Do you Hate Jb Hunt

I went to work for those idiots in the 80's after leaving Law Enforcement. Back then, we drove short cabovers with no FM radio in them and 48' trailers. The 300 Cummins engines were governed at 57 MPH and were turned WAY down. It was normal to spend all day climbing small hills on the interstate highways at 18 MPH using a straight 7 speed trans. If you drove 56 or 57 MPH, it was a condition called "Overspeed" and they would pull your monthly fuel bonus. (In other words, take your pay). You were force-fed loads and were never allowed to stop or rest. I regularly drove 40 to 44 thousand miles a quarter, and usually pulled about 45 loads. If you got too tired to drive and made a delivery late, you were severely punished with driver unloads. Most loads then were driver load and driver unload, but some were really tough. Like unloading Campbell's soup in a dock in Phoenix in 120 degree summer heat for 16 hours. Or tailgating Owens Corning insulation with several stops in South Texas. If I remember, pay was about 13 Cents-per-mile then.
Freight was different, too. It was normal to get coast-to-coast loads. 2,400 miles, 1,900 miles- I was once paid 3,500+ miles for a load that picked up in Tacoma and had 5 drops on the east coast, all out of order. South Carolina, Boston, Virginia, Long Island- that was a crazy run.
Anyway, back then logbooks were treated like a joke. A Trainer's job was to teach you how to stay awake for days at a time and test your new abilities while farming all the team miles they could get. And most trainers drove all the miles while the poor trainee stared out the windshield for a few weeks and didn't learn anything useful.
It wasn't long before I started butting heads with the safety idiots. There is no such thing at JB Hunt as a non-preventable accident. Period. End of argument. If your equipment was damaged, it's a preventable accident. When they started using 53' trailers, I caught a steel trailer wheel on a curb in Pennsylvania. The tire lost it's air. A repair shop beat the rim out with a sledgehammer and aired the tire up, problem fixed. 9 months later, I was told that was my first "preventable accident".
They had a data recorder in each truck with a cassette tape in it. When you pulled into a terminal to fuel, you had to download the tripmaster info into the system. Because they took the fuel bonus if your idle time was too high, we did crazy stuff to keep the tripmaster from showing idle time. Like putting the trans in 7th gear with the trailer parking brake applied and a stick holding the clutch in.
So, a Sheriff woke me up after an hour's sleep in Michigan City, Mississippi at midnight. He told me I had hit a utility pole and took my DL info. I knew this was a scam, called the company to report the problem, found the accident scene and found a crew replacing a wood utility pole in a cotton field that someone had hit and broken in half. We had the safety idiot in Memphis interview me and photograph the tractor to prove that I didn't mow down a utility pole. Months later, I was told there would be no safety award waiting for me this year because of another "preventable accident". At the terminal, they told me that someone had called the company to report seeing me run off the road and mow down a utility pole. I told the incompetent safety idiots "That was MY phone call to Safety to tell you a Sheriff was about to scam the company". I had to call the head of safety in Lowell, Arkansas and explain the mess to a retired Air Force Officer. A couple of weeks later, he called back apologizing. Here's what he thinks happened: They didn't bother to write down the facts when I called them to report the mess, they didn't even note that the driver was making the call. A few days later, the DIRTBAG Sheriff sent the company an $800.00 bill for a new utility pole and they paid it. Then they called him and asked for the details to find out why they paid for a new wood utility pole. Then the retired Colonel told me the Sheriff had also sent a bill to every large trucking company he could find a driver for that night.
And the most amazing part of this mess? The safety idiots in Dallas refused to take that "preventable accident" off my record even after the Corporate head of Safety untangled the whole thing for me. I was nearly fired for threatening civil action over it, and eventually had it declared an "unpreventable incident".
Every driver back then was fired on his anniversary date and re-hired. Most of us never realized it, but that was the way you had to do it. You had to roadtest, drug test and go through a class. I wanted to make a good impression. So I found out what route the driving test was on, and drove it several times the night before for practice. Lots of intersections with stop signs, some right turn yields, and a railroad crossing. The next day, I aced the test! BUT the insecure SAFETY IDIOT that rode with me said he could not give me a perfect score because his boss would think he wasn't doing his job. So he gave me a 98% grade and remarked that I needed more experience using the clutch because I was shifting rough.
A few months later, in Pontoon Beach, Illinois (same exit as the Flying J but long before it was built), a lady drove her car into the right front wheel of my tractor. In a construction zone, rolling along in low gear. Her teenage kid was a nut. He got in my face, threatening and cursing. I was only seconds from taking him down and planting his face in the pavement when he walked off. While this was going on, one of the people in the car went to the passenger's side of my cab and told my wife that her aunt drove into my truck on purpose to collect the insurance money. She said her husband was going through truck driving school, and she didn't want anyone to do such a thing to them.
So I took the "Accident Packet" out of the tractor. They're rarely used these days, but I knew that one of the forms in it was an "Exoneration Card". I handed all five passengers a pen and asked if they would fill in personal info. Addresses, phone numbers, etc. While everyone else was busy writing, I pulled this nice lady to the side and asked her if she would please fill out the exoneration card and write in her own words what she told my wife. And she did. And I kept the originals, and I STILL have 'em.
You can guess what happened next. Another preventable accident. This time, the Safety Idiots had drawn diagrams for me with notes on a large blackboard showing me how I changed lanes and ran over this poor lady, almost killing her teenage son. Obviously, he had called the company to explain it to them. They refused to listen to my side of the story. I used to investigate accidents as a City Patrolman, and filled out the accident report in the "Accident Packet" perfectly. With great diagrams and an "Exoneration Card", filled out and signed by her passenger. I refused to give them the originals. Can you believe, they told me there was no such thing as an "Exoneration Card" in the Accident Packet, and that I was not going to "get out of this preventable accident".
Another call to the retired Air Force Colonel in Corporate Safety and another apology from him. And, another "Non- Preventable Incident" on my record.
By then, I had been there a few years. They offered me the chance to work Texas Intrastate. The deal was, weekends off. 5 days a week in Texas, with an occasional run to a bordering state. It wasn't long before the weekend started getting smaller and smaller. I lived 200 miles west of the terminal, in Abilene. Eventually, I was going home Sunday afternoon and starting work again at midnight Monday morning. Well, the money was good so this went on for several months. Then, one Sunday afternoon, I caught the flu. When I called in Monday to talk to my dispatcher, he told me I was being reprimanded for not showing up for work. He knew that I had called in Sunday afternoon and said that having the flu was no excuse to stay home. He said that his six year old son had gone to school recently with the flu, and that he was more man than I was. He told me "When you find your balls, we expect you to come to the terminal and do your job!" So, I left home at midnight Tuesday morning and drove to Dallas. Had to stop and puke a few times on the shoulder of I-20 on the way. After taking some more verbal abuse and another reprimand (a counseling session that ended up in my records), he gave me an Owens- Corning Insulation load with 5 drops in the DFW area, all of them driver tailgates. In the hot summer sun. With the flu. I got it done, and the next punishing load after it. And the next. Friday afternoon, he asked me if I had had enough punishment yet, and reminded me to report for duty as expected without exception Monday Morning.
Well, you wanted to know why people dislike JB hunt, so I told you what a few years of harassment, lies, intimidation, incompetence, apathy and disrespect was like. And I personally promise you, you only got the highlights, I could have written a novel tonight. Every bit of it is what actually happened, as it happened. This story has never been told before, and frankly, I get the impression that nothing much has changed since I left.
So there Ya go.

