paid, towels are provided for showers at terminals, & a couple times a year the company will reimburse for a ~$15 meal
As a newb to con-way who just came from crst to drive solo I can give this much perspective. Overall I'm happy. Already experienced road service issues as previously stated. They keep me busy at a comfortable pace. Trucks seem to vary from well to at least decently maintained. Only gripes are road service, a tendency to plan me to arrive at a town on a weekend but the customer is closed til Monday, and apparently no truck has a fridge. That one may seem petty but it still annoys me.
Absolutely love it here at Conway. Seriously. Great bunch of people to work with. They're nice to you on the phone and in person. Running really good, and to be even more honest with you, I am making really decent living as a company driver, and less headache and stress as a lease purchase driver. I thought the grass is greener on the other side, and the truth it's not greener. I plan on being here until I retire or die.
