My Celadon Experience

Discussion in 'Celadon' started by NY Snowman, Aug 6, 2013.

  1. NY Snowman

    NY Snowman Light Load Member

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    I posted a thread in the "Bad Trucking Companies", but thought I would post here as well simply because not all of my experience with Celadon was bad.

    First of all, I will say I did get miles. Very rarely did I have to sit and wait for a load. There were times when I had my loads actually dispatched for my 70 hours. I had some great DM's and they took great care of me for the most part. I mainly ran from the midwest to the east coast. The furthest west I got was Laredo, Texas to their terminal they have there.

    The trucks were another bonus, at least space-wise. International ProStars with the 73" double bunk sleepers are what they have the most of. LOTS of storage room. There was enough room for me to carry 2 weeks worth of clothes along with food and other amenities you find yourself needing or wanting on the road. Storage under the bunk helped alot too. I stored my tools under my bunk as well as my winter boots and so forth.
    The downside to the ProStar is they aren't known for their mechanical dependability. My truck had 133,000 miles on it when I was assigned to it and it had several issues with it that needed to be addressed. I'm sure sone of it had to do with the way it was driven before I got into it, but regardless, there were things that went wrong with it that shouldn't go wrong with a truck with as few miles as what this truck had. Keep in mind, a truck in the shop not turning wheels isn't making you, the driver any money.

    I was a company driver, so I can't tell you much about the lease/purchase side of things except it seemed that everytime I was at a Celadon terminal, someone was turning their lease truck in. None of the drivers I spoke with that did the lease/purchase thing recommended the program. Every single L/P driver I spoke with said they couldn't get enough miles to make much more than the lease payment and the equipment was not dependable enough to be able to turn alot of miles. Again, ProStars were the trucks used for the Lease Program, so I wasn't surprised to hear that.

    All orientation and training is done at the Indianapolis terminal. The terminal itself is decent. They were in the process of renovating the dorms and the lounges when I left. I was flown into Indy from Albany, New York by US Airways, so I didn't have to suffer on the greydog express. During orientation I was housed at the LaQuinta about 2 miles from the terminal. I did have a roommate for orientation too, but it wasn't bad. I do believe I was one of the exceptions to being flown to orientation. This may have been because they totally screwed up my original orientation dates and transportation. I was originally scheduled to begin orientation the Monday following Thanksgiving last year. At that time I was supposed to take the bus to indy. After travelling the hour to the terminal, I found there was no bus ticket or travel arrangements made for me. It was a wasted trip. It took them until January to get me to orientation. It was a nightmare trying to get things sorted and even getting hold of someone to find out what was going on. I should have taken that as an omen to not go with this company, but I persevered anyways.

    I will say there were no real surprises when I did get to orientation. Pretty much everything I was told was accurate. My orientation class started with around 35 potential drivers. Orientation lasts for 5 days. At the end of the 5 days, there were less than a dozen drivers left in the orientation class. Some had things turn up in their background checks, others blatantly lied on their applications and were caught. One driver actually wrecked her truck while going through her final road test when she was doing her backing evaluation.

    On the afternoon of the 5th day of orientation we were paired up with our trainers. I hate to say it, but the crop of trainers left alot to be desired. It was obvious many were there just to get the added trainer pay and really didn't care about actually spending time educating the drivers they were taking under their wing. I was lucky in this regard though. I was paired with a driver who had many years of experience behind the wheel and we hit it off fine. From the first trip we were dispatched on, I drove all the miles. He observed and let me do everything. When you first go out with your mentor, you drive under the solo HOS regs. After 2 weeks, we were routed back to the terminal and we met with the training department and after individual interviews, they allowed us to go team status. We thenj went back out on the road for two more weeks under team status.

