My experience with Roehl Transport and OTR in general

So this is all opinion and circumstance, but none of it is exaggerated or stretched to seem worse than it is

Ok so I graduated from my trucking school on March 4th, after passing my state exam on the first try, which is not easy to do in my state. I live in Massachusetts, and the financial aide course consists of 540 hours of school. While at school i actually tried to pay attention and learn to drive a truck the right way.

After listening to the recruiters and my instructors I decided to go to TMC, mostly because of the money, but also because I liked the structure and percentage pay plan. I did their 2 week orientation, but then I was given a driver trainer who lived 3 hours from my home (with no traffic), and after realizing their "more than 48 hours home on the weekends" was really 1-1.5 days I decided to tell them forget it and they agreed to send me home.

So now I call up Roehl because they had already hired me before I decided to go to TMC. I am going to be on the 11-14 day out fleet with 3 days home. Roehl flies me to Chicago where I meet up with 2 other guys and we get a rental car to head up to Wisconsin. We get to Wisconsin and the hotel is very nice (much nicer than TMC's hotel). The hotel also offers free breakfast, and the company provides lunch and dinner (tmc only provides lunch)

So I start my orientation and everything goes well. 7 days go by and I am doing great, and along with my roomate we are 2 of the more advanced students at the orientation. I say this because several of the other people are running over curbs, can barely back up, and grind the hell out of gears.

Orientation ends and I am thinking to myself that this company is great and that I made a better decision coming here than sticking with TMC

So on Monday April 14th we finish early and are waiting for our driver trainers. There are 8 of us waiting. The first 2 people to get driver trainers are the 2 worst drivers we had in the class. One was a guy from New York who spent 3 weeks at school where you dont even have to open the hood for a pre trip. He could barely back up, and had no idea about gear recovery or what speed was needed for each gear. 2nd was a lady who ran over curbs and was scared of the truck. Those are the first people who got trainers. Ok no problem. I call my "fleet training manager" to see whats going on, and he just tells me he doesnt have a trainer for me yet. So tuesday comes along and still nothing....then wednesday morning they have me leave wisconsin with a load and another driver and he is to leave me at their terminal in Gary,IN

I get to Gary,IN on Wednesday 4/16 at about 11am. They still dont have a trainer for me and no apparent plan on getting me one. By this time I see another guy from my orientation and he tells me that 3 of them left in a rental car from wisconsin on tuesday and I am wondering to myself why they would only send 3 and not have me go with them when we were all going to the same place. So anyway the guy tells me he is leaving with his trainer and the other people had already gone.

So now it is Wednesday afternoon and the other 7 people in my class all have left with their trainers. I call my training manager he tells me someone is picking me up that night. Ok great I am thinking. Then at 5pm he calls me back and says theres been a change of plans, no trainer yet, and he will call me in the morning.

Thursday morning. I call him and leave messages but he never calls back. By the afternoon I get sick of it and go to the operations office in Gary. The women there tell me I am getting a trainer either that day or friday morning. I finally get my trainer on the phone by 5pm that day and he has no idea about any trainer for me. I go back down to the office in Gary and again I am told the trainer was re-routed and they still have no plan for me

By Friday morning I am annoyed and I am at the office waiting for them when they get there. They tell me a guy name Dan is coming from Wisconsin (LOL) and he will pick me up that night. I wait all day in my bunk room and then around 5pm my training manage calls , has no idea about anyone picking me up, and tells me there still isnt a plan for me. Now i am pissed. I go back to the office , talk to them again and still nothing. I leave and then get a call 10 minutes later saying someone is picking me up in the morning. They put me up at the hotel "The Inn of Hammond" that is a couple miles from the Gary terminal. The hotel is nothing like the one in Wisconsin. The hallways look like a crackhouse and the room smells like chlorine from an indoor pool. Whatever , its only for one night

Saturday 4/19 my driver trainer picks me up after i waited for 5 days with no pay

The guys ok and he taught me a lot but living with a guy in a closet space for 8 days is not that great

So anyway they tell you orientation is 7 days, and then you go with a driver trainer for up to 13 days performance based. Well my experience was 7 days orientation 5 days sitting around and 8 days with a driver trainer. My driver trainer also got into it with my training manager because he was dragging his feet and never returning phone calls. Finally he sets a date for me to test out and get my truck...

Monday 4/28 In Ellenwood,Ga. I am here at Roehls terminal with 5 guys testing (so obviously 5 guys need trucks right?) we all test out and there is only 1 truck there. Ok whatever. The 4 of us had to spend another night in a hotel. Next day they give a brand new truck to a guy who was in my orientation who has hands that shake like crazy (from drinking a lot?). Now me and the other 2 guys wait all day and finally get trucks assigned. My truck is a #### box that has been hit on every side and has a camera installed which they only do if the previous driver was being an idiot and beating the crap out of the truck. Meanwhile one of the other guys , who stalled the truck out during the road test gets a 2013 with only 70k on it

At this point I dont even care because I just want to get on my own and get home.

