How long did you stay with your first trucking company?

3 months with USA truck.
Starved the whole time.
Spent those 3 months writing down phone numbers and talking to other drivers to plan my next move. Jumped at the chance to work for Werner on a dedicated Pep Boys account for another 9 months.

 

Exactly what I did, except I went to their Family Dollar account, for the hometime and exercise.

 

Plenty of exercise tossing tires off the back of the trailer at every stop.

 

that reminds me of when I worked for Pep boys back in the 90's. Came in one day and the truck had backed into the wall and knocked a giant hole all the way thru it lol. I always hated truck day.

 

3 months flat.

I quit when the owner of Port East asked me if I was independantly wealthy. As if being around Norfolk from Baltimore all morning all afternoon into the evening and then fighting caffinee pills back to Baltimore that night into midnight. 60 bucks. This was back in the 80's and day cab. Take a box down, bring back empty chassis.

I learned how to be driving while asleep. I also learned how to substance abuse to kick the body into moving. This was way before 1994. Alcohol for the bad roads too. I learned everything in two companies in my first 6 blessed months.

My third to 10th outfit taught me how to run 115 and keep it there upgrade. Dispatch don't care. you will be somewhere a thousand miles overnight by dawn. Your logs dont matter. Your complaints are expressions of a infant who is weak and will be ternimated.

1994 came along.

Things started changing once the computers took hold followed by qualcomm.

 

That post right there is exactly why I take advice from old timers with a huge grain of salt, and credibility is lost.

 

That's a raw deal. I"d have split too.

 

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Werner was once a good place to work. Were you there during those days, or do you just have an uncommon amount of patience and stamina? Or are you masochistic?

I remember back when OD picked up Utah/Wyoming. They did keep some of the drivers, but they had to start from the bottom. Lost all seniority. Had to fill out new applications. No different than just changing jobs. Except the employees didn't have any say in the matter.
This is strictly scuttlebutt, but I heard that one of the conditions of the sale, was that OD would not let any of the UW drivers go.
Obviously, it either was a line of BS, or OD didn't live up to their end of things. Yet a guy I knew from UW went to work for OD, played by all their rules, and last I heard, was running a terminal for them.

 

I was at Werner from 2002 till somewhere in the middle of 2005.I was ready to quit Werner after the first yr but stick it out to get the exp.I would have made more money picking up cans for a living.I was going to go back out after Home time but I finally had enough.I called dispatch said I'm done I'm cleaning truck out and I'll return it tomorrow.

 

But it does sound like Werner has improved a lot since I was there..So thats a good thing.