Fraud, Thieves, and Deceitful- CR England

OTR means over the road - long haul in other words. Working out of a DC is about a 200 mile radius. There are no OTR drivers delivering for WAl Mart. A person can go home everyday if they want to. But sometimes we take an extra load and get stuck or we don't always care about making it home.

Unless you are on a WalMart dedicated account you are not doing the same job as a Wal Mart driver. We deliver to about 200 different stores (from Sterling DC) and it takes more than a year to get acquainted with all the correct approaches or procedures for certain stores. There is a skill set and knowledge base specific to the job which favors a candidate already possessing it over one who does not.

 

Fontana had both over the road and local Wal_mart accounts. Do to the mass produce comming out Cali.

In fact the national account had always been there, the local was just aquired two years ago.

 

Most of the CR England day cabs I see around around Chicago are pulling intermodal containers. They are based in Gary IN as far as I know.

 

Don't they also get tax credits or incentives from the government for every student they hire?

 

Ya that's a differant fleet. They both have day cabs. I'm not sure aboute Chicago though.

Ya, they pretty much get paid twice for every student.

 

I'm home every day. My average is 1150/week. But I don't work for CRE....

 

Ok,

I'm not going to come on here and defend CRE. But I'm not going to come on here and denounce them either. I do currently work for them as a Company driver and I honestly don't have to much to complain about. I will share my experiences with you and you can formulate your own opinion about CRE. But just for the record, I believe in two things. The first is that in order to have a positive experience, you have to give a positive experience. Be positive with the people you deal with and they'll return in kind. Second, I believe what's good for the company is good for me, within reason. I try to keep my idle down and I use my hours wisely and am willing to push to help get something somewhere on time if I need to. So with that said lets start with the positives so far.

I have a decent truck, a 2010 Freightliner Cascadia, that is fairly well equipped and comes with the tools I need to do the job sufficiently. I have a decent DM who keeps me moving, as long as I communicate with him on a regular basis. I'm not doing great, but I am usually averaging between 2300 and 2800 miles a week. I feel comfortable telling my DM that I need to shut down due to fatigue, safety, etc. and have no fear of retaliation. If I need a question answered, and I always need a question answered, there is always somebody who is willing to take the time to answer them for me, even if I do have to wait on hold for a few minutes first. And there is always somebody available to help 24/7/365. If my truck needs something, I can get it done. No problem. I don't get back talked, hemm-hawed, or run around when I say my truck needs work. And I do feel as though I have been given the tools I need to be succesful in this career. Finally, if I stay for 9 months, my tuition is free. Completely free. They are not currently taking money out of my paycheck for tuition.

Now, with that said, there are some negatives. I don't think school was long enough. We were rushed through the classroom and out onto the backing range pretty quickly. But from what I've heard, a lot of schools are that way. Somebody mentioned a puppy mill in an earlier reply and I wouldn't disagree with that analogy. But, I was given enough material that if I have a question that I can vaguely recall was covered quickly in class, then I can go back and review. I do that a lot. I am paid a whopping total of $.25 a mile. At 6 months it goes to $.26, and by one year it goes to $.30. It's not a lot. And in all honesty, I probably won't be here for that raise. My DM doesn't usually read my entire message when I send it to him, causing him to miss valuable info on a regular basis. But I think we've worked that out now. I regularly have issues with information being incorrect in my load assignments, from wrong addresses to wrong or missing pick up numbers. But what most drivers don't know is that this info comes from a separate person other than the DM. So it's not the DM's fault. I don't like the fact that I can't have an inverter installed, but I've found away around it. There are some other things that bug me too, but they're really so insignificant that it's not worth mentioning.

