Con-Way Freight_How do I get in ?

How common are 14-hour work days? Are they always mandatory or can you ever choose to work them? What's the least amount of hours required to work or is there such an animal?

 

Well i deff wouldnt call the OTR people suckers, its just not for everyone. Some people enjoy doing it where as others like myself dont want to do it. not for everyone. I would only do it if i get hired to do the ice road this winter(Carlile in alaska havent heard back, but heard from a company in yellowknife canada, and they will get me my visa to work with them).

Boonie I used to work at Con-way Freight. I started as a student and was nice for me because the terminal was only 5 miles away from my house and my terminal did the training. As a student I worked 14 hours almost every day, you would start at 7am and work the dock till 10-11am depending on how early or late the line-haul guys got back. then you would go to class from 11am-3pm(u are NOT paid for class) get a two hour break and then work the outbound shift from 5pm-9pm. It was a tough time for me, but if you show that you are good in the class they will work with you to get you out early, especially if you already have your license and endorsements like I had. I was in the class for about 2 months and the class is suppose to last 3 months. A few times the instructor would send us out on P/D with other drivers, and did a halfway point with you when hed go out with u one day. The final consists of a written test, a skills test with cones, then the final road test where you go out with the instructor for the day on his route doing all the driving. After that you will do 2 weeks of line-haul training, the outbound supervisor was kinda cool and sent me out to all the areas we do linehaul just to see the area(even though it would take time to see the long runs. and i heard the supervisor before him wouldnt send u to all the areas). After that you will do a week of P/D again(maybe two depending on how your class goes) then you will be on flex board

Flex board is where it gets stressful. Here I am busting my butt everyday since I started and i would barely ever get a run. The flex guys at my terminal were treated horribly. People who would wanna transfer would get rejected all the time, not sure why but it would make work for the newer people. Some people i worked with were just a waste of space because they were lazy, and played stupid, but my terminal was petrified of some of the people so they wouldnt fire them.

All in all, im not saying Con-Way freight is a bad company, because its not. Its different on how the terminals all work, two in my area have the problems I was talking about, where as another one they treated everyone the same and would make work for the flex guys just to keep them if they showed they wanted to work. And everyone is absolutly right, if u want to build senoirity u have to tough it out, but I couldnt survive only working 10-15 hours a week. Good luck with whatever u end up doing and I wish u the best of luck.

Also I just remembered, usually the long line-haul runs u will do 14 hours a day. When I was in my training for line-haul for the longest run we had, we left the terminal at 745pm, got to the place around 1am, and left at 4am after doing a drop. fuel, work the dock, then hook. We got back at 915 and the guy that was training me had to leave since he had to b in by 7 the next day so they had me put the trailers away with another senoir guy who uses the tractor for p/d. If you do p/d i never worked past 10 1/2 hours, but for linehaul expect to be out for 10+ hours each time

Good luck with whatever u end up doing and I wish u the best of luck. any questions u can ask me, and also ask jakebrake and centuryclass since they are both work for con-way and can help with any changes that might have been made since i left. but i can answer all questions about the apprentice program

 

MOST OTR drivers are suckers because most OTR hauling is done by BFI's .

 

You got that right Wharf Rat. Last 2 days I have been hauling ### to UPS Terminals to provide those guys with the freight they haul locally.

We're all one team here. I was interested on switching to Con-Way freight but am turned off by the rotating shifts/might get a load today/weird board status stuff where you don't know if your driving or not/night driving as the norm....

 

WarfRat,The only reason Con-way uses otr, because it keeps our cost down running empty miles on linehaul. Believe me 100% of the drivers here would like to do without the otr's, it takes work away from us. That means it takes us longer to buy more toys.O yea I would love to see you driving one of our cute trucks with a set of doubles at night going thourgh the Penn. N.Y. Mountains when the snow is falling 6 inches an hour.

 

Its not the size of the truck, its the hours worked per day, the paycheck every week and the nightly meals, showers and sleep in your own home every nite!

 

Oh, God, I really want to work for Con-Way (seriously). Gotta get that local (1-hour plus drive) this spring...

 

Even though I was treated real bad at my terminal, if con-way offered me another job without being on the flex board I would go back in a heart beat, especially since it was only 5 miles away from my house. But not gonna happen so it's whatever. after Con-way I was gonna give up on trucking but ended up missing it so I'm trying to get back into it. Got an interview with ABF freight this week so see what happens.

I would like to do tank work, ports, or even heavy haul but I know I don't have the exp for that so its not gonna happen any time soon, especially if I get in with ABF I won't leave that job. Hence why I wanna do the ice roads in Canada or the dalton. I'm more in it to gain the exp and too say I've done it. That's a dream too

Now that I have my whole life story I hope u get in with con-way. Hopefully you will be happy, get plenty of runs. A local gig is sweet being home every night not leaving behind everything and being gone for long periods of time. I never wanted to do OTR wasn't my thing, but some people love it. My grandfather did it for 20+ years and loved it

 

Easy man - this is a real touchy subject at Con-way, FedEx, and UPS/UPSF. I'm not trying to be a jerk but you're not providing us with anything but a cheaper way to get line-haul schedules from point A to point B. It started as a way to eliminate empty miles, and that it does do, but has turned into a much cheaper way to move freight in both directions - why pay a line-haul driver high .50's per mile plus fuel/wear and tear when a company will move it for $1.20 per mile or so? We would much rather move those schedules with our own drivers but we don't because it's more expensive.

 

No you don't have to run otr 1st just apply online follow up with terminal manager to see if you get an interview