J.S. Helwig & Son

Yep, I guess not everyone is actually reading past the "$1.50 a mile" in my original post.

If anyone else thinks I'm not getting paid enough, please feel free to let me know what company pays more. Otherwise, don't comment.

 

Third day of orientation was relatively uneventful. Once we got back to the terminal, I gave the shop the keys to my truck so they could get started with installing the Qualcomm, camera, letters etc. Various office employees came into the orientation room throughout the day to tell as about how things work at the company and whatnot. Including the Owner's son and president of the company, Jamie Helwig. He gave me a pretty good first impression.

We had lunch at a BBQ place today and I'll tell you what, I love me some BBQ and this place did not disappoint. After lunch we pretty much went back to the same thing with different office employees talking to us about different aspects of the company. Once we had a break from all of that at some point, me and the other O/O went to see the HR lady to go over our contracts. This is when I found out that Helwig does not pay for the plates. They take it out of your pay monthly which differs from truck to truck but for me is $178 a month. I don't remember if they take that out weekly or not. This is my first disappointment with Helwig as the recruiter told me Helwig covers the plates. I'm not going to say she lied and I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she didn't know. It's not a deal breaker for me. Just a little disappointing.

If anything makes up for it, it's the O/O sign on bonus. The recruiter forgot to mention it, but they're giving me $1000 on my first settlement as a sign on bonus. Might not be much, but when you expected nothing at all, it's good news.

Some of the new things I found out today. This applies to both O/O and company drivers:

• You get $100 if you have to repower another driver's load
• You get $100 if you arrive 24 hours before your appointment

This applies to company drivers:

• You get routed for fuel and you do have to fuel at the places they tell you to, but you might have more fuel stops than you need so you have some choice in the matter.
• You can get reefer fuel anywhere that accepts an EFS card.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. The safety guy said that the owner operators have the option of getting driver facing cameras put in their trucks and he recommends it. Yeah, good one. I thought that was funny.

One more thing. As an owner operator if your truck is down for a while for repairs or waiting on parts they'll let you drive a company truck. I found that interesting. They don't rent it to you, they just pay you like a company driver at $0.55 a mile.

 

Fourth day of orientation (and the last day as far as I know): when I got to the terminal they were only talking about things pertaining to company drivers until about 09:15 so I read over my contract pretty good to make sure I didn't find anything fishy before I signed it. I couldn't see anything detrimental to my operation, so I'm more than happy to sign it. It's a pretty standard contract and it's one year but can be terminated by me at any time. Payroll lady also told me usually when company drivers get a raise the O/O do too. If this happens, they give you an addendum and you don't have to wait until you renew your contract.

Payroll went over how to fill out the trip sheets, scan in paperwork, receipts etc. Pretty standard stuff compared to other companies I've worked for other than the fact that you have to turn in the physical paperwork at the terminal when you get a chance; on top of scanning it in. No idea why they want it as almost every company I've worked for just has you scan it and forget about it. You can scan with Transflo at a truck stop or use the app on your phone. You also have the ability to see your loads and send & receive messages from the office. They also showed me how to use the EFS mobile app which is different than the one I've used before but pretty simple. And for some odd reason, I have to turn in reefer fuel receipts. Since I'm using the same fuel card to fuel my truck, they treat it as a reimbursement. If I don't turn in reefer receipts, it comes out of my pay.

After that, I peeked in the shop to see if my truck was all done, and sure enough it was. When I walked up they asked me if I wanted to go ahead and pull it out. I noticed the Qualcomm was not mounted and I asked them if I have to mount it myself. They said they didn't want to drill into my dash without asking me, and I appreciated that. I had 4 holes for a ram mount already, so I asked him if he could use those. He said no problem and went ahead and mounted it up for me. He even threw some fifth wheel grease on my fifth wheel, free of charge. I went and parked up the truck in their bobtail parking area and went back to the orientation room.

To my surprise, they gave all of us a backpack, insulated mug, T shirt, hoodie, and sweat pants. They had a few colors to choose from for each. As an owner operator, I don't expect these things. I would think they'd only give them to company drivers so I think it's cool that they do that.

For lunch they ordered Domino's today. It may not have been as good as the food we had the rest of the week, but it's free food either way.

After lunch we headed to the shop to get a rundown on how to write up trucks (which doesn't apply to me. I don't remember if I mentioned, but they do not work on O/O trucks. Apparently they used to but somebody got mad and thought they were getting ripped off so it put an end to that.) and how to write up trailers. Fill out the sheet with any damage/repairs needed and hand it to the shop manager. If you can't find him, you can give it to the people in the breakdown office. Their breakdown office is in the same building with the shop. They do wash out trailers at the terminal if needed and if there's just some wood chips or other loose stuff that doesn't really require a full washout they can blow it out. The guy in charge of the trailer repairs went over how the reefer units work, both thermoking and carrier. They only have a few carriers and the rest of their fleet is thermoking. They said the drivers prefer the latter since they are quieter. I really can't tell you what I prefer because it's been a couple years since I ran a reefer. Also worth mentioning: the shop seems very on top of their maintenance. They do yard checks 3-4 times a day to see what needs serviced. From that, and seeing some of their equipment up close, they really seem to take care of their stuff. Thumbs up from me.

After we got done at the shop, we met our fleet managers (Helwig's version of a "dispatcher" if you will). I'm not sure about mine yet. He seems to imply that you will only make money if you run the way he wants you to. If I was a company driver that would be fine, but I'm not gonna let this guy tell me how to drive my truck. So we'll see how that works out. If I don't like him, I won't hesitate to ask for a different fleet manager. It's not always about the company. You don't have to leave as soon as your dispatcher gives you ####. Ask for a new one. Some people just don't mesh as well as others.

That was about it for the day. Went back to the hotel, but I'll be checking out tomorrow morning and I should be getting my first load.

 

Went up to the terminal this morning and they had us fill out a survey on what we thought about orientation. They went over a couple more things that they might have missed and I got a load picking up in Hawkins, TX going to Goddard, KS. I told them I'd like to get somewhere near Cincinnati to give back my old company their stuff. Within two seconds the planner said "done". He got me a load from Dodge City, KS going to Mason, OH. That's just north of Cincinnati. Gotta love that.

What I didn't love was getting a load that was 3000lbs over gross. After waiting in line for about 45 minutes, I finally picked up my preloaded trailer and went to a scale just down the street. 83060 pounds gross. I notified my fleet manager through a message and headed back to the shipper. They put me in a door to rework it and about an hour later they gave me the paperwork back. They apologized and said somebody put 3 extra pallets on the trailer. I made it to Marietta, OK and shut down. My appointment is 2:45pm tomorrow so I'll still have plenty of time to get there.

I may not update this thread quite as often now because I'm gonna try to turn and burn as much as I can to make up for my downtime. I will try to at least give weekly updates.

 

Yep that's it. Does Dillons take a while? I'd like to get that load picked up in Dodge City tomorrow.