Multiple Mention Thread

Roehl has the happiest drivers of the companies you picked out and the drivers get good home time they tell me, more then alot of other companies Im told. They often bring in paper loads (tolit paper, paper towels..) in that they drop and hook them. I meet drivers from bunches of companies as I drive a yard truck for a wally-world warehouse. CRST, well I meet one driver who liked them and 25 others who didnt. Go with Roehl, pronounced "rail". Dont change your mind and go the swift or covenant route unless you dont want to be trained how to drive and be the butt of jokes by other drivers. Where do you live? That plays a role also. Example, the Schneider and Heartland Express drivers who live here in Columbus, OH get good home time because of columbus being a large distribution hub like it is. We have a target, wal-mart, kmart, sears, big-lots warehouse and over a hundred more in the area.

 

I can tell you my experience with Cypress. It was a couple of years ago. They, like most other flat bed trucking companies, boast no touch loads, home time often, paid training, great pay, etc. They were to pay new drivers $50.00 a day to go through orientation. 8 hours a day, for a week in Jacksonville, Fl. Cypress had paid to put some of the new drivers up in a decent motel a few miles away. The others they said, had to stay in the bunk house at the terminal. The bunk house was a cold, dark, and dirty, concrete room with a bunch of "over and under" steel framed bunkbeds, with 3 inch thick mattresses. There were more bunks than should have been in a room that small, in my opinion. I would come to know more about the Cypress bunk, as the week went on. (No pun intended.) I was one, who had to sleep in the bunk house. They didn't really tell me why. When I called the recruiter to ask her why the next day she said, "it's because you are a new driver, the ones staying in the motel are return employees, they have worked for us before" I knew that was not true. None of the new drivers were return employees. And, I checked to see if the motel was full, it wasn't. Anyway, I didn't care for the dark and dingy bunk house. There was no place to lock up my valuables while I slept, or my clothing and personal items while I was in orientation all day. We had to park our vehicles outside of the secure (fenced area) of the terminal. It was a depressed neighborhood. Some of the new drivers worried about our cars being broken into while parked there. I didn't like that much either, there were parking spaces inside. But, nothing ended up missing. Not from my vehicle anyway.

I had arrived in Jacksonville the night before I was to start orientation. There was nobody around to tell me where to bunk so I didn't know, whether I was taking an assigned bunk or not. I was so tired from driving to Jacksonville. I wasn't a long drive, but I had been up since earily that morning. I just grabbed a bunk and passed out. I was awakend a couple of times during the night by a couple of regular drivers coming and going, they were talking a little loud for a sleeping quarters.
Everything was okay for the first day in orientation. The staff was all business. They were okay. They treated us with respect, not much humor in any of them, however. On the second day, there was a fight between two trainees and they both were sent home. On the third day, there was a another fight between a couple of drivers, one stabbed the other, right outside the bunk house. One went to jail, the other to the hospital. At least one trainee failed the drug test. Another, failed the background check. Outside the orientation trailer, there was an old wooden picnic table setting under a shelter near the soda machines, the new drivers used the table during the breaks from orientation. Most of the soda and junk food machines were over priced. Several times the machines kept my money and wouldn't dispense the items. Then, some really overweight drivers were setting at the picnic table when a leg on the table broke and a couple of drivers hit the concrete. No one was seriously hurt, but no Cypress authority was overly concerned about safety issues around the yard, or in the orientation area. The table stayed broken as long as I was there. I noticed that someone had stuck a concrete block under the broken part of the table, and that was it. Nobody attempted to repair it properly, or replace it with a new one. It was dirty around the whole break area, as were most of the drivers that I saw who drove for Cypress. The toilets and wash room area were both dirty and sometimes the toilets overflowed. I don't blame the drivers, but I don't understand how they got so dirty hauling "no touch loads."
After an 8 hour day of orientation, (which consisted of mostly them telling us company policy, actions they would not stand for, and how many ways you could get fined, or fired, etc. We heard several example stories of why some of their drivers had been fired. Telling us, what they had done to cause their firing. It seemed to me the company had just cause in most, if not all cases, they sited. After sitting in the orientation trailer for 8 hours, signing papers, we were told we were going to learn how to tarp loads. Four hours later .... we were still there, (tarping and tying down these no touch loads) I mean actual loads, that the company was going to get paid for delivering.
The next day we started training in trucks. It was really not training, it was more of an evaluation, to see if we could drive. The trucks were really old, dirty, pulling flatbed trailers. Our trainer was an older gentleman who had over twenty years experience as a driver. He was retiring soon. He seemed easily frustrated with us, and his job of training new drivers. At least he was home every night. Anyway, we trainees (3 to a truck), one with 5 years OTR experience, started tarping and delivering loads locally around Jacksonville and the surrounding area, as our training. The trainer seemed to be angry at me on one occasion, because I didn't know the city. I couldn't remember my way back to the terminal the first time out. I asked him how long he had lived in Jacksonville. "Over twenty years", he said. He seemed to think we were suppose to know the city as well as he did even though we had never driven it it before. Also, on several occasions he would yell at us and tell us we were not driving up to his standards. He always brought his own lunch in a big paper or plastic sack. He would eat snacks and drink his drinks several times while we drove. Then around 2 o'clock he would stop at a place (of his choosing) for us to eat. He would rush us and tell us to hurry up and get something to go. Lunch was about 20 minutes long. Once around 7 o'clock in the evening he yelled at one of the drivers because he didn't make a left turn into the gravel entry to the terminal, in front of an oncoming four wheeler. "That guy would have stopped," he yelled. He said, he "had to get home, and attend some church function, and this trainee driver was going to make him late." That driver was me. And, I had been working since 7 AM. That was my last day. I went into the office and resigned the next morning, telling them I had been offered another job for more money, which I had, before coming to Cypress. They seemed disappointed. I got the feeling the orientation group were not to blame. I have a theory, that no company can make more money than the owner can spend on himself. In my opinion Cypress either wasn't making a lot of money, or they were making money, but the powers that be were not putting much of it back into the company. Pride in a clean, safe and well maintained workplace was not one of their priorities. I didn't mention to them how dissatisfied I was with the way they had falsely recruited me, or how the trainer treated the trainees. The driver with 5 years experience quit as well. The two of us had not spoken to each other about our individual disappointments. I think the third trainee in our truck is still working for them. He was a recent Driving School graduate, a really nice guy.
I never got paid from Cypress for any of the orientation time, or the 12 hour work days they got out of me. It actually cost me time and money, paying my own way there and back, and paying for my meals while I was there. That was my experience with Cypress Truck Lines. It was short, but not sweet. I actually didn't drive for Cypress, at least I didn't get paid for it, so I guess I was never really an employee. But, I was there long enough to know I didn't like what I saw. Maybe they could say, I didn't give them a chance. Maybe there are some drivers who love working for them, but it wasn't for me. I don't think our trainer was one of them either.
This probably won't be much help. Please, don't depend on my experience alone to make your decision. I'm only one man, and perhaps my standards and expectations were too high for Cypress. In my defense, their recruiting statements caused me to have these expectations that didn't turn out to be true. I would have rather they had told me the truth, about what to expect. Don't bait and switch.
Good Luck.