    Herein lies the beginning of the issues I started having. After taking a load to the Laredo, Texas terminal, we were dispatched to California for our next load. As we were leaving the city of Laredo with our load, I felt the truck lose power. I informed my mentor of the problem but he would not let me stop. His exact words to me were, "We're drivers, not mechanics. We drive the truck until it dies." I knew we had lost the turbocharger by the lack of power. The truck would not go over 40 mph on flat roads. Sure enough, 3 hours later, the truck died literally in the middle of nowhere. It was around 4 or 5 on a Friday afternoon when the truck died. We sat on the side of Hwy 90 in Texas that night. There was no cell phone reception and the quallcom also didn't work. We were literally stranded. We spent the night in the truck and woke up the next morning to a U.S. Marshall banging on one window and a U.S. Border Patrol Officer banging on the other window. After explainign to them our plight and how long we had been there, we were informed we were lucky to be alive. Come to find out we were literally on the U.S./Mexico border and they were patrolling the border for illegal immigrants attempting to cross into the U.S. We were informed they had killed several insurgents in a 1/4 mile stretch of road in the past few days and we were stranded right in the middle of that stretch. We were blessed to have the Marshalls and Border Patrol call a tow truck for us and stay with us and guard the truck while we waited for our tow truck to show up. The truck showed up around 4 in the afternoon and we got towed to Odessa, Texas where we were put up in a motel. It wasn't until we got to the motel and my mentor called the Indy terminal to explain our situation did they know what had happened to us. Our DM had no idea what had happened and nobody even realized we had fallen off the map more than 24 hours earlier. To me, this was very disheartening.

    We spent 5 days in the motel waiting for our truck to be fixed at the International dealer in Odessa. After finally getting our truck back, we were routed with a load to the Indy terminal. At that time, I was ready for my own truck, or to be put with another mentor. I had no idea how prejudiced and racial my mentor was until we got stranded in Texas. After being cooped up with him in a motel room for 5 days listening to him rant and rave about African-Americans and Hispanics, I was ready to kill him. On top of that, I found out he had called the terminal more than once to try and blame me for driving the truck when there was an obvious issue with the motor. Fortunately my DM and the Safety Department believed my side over his simply because of this guy's past history with their equipment.

    After getting back to the terminal, all parties agreed I was ready for my own rig and I was assigned my own truck. The condition of my truck when I got it was deplorable. It had not been cleaned and the windshield was yellow from the cigarette smoke caked on it. The stench in the truck was unbearable. The previous driver had obviously had at least one cat in the truck and the stench verified it. I spent the whole weekend scrubbing my truck with a scouring pad and buckets of Lysol and bleach in the parking lot of the LaQuinta. I asked to be assigned another truck but they refused so I was left with no other alternative. Not only was the truck infested with stake cigarette smoke and cat piss odors, but the previous driver obviously chewed tobacco as well. The outside of the driver's door had chew trailing down the side and splattered along the side from where it had been spit out the window. The truck was just disgusting. I spent one whole afternoon with scrub pads and lysol just getting that mess off the outside of the truck.

    After getting my truck in order, I got my first dispatched load. As I said, the miles for the loads weren't bad. Once I got into a schedule and groove things went pretty smoothly. I had not been home in over 2 months and I was slowly routed home. I chose to spend 4 days at home even though I could have spent 8 days because of the amount of time I was on the road. Keep in mind, if your wheels aren't turning, you're not making money. As a new employee, I don't know of many drivers who can afford to take that much time off and not get paid for it. On average, I was out 6 or 7 weeks before I got home time. I never turned down a load and for the most part was able to deliver everything on time.

    My experience with my DM's was pretty good. As I said, they pretty much kept my wheels turning and made sure I got the miles I needed.

    My real issue came when I was scheduled to go home and I was asked to take a load from Indiana to Laredo, Texas. I was promised I would be routed home from Texas and given 2 extra days if I took the load. I agreed to take the load. My truck was already overdue for PM maintenance so I figured I would get that done while I was in Laredo as well as get my air conditioning fixed and my check engine light issue resolved. When I got to Laredo the shop did my oil change but informed me the truck needed to got to Rotex International for the rest of the work that needed to be done. Once again I found myself in a motel while the truck sat at the dealer.