 

Ask the Canadian drivers what they did to a couple of JB Hunt trucks along the 401 a number of years ago when JB came in and undercut the freight rates.

At least they gave the drivers a few minutes to get their stuff out before the trucks went up in flames.

But that was then. Now, I would have to admit, they are really not much different than the other mega carriers. Not sure if it is because the came up to their standards or the other mega carriers lowered theirs. They just don't have a good business model that I would want to be a part of. But then, most of the mega carriers do not have a business model and method of operation I would want to be a part of. Different strokes for different folks.

 

J.B. Hunt,

Party of 3,

your shower is ready !!!!!!!







the good ol' dayz !!!!

 

Canadians have a way of dealing with things that gets right to the point. Just like the scale house they kept messing with just inside Quebec from Ontario. Some of the heavy haulers with the handful of axles would cross the scale when DOT was gone and they would lock up the brakes and screw the scale all up.

There were times it was fun to run up into Canada and see what was happening back in the 80's and 90's. That was some interesting times.

 

Tell us how u really feel??? Seriously though they suck, always have and always will.

 

Omg !!! That's way too funny

 

I started with them back in 1994 as they paid for my driving school but I only lasted 8 months. I spent so much time on the east coast I felt I lived there. Add in low pay, bobtailing all over the countryside trying to find an MT, getting a load of 500 miles that doesn't deliver for three days and sitting for two or more days with no pay waiting for a load. Also staying out 2 and 3 weeks at a time with only a day or 2 off didn't endear me to them. I quit and had another job lined up where I ran short haul, got home twice a week and made more money. I stayed with them until I retired.