Hello to all

Just wanted to introduce myself. I'm a new cdl waiting on Prime to verify my application for their apprentice program. I got my cdl with England and then come off the truck when my wife had trouble with her pregnancy and then did about 10 weeks in Werner's training program and then come off the truck for my Mother's heart surgery. I realize I must be starting to look a bit unreliable to companies so am ready for the long commitment. I love driving, but hate the time away from home (8 year old and 3 month old at home) but have recently realized that staying home is not worth that much if I can't make the mortgage, so back on the road I go. The plan is to finish a training program then to get 18mo - 2years company driving under my belt, so that I have enough experience to make myself marketable to local (home on weekends and eventually home for supper) type companies that can not afford to insure me with no experience.

Seems to me that no matter what company you drive for, you have to pay your dues - less pay, little home time, not the best equipment, not really being treated as a professional - you can't have them all when you're new. I guess there are some trade-offs you have; England paid more than Werner but made you feel like a Nancy for wanting to go home more that once every two months. Werner had less impressive equipment, in my opinion, but they got my trainer home every two weeks. They were not however, even with a month's notice, able to get me home for the birth of my son. I guess you have to pick what's most important to you.

Seems like everybody and their brother want's me to lease a truck with them and makes it sound like they're offering you the sun and the moon at once. It doesn't make sense to me when you're new. Kinda like opening a restaurant without knowing how to cook. No? I mean lets face it, I try my best to be a good new driver, but I'm still fumbling gears on steep grades and a little nervous about backing do I really want the additional responsibility of running my own business, even if it is legit? It sounds so good I wish it were true, but the truth is that these companies don't know me and I don't think that they are surviving this recession by being in business to help people they don't know. It seems far more likely to me that this is a smart business practice whereby the company is able to mitigate both costs and risk to the contractor and in the end it doesn't really matter to them who that contractor is. It scares me the number of stories I hear online, at truck stops and in trucker hotels about everything going fine and then freight drying up at the end of the lease and while I've learned to take everything I've heard at trucker hotels with a grain of salt as you can never be sure that the person speaking is not, at least in part, to blame, the sheer number of the stories I think urges caution. It seems to me that if a company really wanted to stand behind a lease program, you would see company leases coupled with some of these "paid for 2500 miles a week, drive them or not" type deals that you sometimes see advertised in the truck stop magazines. It just seems to me that as a new driver and provider for my family I need to stay focused on amassing experience not a get rich quick scheme. Building a swimming pool in the back yard is not that important if I can't make my mortgage.

I just want to be paid fairly for hard work. I think it's so disheartening that virtually every old-timer I see around the truck stops has the same thing to say; "it's just not what it used to be anymore". I pray that there are still companies out there (even if I have to wait a year or two to work for them) that are willing to pay honest fellas for an honest day work, without all the politics and booby traps, which I am learning, are inherent to trucking companies (or at least training companies based on my limited experience) It's shameful I think that so many folks like myself (second career due to the recession) who are willing to work hard and just want to provide for their families are at the greatest risk of being taken advantage of by the system - the ones who can least afford to be.

Honestly, I choose prime because they were the company that paid their students the most during training that considered me. I am aware of both positive and negative things said about them on the internet. I'm also aware that many of the negative comments are written by embittered sub-par workers who are looking for others to blame for their own laziness or other flaws. I'm also aware that it is at least reputed that larger companies have administrative (non-driver) types seed some of the threads to salvage the companies reputation on line. I figure as long as I see both good and bad stuff on line then some of each must be true. It's the companies that have no positive comments that begin to worry me (type 'CR England Lease' into a search engine and let me know if you find a single, non-England site, bestowing it's virtues) I pray that Prime will be a good company but know that as a student/newbie, I'm going to have to take my lumps in one form or another. I think it's just the way teaching companies work. I'm willing to do so if there is a light at the end of the tunnel for me and my family.

Nice to meet you all. God Bless.

 

read and agreed. Thanks for the welcome.