    It was during this time I was informed my father had gone into hospital back in New York. I immediately contacted my DM and advised them of the situation. I had gotten to Laredo on a Friday and it was the following Thursday that I was told my dad had taken ill, so I had already been parked in a motel for a week. I asked if it would be possible to have the cost of airfare advanced to me in order for me to get home to see my father. My request was denied and I was told they would advance half the cost of a bus ticket back to New York. I won't go into all the details in this thread, but a long story short, I never got to say goodbye to my father before he died and I never made it home in time for the funeral.

    I fulfilled my responsibilities to Celadon and turned my truck into the Carlisle terminal. I am now contesting some things they have put on my DAC, including an abandonment. When I contacted them last week about it, I was told, "I guess maybe you shouldn't have left us." I had heard stories of Celadon sabotaging a driver's DAC if they left and I would have to say from my own experience this seems to hold some truth to it. I was told it was considered abandonment because the truck had been assigned to me in Laredo and it needed to be returned there, not the Carlisle terminal. Even though I have signed receipts for turning everything in as required, I still got this put on my DAC. I am now in the process of trying to get this issue resolved.

    In closing, as I said, Celadon has good and bad, just like every other carrier out there. There is a high turnover of drivers at Celadon. It was common to see 3 or 4 drivers cleaning out their trucks whenever I went to a Celadon terminal. I even saw a few cleaning their trucks out at a Pilot or Flying J. Hometime could be better, but again, as a new driver for the company, I did not refuse any loads. If I had then maybe my hometime would have been better. The icing on the cake was not getting home to see my father before he died or to even get home to bury him. Looking back, I don't think I ever spoke with a fellow Celadon driver that was actually "happy" where they were. The general feeling I got was that they were there to make a paycheck but it wasn't necessarily their first choice of carriers to drive for.

    If anyone has any other questions, feel free to post and I'll do my best to answer them for you. I hope this helps those who are considering Celadon as a potential employer.

    Later,

    Brian
     
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  3. FLATBED

    FLATBED Road Train Member

    Each time you post this the story changes

    1) They informed us after learning of our story that we were lucky to still be alive as illegal Mexicans frequented that stretch of highway and routinely robbed and killed stranded motorists.


    2) Come to find out we were literally on the U.S./Mexico border and they were patrolling the border for illegal immigrants attempting to cross into the U.S. We were informed they had killed several insurgents in a 1/4 mile stretch of road in the past few days and we were stranded right in the middle of that stretch

    Now if EITHER incident had happened I am sure it would have made the NEWS somewhere in the USA !
     
  4. NY Snowman

    NY Snowman Light Load Member

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    I abbreviated what I originally posted, plain and simple. And do you really think for one minute with the corruptness in today's government that we would indeed hear about everything that goes on along the border? Think about it. Our government and media are so busy covering up one scandal after another it shouldn't surprise you that we don't hear what goes on along the border.
    Regardless, believe what you choose, I really don't care. I know what I endured with the company and I don't want to see anyone make the same mistakes I did.
    Maybe I should have just cut and pasted everything from my orginal post to make sure there wasn't any confusion. Point taken.
     
  5. born&raisedintheusa

    born&raisedintheusa Road Train Member

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    Condolences on your father passing away! May your father rest in peace! May God be with him!

    God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!
     
  6. Andygfunk

    Andygfunk Bobtail Member

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    Im so sorry for your loss. I have worked for celadon for a whole year and they have changed. They are starting to sound like werner enterprises, but i know you will find something better. Good luck and god bless
     
    NY Snowman Thanks this.
  7. NY Snowman

    NY Snowman Light Load Member

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    Thanks Andy. Like I said, I was pretty content with Celadon until everything happened. As I posted, not all of my experiences were bad, but the last 2 weeks there were a nightmare.
    I sincerely believe there is such a thing as getting too big, too fast. I think that might be part of the problem with Celadon. They are losing sight of what makes a company successful and that's their drivers. There's nothing wrong with growth, in moderation. I am sincerely sorry things didn't work out at Celadon, but I will move on and hopefully my next experience will be a bit more positive. Time will tell.
     
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