Interstate Distribution Company - Tacoma, Wa.

Twelve pages. Wow, that's a lot of reading, for my first search on this site. I got laid off from my local driving job on 12/10, due to a huge slowdown, thanks to the sorry economy. I delivered forklifts all over SC, GA and NC and was paid by the hour and home every night. Sweet, huh.

Anyway, I've been job hunting for almost a month now and have now given up on finding any kind of local work. I've been home every night since last spring and my family has kind of gotten used to having me around. But, alas, all good things must end. So back over the road, I will be going. I was OTR for almost 5 years, before the local gig, mostly flatbed. Even the flatbed companies that always promised weekends at home are saying 10-14 days now.

I only talked to the IDC recruiter today and after visiting the website and reading this very lengthy thread, I think that if I must go OTR again, I could do a lot worse.

Are there any solo IDC drivers that live and run in the southeast, or eastern half of the country? The recruiter said I'd be out 7-14 days. In reality, how often would a southeast solo driver get home? Great pay is good, but home time is my highest priority, as I have a wife and young daughter. I can make things work with under $750 a week take home, but not if I'm going to be gone for 3 or 4 weeks.

Okay, there's my first post.

 

I worked for IDC on the western 11 states so I can't tell you how they are out east but I can tell you they are team orientated solo's get the left overs. Good company. good equipment. $750.00 take home will be hard to accomplish with them

 

I worked 11 western also, and as mentioned above 750 was hard to get. There pay isnt good, they are very team oriented. I stayed out 2 weeks at a time but I was always through the house, due to there heavy freight lane on I-5... Good Luck in your decision. If hometime is a priority, you might try Knight or a company that has dedicated freight through your home state.

 

This is making me wonder if I shouldn't have looked a wee bit harder at interstate. They were on the short list but husband just HAD to fall for Schneider song and dance about being home weekends and most nights. Heh.

 

Let me put it to you this way: The difference between Interstate and Covenant is like the difference between God and Satan, with Interstate being on the God side and Covenant being on the Satan side. And that's really saying something since Covenant claims to be a Christian company-no wonder people don't want to be Christians when so many other people claim to be Christians like Covenant does, yet treat their fellow man as horribly as Covenant does. My wife and I have worked for both of the two companies (twice for Covenant-gluttons for punishment? dunno). Interstate is the absolute number one undisputed undefeated heavyweight champion of the trucking world and Covenant bites monkey #####.

 

Are you sure about that? Because when we hired on with them in October of 2005 they gave us a brand new truck.

One of the things I like about Interstate is that they're really big on flying you to places if need be, not sticking you on a Greyhound bus for 56 hours and expecting you to be able to sleep on the way on the bus like Covenant does. Like when we hired on, we were temporarily staying with family in Las Vegas, and they flew us from Vegas to Seattle for orientation, brought us to our hotel, and gave us vans to use as transportation before and in between orientation days if we wanted to go out and eat, shop, take in a movie, etc. Then they put us on an Amtrak from Tacoma to Portland for a few days of refresher training in and around Wilsonville(and put us up in a nice Holiday Inn room, not some fleabag Mom-and-Pop roach motel), and then flew us from Portland to Nashville (by way of Chicago) to pick up our brand new tractor in the Lebanon yard, paying for our cab fare to and from the airport both in Portland as well as Nashville. While we were working for them, whenever we would go to one of their terminals, they always had a couple of cars parked on the lot that you could check out from the shop and borrow for, like, a couple of hours, again, if you had to go into town to go shopping or eat or whatever, so you would'nt have to waste time and money renting a car or take your tractor.

 

That's the standard line most companies will tell you to justify chaining, but I believe the real issue here is not chaining versus trying to get through without chaining, but rather chaining versus shutting down until the chain law is lifted or taking a non-chain law route. Me personally, I threw chains once in my entire career and swore I'd never do it again, and I never have, nor will I ever. There's no possible way anyone can say that it's safer to chain than to shut down and wait or go another route where chains are not needed. You might be able to get away with saying it's safer to chain then not chain when you need to, but shutting down or routing around another way has always been, is now, and will always be one gazillion times safer than chaining.

 

That's about right. When we worked for them we NEVER touched any of the freight we hauled for them-not one single piece.

 

Just signed into this board and thought I would check out this thread.. I want to say that my husband and I worked for IDC right at 6 years.. We had the same daily complaints that everyone seems to have when you are on the road, but over all, we really did enjoy this company. Yes we were a team, and yes we were willing to run our butts off.. We did not set in truck stops and we had the best dispatcher (Tj out of Tacoma) who was willing to work with us when needed. We were never late getting home when we were ready.
We were able to take the truck home, no terminal where we live, but they were willing to work with us..
If we were to go back OTR we would most def. think about going back with them...

 

Sounds like a good company to work for. Guess I'll have to check them out. 600/week & working would be better than sitting home & collecting unemployment.