Magnum ltd - fargo, nd

Thanks. Yeah we may be in the same orientation. Guess we’ll know soon enough.

 

Those coming to Magnum for orientation, if you see some 6'8 weirdo with a #### eating grin driving 2059 in the yard or in a truck stop, come say hi and/or ask questions. I will try my best to (poorly) answer them. Or refer you to someone who can if i can't. I promise i don't bite. Welcome to Magnum!

 

Since there's a couple of you coming onto Magnum, I know myself and some others write a lot of good things about the company, and I think that's deservedly so.

However, it's not always perfect all the time so don't get the wrong idea. I have spoken to other drivers (in person, never on the forum though) who have had bad experiences. Some of the stories are night and day from mine (where I have had a really great experience here). So I suppose not everyone has a great experience here.

And even with me I had trouble with my first driver manager Darcy in getting him to respond to me in a reasonable time frame (didn't matter if I sent him messages on peoplenet, email or phone call, I could never get responses from him and it was a real problem). He was a really nice guy but he just would not respond to me in a timely manner. I don't know what the deal was with that (I'm not saying it was his fault or Magnum's, I don't know, I'm just saying it was an issue). He's gone now though and the driver manager I have now is awesome.

Sometimes they'll send me loads where the times are impossible to make, just send them an updated ETA and let them know you can't make it on time. I actually had to do that with this load I'm on now and the MN Load Planner was cool about it, she just asked me when the earliest I could get it there was. I actually ran like a local driver today on CPM pay, so I took that up with the MN Load Planner and my Driver Manager and they gave me the $180 layover pay today plus the miles (which isn't much, hence the layover pay).

To be clear about what I'm talking about I started my day at the Coon Rapids Terminal and picked up a load 30 miles away in the Twin Cities, that took 3 hours and 45 minutes. Drove back to Coon Rapids Terminal during rush hour. Hooked to a loaded trailer I had dropped last night and took this down to the Mankato, MN Walmart DC 90 miles south of the terminal. This is going to take a few hours. Then I'm going to take the empty after I get unloaded and drive 90 miles back to the Coon Rapids Terminal. I started my day at around 12:15PM and I'll get back to the terminal around midnight. So you can see that it's not a lot of miles (barely over 200 for the day), hence why the $180 layover pay ($180 is standard breakdown/layover pay here) is reasonable.

But again I had to bring this up with them. Not because I didn't think they would intentionally try to not pay me the layover pay, but because they are so busy. The Minnesota Load Planner (who is awesome by the way), is under a heavy workload now that the West Coast/Southwest Load Planner is gone/left last week. So she's basically pulling double duty now until the West Coast/Southwest Load Planner position gets filled.

So again, with my example that I just gave, in trucking YOU have to be your best advocate. Since it's not a simple hourly or straight salary type of job, often times the office staff is so busy that YOU have to bring issues like this to their attention. And my experience here has been when you do bring it up, they have always been good about seeing my point of view (I don't believe that I make unreasonable requests such as the example that I gave above).

So if you do have issues, don't be afraid to speak up. You are your best advocate.

There's also other little things that aren't worth mentioning and of course the general BS that you have to deal with as far as OTR (in general) is concerned, which is out of Magnum's control.

Anyways I hope you both (@justlikemarley3 and @Zangief ) have a great experience here. Come in with an open mind, be open to communication with your driver managers/load planners, take it easy and take your time, and try to establish good relations with them and I think you'll be good. As I said before unless I go local or regional, I think I'm here for life as long as I stay OTR.

 

How do you sleep comfortably in the truck being so tall? I'm average height and the bed size is fine, but I couldn't imagine trying to sleep comfortably in beds these sizes at your height.

 

I changed the curtain in the Coon Rapids Terminal shower last night. It was filthy with mold all over it. To anybody reading the thread (whether you actually post in this thread or not), if you use the showers at the Coon Rapids Terminal or at Fargo please change the curtains if you notice they are filthy. They cost $5 at Walmart and are the medium size length ones. The cleaners who clean the terminal once or twice a week do not change the curtains so us drivers have to do it.

 

My feet hang off the end of my bed, but there's about a 6 inch gap between the bed and the side of the truck that i stuff a blanket there. It's not as bad as it sounds. My problem is with the mattress itself. One thing i have to give to Schneider when i worked for them was they started putting 8 inch memory foam mattresses in their trucks. They were more comfortable than my bed.

 

Also that Walmart DC in Mankato is always guaranteed detention pay for me. My usual pick up out of hometime in Michigan went there. I've never been in and out in under 3 hours.

 

And I'll also say this. Been trucking for a year and a half and no one has tried to mess around with me. But would anyone do so if the guy towers over you?

Yes i get a lot of people asking me about how tall i am, if i play basketball, etc. LMAO been dealing with those questions since i was a teenager

 

Hope everyone is having a good start to October - glad to see this thread so active again. Figured I'd give an update on the LTL side of things.

Lots of changes over the last few months, and more to come this month! Magnum bought Jahn Transfer out of La Crosse, so we acquired two new terminals (La Crosse and Madison, WI) so that has taken a bit from our workload in Coon Rapids as our southern routes are now being handled out of the La Crosse terminal. In a few weeks the Lakeville terminal opens, so that will take a few drivers and a lot of our closer southern routes away from us. The benefit for us is that we'll have more northern twin cities freight to deliver and pick up.

Very interesting time to be a Magnum LTL driver. Curious to see what happens over the next year or two.

Pay is still very competitive - I'm now above $30 an hour! Very pleased with that considering I started at $21 an hour when I got my license 3 years ago.

 

I wish i could be on hourly pay.

 

Did my own calculations for this week, 30th-7th.

3,281 paid miles (my estimate) x 52 cpm = $1,706.12

But that's just pure miles calculated on my base pay. Had a day of layover and a little under 2 hours of detention, plus i always get my idle and cruise bonus assuming i watch my safety videos, which is an additional 3 cpm. So realistically I'm looking at around $2,000 gross for a week. However i elected to be paid bi-weekly so that doesn't include my 1,000 mile run to Texas and whatever layover and/or detention pay associated with that.