Destination Unknown

Our weekend is good. At the La Quinta in Auburn, WA. Deliver Monday morning then will work our way back for hometime.

Congrats on being almost done ! How do you like it so far ?

 

It all depends on what truck they have. The spare truck at the Markham terminal is a Pete 8-speed. Tell them you want an auto since you don't have much practice with a 10 speed.

 

Johnny does the upgrade road test and I believe Juan does the rest of the stuff regarding upgrades at Tunnel Hill. Both good guys. They'll take it easy on you.

 

Good luck !

Remember, best advice I have is get on a dedicated account. That's where the money is.

 

Mega Carriers Don't Care About Their Drivers

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Prior to trucking my wife was in real estate and I was in banking, around 2008 the world started to change. We started talking about doing something different that let us work together. Around the middle of 2012 my wife was informed her job was going to be eliminated at the end of the year so this motivated us to find that job we had always talked about. In the early 2000s I remembered an article about team trucking. My wife wasn't too crazy about the idea but thanks to people like @NoCoCraig blogging about their experience she came around to it. Shortly after that we found TTR(the truckersreport). This was a great tool in learning about what kind of things we need to look for in finding a company that fits what we're looking for. Guess which company that was ?

US Xpress
US Xpress was a perfect fit for us.

Terminal in Chicago
Allowed Inverters
Team company
Allows pets
Rider policy
New trucks
Good CSA score
Pays well
Good Benefits
Can take time off anywhere in the country​

Training
Orientation went well. It was three days and went smoothly. I was the first one hired on by the company out of my orientation class. My wife was hired by day 3. The trainer I was assigned was at the terminal already. He seemed like a nice guy. My wifes training coordinator called her and informed her she had to take a bus down to Atlanta to meet up with hers. I wasn't about to let my wife take a bus by herself to meet some stranger. When she tried to see if she could get a plane ticket or a rental car and if the company would reimburse her up to the price of the bus ticket, her training coordinator was a complete dick. His response was "Are you saying you don't want the job ?". Ugh ! He was very difficult. After going back and forth he called back and said they had a different trainer for her. He was in southern Illinois so she got a car and drove down to meet him. My trainer and I left for the road. Things got dark real quick. He was like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.


Did not want me talking to him
Did not want to go over the DriverTech/Logs
Would not let me back
Did not want to let me know where we were going
I could go on but you get the point
The reason I think he was an a-hole was because at 50+ years old.....he had nothing to show for it. Even though he and his wife both worked, they lived in his wife's parents house. I got the impression he thought I was a rich kid who reminded him of how much his life sucked. Around day three I told my training coordinator about switching trainers. The guy tried talking me out of it cause my wife would be done soon and I'd be waiting around for a new trainer. Figured I'd stick it out and maybe things would improve. After a few more days, nothing improved. My wifes trainer was a nice guy but an idiot. Her trainer would wake up every hour at night to check the seal. My wife said if that's what is required of us in trucking then it's not for her. LOL. On day three, she and her trainer are doing a pre-trip....she points out to him that the drive tires tread is low. He agrees with her but decides it's safe to drive. A few miles down the road, the drive tire blows. They were able to limp to the Springfield terminal. They were at the terminal for four days and the whole time the guy was perfectly fine with sleeping in the lobby of the terminal. My wife got a hotel after the second day. Our experience was going badly. Real bad. Both of us couldn't put up with insanity any longer.. I jumped off my trainers truck, got a rental car and drove to the Springfield terminal to pick up my wife. Drove home with the plan of finding a better company.

The Letter
Our experience was so bad that I decided to send Max Fuller(owner of USX) a letter explaining how bad our experience was. We were talking to Schneider about possibly working there. One day I got a voicemail from a woman named Lisa Pate. Turned out she was the daughter of Pat Quinn who is the other of owner of USX. Mr. Quinn passed away a few years ago. Gave Lisa a call and she answered right away. She said they got the letter and since she was the head of training she wanted to make things right because USX cares about drivers. Asked us to give them another chance. Agreed to give it another shot. Lisa gave me her personal contact info and said if we had any problems with our new trainers then to give her a call. My trainer was in California when he got a call informing him he needed to head to Chicago asap. He had no clue the owner of USX had requested their best trainer and he was picked. My trainer was an amazing guy. He and I got along really well. He taught me a lot. My wifes trainer didn't check his seal every hour. LOL. By the time we were done with training, we were confident we could do the job.

You hear on TTR that mega carriers don't care about their drivers.

From our experience, we can tell you that this one does.