Cliff Viessman Inc. Gary,SD

They haul liquid food grade, dry bulk food grade, some walking floor loads, and do some non refrigerated van work. Run around the midwest primarily. Majority of the equipment is IH 9400's, some 51" sleeper, some 72"s. Drivers seem to get home weekly, from what I have been told. Pay can be a little bit low at times if the dispatch doesn't keep you moving. Seems to be a bigger problem for the dry bulk for them than the liquid. a lot of their dry product is sugar, since they are in a big beet sugar producing area. I've met a bunch of their dry and liquid haulers at the same places I go. Only see the vans running around once in a while, so I don't know how big a part of their business that is.

 

Sometime, if I am in a good mood, I'll share the Cliff Weissman horror story I got to witness a couple of years ago. No one hurt, except in their wallets.....

 

Okay, here's the tale.

A couple of years ago, I picked up a load in Mich one morning, took it over to Chicago and unloaded, then picked up a relatively short local load and did that as well. As I was heading over to the railyard to pick up my next day's load for Ohio, I got a call on the phone. My dispatcher had a load that needed to get somewhere down below Nashville the next day, and asked me if I could cover it for him. I checked the distance, and told him it looked like I could have it there between 3-4 pm, based on the hours and break I had upcoming. He said it was scheduled for 8 am, and had fallen through when someone got ill, and he thought he could change the time to about noon. I said I couldn't do that, and he said okay. He knows if I could have run it for him, I would have.

So about 20 mins later, the phone rings again. He told me that he found someone coming off a break later that night that could haul the load, but they wouldn;t be able to get to the shipper in time to load it. Could I pick up the trailer, take it over and preload it, then drop it at our yard. I said I could do that, and would be there in about half an hour. I pulled in, dropped my load, and headed over about 10 miles to load the trailer near Brookfield Zoo.

When I pulled in, I went in to see the loaders there, and they said they could load it for me. Out in the parking lot were 2 Weissman dry bulk trailers, and I pointd to them and asked if they were in line ahead of me. The clerk laughed and said "No, they are homeless guys living here!" I asked what that was about and here's what he told me.

These two trucks came down over the weekend with sugar for a place in Chicago. They delivered early on Monday, and their dispatcher had no other work for them. So he sent them here, and they were each picking up one load of sugar a day, hauling it to a candy place in Chicago, then returning. Total time working, 3 hours a day, and 21 hours stuck in the truck, living in the yard. This went on all week, and finally Friday afternoon they had outbound loads heading them back north towards home. For their efforts, they were collecting about 50 dollars each for the loads they were doing.

Now, I had already made about 250 for my days hauling, and just the hour and fifteen it took me to preload this trailer was paying me about 40 bucks. So I was spending less than an hour and a half to make an extra 40 just doing a quick favor, and these guys were camped out in the trucks for a week making 50 a day.

About a month or so later, I was hauling 2 loads of sugar daily from Grand Rapids Mi to Kelloggs in Battle Creek. On one of the loads, two Weissman triucks showed up in BC, and while I was talking to the drivers, I asked them if it was them I had seen in Chicago earlier. They said yes, turns out these two guys often run together. They were telling me the story of how that week turned out. Apparently, this is not the usual way their dispatcher runs them, it was just one of those goofed up weeks that happens to us all now and then.

I'm not knocking Weissman here, just telling a somewhat amusing tale that stuck in my mind because of how badly the two drivers made out. All dispatches, no matter how good, will have a time when a truck or two falls between the cracks.

 

started with viessman about 4months ago, and i gotta say its a blessing. i pull corn syrup for the dayton, oh. terminal. making 12-1500 per week home most nights. this is what trucking should be. now if the economy could just straighten out so i can enjoy all this money :/

 

hey duke,
I am a viessman driver and i can tell you that this is by far the best company i have ever worked for. I plan on being here until i retire or win the lottery.
If your looking for some place that really cares for and takes care of there drivers this is the place!

TSARGE

 

Viessman will screw You. Please trust me. Woonsocket.

 

Very informative post. Please trust me, it is.