As far as the Wal-Mart dedicated account is concerned, if the other driver says he's making $1000 a week, he probably isn't lying. I worked on the Sterling account for three weeks and made $900 a week after taxes. IF I had been from Sterling or Rock Falls, Illinois, I could have been home almost every night. But, I would have only had about 10 hours before having to be back at work everyday. You WILL use your 70 hours in a 6 day period. And if you don't then you WILL be off at least one day a week. That's mandatory. But for a lazy SOB like me, it was a pretty sweet deal, other than dealing with ###### Walmart. Which was the reason I got the hell out of there. Here is the run down. You get a load assignment, you go in and pick up the paperwork. 2, 3, or 4 stops. After that, you pull maps to each store, and you follow those maps to the letter. 10 minutes out, you call the Wally world and let them know you're coming. You back up to a door, go inside, unlock the trailer, and stand around pulling stickers off of boxes as they pass you. You do this three times a load at a total of $15 a drop. When done, you jet back to the D.C. drop the trailer and park for the night unless you have time for another. Sometimes you get a backhaul and have to stop and pick something up on the way back. But normally it's just hitting Walmart stores and watching employees work hard. You get $.34 a mile empty or loaded. 300 to 400 miles a day, plus $15.00 times 3 per day, times 6 days, and bam. Your in the ball park of $1000 a week. So yeah, it is possible. But I will say, it's not as hard as it's being made out to be above, and there are better paying jobs out there. But for somebody that came from a job, making $380 a week, $900 a week is pretty #### sweet.

Finally, the lease program is a sham. Stay away from it. Period. And do your research into it before you take that step. Lease drivers make $.90 a mile loaded and $.80 empty. They pay for fuel, they pay for maintenance, they pay for insurance, they pay for everything, because at that point they have they're own authority. You want to make money as a lease driver, you have to train. And to do that is putting your life in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they are doing yet. It's not worth it. And go back in this forum and take a look at who is usually complaining when it comes to CRE. It's usually either an IC(Lease Operator) or somebody who finds reasons to complain, and can't let the little things go. CRE isn't the best company, but I don't think it's the worst either.

MS

 

This is why I volunteered to answer questions - to put out some first hand facts rather than third hand gossip.
So here are some facts:
1) Tuition: was free when I signed up in March 2012 (does that make me a new driver?) and still is though of course that could change at any time - I know a few years ago they did charge.
2) Training company: indeed they are. Is that bad? We all got to start somewhere and free tuition, free transportation, free hotel and even some free meals makes it pretty easy to get started.
3) Apprenticeship is about 2 months not 6 months. and $450 - $600/week for a training wage is not a bad deal - though there may be better deals out there.
4) 100 drivers per week: that is a myth. They sign up 100 drivers, about 50 get washed out of classroom/yard school and about 20 more screw up or quit in the first couple months. These numbers show CRE lets people in who should not be there but it can't always be a bad thing, especially in a down economy to give a person the benefit of the doubt and a chance to prove themselves.
5) no scheduled time off: that is not true where I work. I am off every Saturday and most of Sunday. If I want a longer time off between shifts I can generally have it and if I want to work an extra day or a longer shift, I can usually do that to. This flexibility has kept me from getting burned out in job which can be a grind.
6) "real drivers" "a bunch of noobies": That is just a selfish attitude. You were a "noobie" once and someone had to take the risk and expense of training you. Further, there are not enough drivers on the road to meet the demand for freight; of course some companies will specialize in training.

One of the things I am really grateful for about this industry is that job opportunities abound. Anyone who thinks they deserve a better deal can go look for it. Cultivating a suspicious and butt-hurt attitude will drag a person down in any job and just diminishes quality of life

 

If your sleeping in your truck that's considered over the road aka not going home aka not in a day cab... Any driver with a couple years experience can get acquainted and will very quickly when they pull up to a walmart store or whatever and have to back the truck up its simple every day stuff man... I drove LTL P&D in Chicago you don't get a year to study stores and skyview maps of the places you deliver you go out and do it...Blind side, Sight side, alley the whole 9 yards man... Its about common sense... 100% your walmart stores ain't nothing fella...

This is it for me on this thread when you get out of the puppy mill maybe we'll talk again until then keep barking that .25 cent a mile the guy below was talking about... Cheers

 

Jesus!! I wanna know who you trained with because I NEVER saw numbers like that till I was by myself. My training wage a week for the first month was $360 before taxes. For my phase 2 I made a little better money, but it wasn't that great.

MS