 

If you have a "good" (is there any such company?) top ten list, or top five or even two, that you can post please do so. Make two lists please:
"First Hand Knowledge List (FHKL): You or a relative work or worked for the Carrier; and How Carriers are Perceived List (HCPL), from what you have heard or seen about a carrier, hearsay. if you will. The lists may well differ. Thanks from someone who is getting into your line of work and investigating carriers hard.

 

You call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye

Nomad

 

FHKL..... Swift sucks
Werner little better
Bennett Transportation Stay the Hell away!!!!!
Corsicana Bedding dont waist you time!!!
Chasco Vacuum Wonderfull and good pay!!!!

All First Hand Knowledge List!!!!

For further information on each company and why I said what I did just ask!!! I would love for our experience to save some one else a bad head ach!!!!!

 

I am soon to finish my CDL training at a local college and I have narrowed my job choices down to Wiley Sanders, Tyson, or Averitt Express. Any info out there would be apprectiated.

 

wiley sanders/tyson (if these are the food haulers i'm thinking about, and i think they are), you will be going over the road for several days at a time. you will be saying "hello" to just about every nook & cranny of every major city, making deliveries to supermarkets, mom and pop grocery stores, etc. and dealing with food warehouses, which will test your patience many times over.

averitt express (the barn i was familar with in virgina), is a general freight carrier, unless they have added other types freight as well, which might now include reefer, and flatbedding. they all pay about the same, its what you wish to "put up with" when making deliveries. i prefer "general" warehouses over "food warehouses" any day of the week, and prefer to make no deliveries whatsoever at mom & pop stores in midtown manhatten, bronx,brooklyn,queens, or try to squeeze into tiny parking lots making deliveries at some "eatery" places...........

 

Of the three, go for Averitt Express. They are the better paying, the safer carrier, and the one that offers the best opportunity for a decent job. Averitt has many dedicated positions, and one of the best overall pay packages out there. They are picky, mind you, so if you have a shot at them, take it.

Tyson Foods will involve a great deal of grocery warehouse or cold storage deliveries, and those can be FRUSTRATING, to say the least.

Wiley Sanders is a decent company to work for, and people stick with them for years at a time, but they are the bottom of the barrel in terms of pay. They have always offered sub-standard wages.

 

I'm looking for info on Di Pietro and/or TW Transport. Can't find anything good or bad on either one. TW is a subsidiary of System Transport so any info on them would also be helpful. I'm a newbie just starting truck school this month and have sat through each company's recruiter's presentation but I'd really like get some info from drivers.
Thanks