Ask A May Trainer

figure its like training... when i was with my trainer, he went on hometime, i was put in a hotel for 3 days, i still got paid those days

 

It just sucks cause I'm not racking up miles for my bonus at the end of my 90 days

 

That's trucking blwjr, you're getting $90/day and still in your first year of OTR. Just a lesson in crapola happens. Imagine if you were an O/O with a load and loosing money every hour your truck sat unfixed.

Check out:
http://www.allstays.com/c/truck-stops-wyoming-locations-map.htm
and see if there's anything to do nearby cheap.

 

After this week of sitting in a hotel in Grand Island NE, with a truck in the shop, it occurred to me that May Trucking needs to have a person(s) who's job it is to talk to the drivers and the repair shops when the truck is inoperable. Their job would be to stay in contact with the repair shop, find out what the problem is and how long the truck would be down. Then they could decide if it is best to leave the driver in the hotel or find another truck on a temp basis to keep the driver making money. The one thing I have experienced this week is the shop does not respect drivers. They could care less that the driver is sitting, and they have treated me like a fourth class citizen by talking down to me as if I was an idiot, amazingly its the same treatment most shippers/receivers afford me. If OTR or someone representing May management had taken the reigns I may have been out of here on Wednesday. There is a whole lot more to this saga but I will save that for another day....

 

You have a point about how May handles these things. I know drivers at May who have spent up to 10 days in a hotel far from home. Some who's trucks broke down repeatedly with the same problem. It's cheaper for the company to leave you sitting there at $50 and a motel room while the repair shop twiddle their thumbs, then it is to make arrangements for options.

The breakdown guys are so overwhelmed they just don't always do a very good job trying to deal with situations on a micro level. I think there are like 2 to 3 guys that are overseeing 1,000 trucks!

One time, my transmission went out outside of Sacramento. Break down had me and my student towed all the way to Reno instead of Sacramento which was like 40 miles away! I saw the tow bill and it ended up being like $2,000 when it was all said and done. Anyways, we spent 4 days their while breakdown finally decided that would ship a used transmission out of a wrecked truck in Brooks. When I caught wind of that, I called the OCM and arranged to get us out of there by renting me a nice suburban that I could load all my stuff into and get back to Brooks where a new truck was waiting for me.

If I hadn't called the OCM and taken the bull by the horns, breakdown would of left us sitting there for who knows how long.

 

Thats my point. It seems body cares about the driver once they are stopped. It should be the DM and OTR's responsibility to see that everything is taken care of, and taking care of the driver, not the drivers responsibility to take care of the DM, OTR, repair shop, hotel, getting paid for the hotel, etc, etc.

 

But...that's what I discovered, many times if I didn't take the bull by the horns myself, it wouldn't get done!

 

I was stuck in Nashville Tn. one January as I was running OTR and the company paid me my motel and all of their down pay, And I pulled the strings to get me $125.00 a day additional. I enjoyed my stay there, I learned a lot about that city I did not know. But had I not asked early about getting the money I would have made they wouuld have paid me the minimum that they had to.

 

May does not pay drivers one penny more than they have to. The squeaky wheel will get paid more. May will take as much as possible from drivers, especially there idle policy, cry enough and they will wave it off. May will charge idling even while in regen. Drivers must complain 24/7 to keep their pay check intact. This and other reasons are why May turnover rate is so high. Imagine 3 years of crying.

 

Is May trucking company good for teams? We live in Knoxville, TN