Magnum ltd - fargo, nd

As far as learning how to split log, e-log makes it easy. It's display tells you when you gain hours back, and chimes at you if you do it wrong and go over. At Crete, they didn't want you doing it.

You newer drivers have it a little easier, at least on the HOS rules. Many have only seen the new HOS reg's. Us old farts who use to have the old reg's ...like no 34, 8 hours off instead of 10, no 14 hour clock. Then we had to learn the new reg's, then the newer new reg's, then the revised newer regs. But that's trucking. You either learn to adapt, or exit stage left, and many companies say "make sure the door doesn't hit you in the butt on the way out."

 

He's not wrong, they filled up when I stayed there. I think the rate came out to ~$1/hr. I ate a lot of their fried fish and the girl in the coffee stand out front was cute. You might get stabbed though.

 

Hense my stays at the local Walmart's lol

 

Well, I spoke with the recruiter (Tony). He stated the closest they could get me to home would be Atlanta. That's too far so no Magnum for me.

I think it may have worked out for the best, however. I talked with Davis Express and they offered me 7 on and 2 off, and they guarantee 48 hours off.

The avg. miles isn't quite as good, but the cpm is .05 better and they pay $25 per stop excluding the first and last. Frankly, I don't really care about the details. Bottom line for me is my weekly pay. I don't care how I get it and their avg pay is good.

As a bonus (for me anyway) most of their driving (80% per the recruiter) is at night. I like that.

I also talked to one of their long time drivers and he verified everything they told me including the guaranteed home time so I'm pretty confident I'll be happy driving for them.

The only two cons is I've never driven an automatic and I don't have any experience with E-logs, but the driver I spoke with said the Qualcomm is easy to learn. I hope that's the case. I think I have at least half a brain so hopefully the e-log won't slow me down too much. Lol

Anyway, thanks for the Magnum info. They appear to be a good outfit by my research.

 

Well, the stabbing part could happen at many of our chosen franchise's big city locations. I just remember the parking lot was gravel as well, and closely resembled the dark side of the moon as far as craters. You figure as much as they charge, pavement and valet parking would be offered.

 

Two things about Davis. 1) unless they changed, part of that pay rate is per diem. So if you're cool with that then great. I personally won't ever work for a company that forces per diem. 2) the reason they run a lot at night is because they do a lot of Publix D/C-to-store deliveries. And they pull a lot of loads out of the Dacula, GA D/C, and go to S. FL a lot. Pulling out of the D/C's is sometimes like pulling air freight loads. You wait around for them to finally get you loaded, then have to drive your butt off to make the delivery scheduled stops on time. A vendor at my wife's farmers market retired from Davis. He had good things to say about them and keeps trying to talk her into getting me to apply, but I'm not ever going to work for a forced per diem company again, and only drive at night when I have to...and I hate S. FL. I spent too much time down there in my early trucking life.

 

If this is the Davis out of Starke,FL their recruiter informed me right at the start
that most of their runs are late night and thru to the morning for deliveries.
That ended the interview for me. Other than not being a Nocturnal Being
like a raccoon or armadillo Davis sounded like an excellent company.
The pay is really decent and you don have to put up with ice and snow like
the companies that run NE or NW .

Good luck

 

There is a VERY small pilot in Shelbyville and a GIANT Casino there where you can park a truck. (They also have a great bar with outstanding beer selections).

 

SSB, can you school us Noobs on the 8/2 split? I've read about it quite a bit but only done it once. I really don't understand how it works.

 

Exactly. I WON'T. which is why I've refused several loads. I'd rather sit.

But I DON'T sit. Instead, I get a load which is not insane. Happens every time.

And for all that people complain about Ashley, she has been awesome about getting me a decent load when I've refuse a crap one. No fuss, no muss and no grief from her at all. only time I've been stuck on a truly crap load was to get back into the freight lanes, and THAT ONE, it's not even reasonable to refuse. Because the company runs where they run. I knew that when I came to work here and won't complain about it.

It's one of Magnum's stronger points, for my money. It's ok to say "No." And from my experience, it doesn't mean you get shafted the next time either. You need to stay in contact with dispatch, you will need to ASK for that $75 layover (which I think should be automatic, but whatever) But for the most part, if you're active, in contact and willing to say "NO" you will get decent miles MOST of the time.

It's a huge learning curve and this company works a lot differently from others. I could be making about an extra 100-150 per week given my experience. I trade that for ZERO micromanagement, great equipment and really nice (if much too harried) dispatch. Hard to beat. It's the small stuff like short-hauls where there are issues, and as a new driver here, I got HAMMERED with those, back to back.

I talked to Chad about it yesterday and he's working on it, knows it's a serious issue. We had a productive conversation, no rush, no hassle, his objections to some of my ideas were reasonable, and some of my ideas he listened to seriously.

That's really a nice thing. Because he took the call, spent the time, actuaally listened and responded to me in a reasonable way. Made me feel better about working here, even though I was pretty ok with it before I called.

Other company I worked for was pretty much "Like it or lump it."

My alternatives as a one-year driver are all worse, or pay $4k more for crappier equipment and micromanagement. I'll stick with Magnum. Oh, and Magnum doesn't do the Hire-Right thing. So if you leave, they aren't going to shaft you with some bogus report. I just found that out with my Hire-Right report. Magnum never even enquired.