My truck needs service, its such a piece of crap that they salvaged a bunch of parts off it for other trucks so I wait at their terminal until 10pm that night and then the mechanic tells me its ready to go.

Wednesday 4/30 I have now been gone 24 days even though they tell you the training is 21 days at the most. I speak with my fleet manager and he tells me they dont have any loads to get me home yet so he sends me to drop off an empty trailer in Atlanta. My truck is given to me with no fuel, so I tell him, and then I wait 40 minutes for them to send me a fuel route to a pilot that is literally 5 minutes from the terminal LOL . I get there and my fuel card gets rejected (awesome). I call my fleet manager back and hes in a meeting for 1 hour. I wait for him and then he tells me to call "fuel". I call fuel and they tell me that my card is off because i am not dispatched on an actual job, but then he turns it on for me. Dont you think my fleet manager should know this would happen before hand? Anyway all ######## aside now , I go and drop off my empty trailer

Now its about Noon time and he tells me he has a load to send me north to PA. I get a relay load thats been sitting at the Ellenwood terminal for days (LOL). So i drive back there, hook up and Im ready to go. The load weighs 40,000lbs. I head out of the yard and now I really see what a piece of crap truck I have. You have to take off in 1st or the thing wants to stall, and it slows down dramatically on slight inclines. Well I get on I-85 near atlanta and head north. Now for every slight incline on the highway my truck wants to drop from 55 (that it struggles just to get to) all the way down to 35 in seconds. I call my fleet manager and tell him what is going on and tell him that I dont think this truck is safe to take into the mountains in West Virginia and Western Pa. He tells me that I am just not used to load and that I dont have the experience. I tell him I have hauled heavier loads than this with no problem, but I tell him I will keep going. 10 minutes later the red stop sign with exclamation point comes on in the truck along with a buzzer and my truck is dropping speed. I pull over, put out my triangles and call him. It is about 3pm at this point. I tell him what happened and he tells me to call "breakdown". Breakdown tells me to safely drive the truck to the next exit. SO on I-85 in Atlanta rushhour traffic, I drive my truck 5mph to the next exit because it is in shutdown mode and wont go faster. I try to do a parked regen but it wont do it. I get the engine codes and it is giving 1 active code for "high soot" and 7 previous codes for the same problem.
They tell me a tow truck is coming. 6 hours later a dude shows up with an old beat up frieghtliner and hauls my tractor and loaded trailer to the international dealership in Atlanta. He can do 55 no problem hauling 78k but my 2011 international struggled to get to 55 only hauling 40k...ok whatever.

Now at the dealership by 10pm where I find out this truck has been serviced several times for the same issue. By this time my training manager and fleet manager are home all comfy in their beds and I have to call someone else at roehl who tells me I have to go get my own cab and own hotel room for the night and then tell them the price for them to load money onto my fuel card and reimburse me. Ok great so its 11pm and raining now in atlanta and I get my ride to a nearby hotel. I get the money off my card from an ATM and check in. I have to check out at 11am or my credit card will be charged for another day. 11am comes around and I check out and my fleet manager tells me they are working on a plan for me but that my truck is staying at the dealership "long term". At 2pm im sitting in the hotel lobby still when I get a call saying they are sending a cab for me to go to the airport and get a rental car to go home. Thank god

I spent 26 days out for Roehl and I sat around with no pay for 8 and a half of those days

I wait another hour for a cab and then go get my car. I drove all night, took a 3 hour nap and made it home by friday at 11am. This after spending another $160 on tolls and fuel that I am now waiting for them to reimburse me for

My fleet manager called me while I was making this post and said he is getting me ready to launch thursday morning by getting a new truck in either gary,in or in ellenwood,ga. i told him to forget it and when he asked me why i told him that i cant stand the structure and communication of this company and told him that i will never put myself in the position to be left out there like that again

In all honesty, I probably should have stayed with TMC. They are a good company with solid planning and structure. The downfall for me was the hometime because of my children but if you dont care about that then go with them

In my opinion. All these OTR companies recruiting from schools are lying scumbags, and all the recruiters do is get you there and then forget you exist.

Now I realize that where I live the economy is better than a lot of places, and the jobs pay more because the cost of living is higher. But there is absolutely no reason for me or anyone like me to go OTR to make 8-900 a week when I could make the same at home without the extra expenses of about 3-400 a month on food for the truck.

It is also my opinion, and not a very pleasant one, that OTR drivers who never go home are slobs and weirdos which is one of the only reasons why anyone would live this kind of life. Not to mention most only shower once every other day because the showers cost $12 unless your fueling for more than 50 gallons which does not happen every day or even every other day.

Getting an OTR job as a student is easy as pie because no one with experience wants to work for these companies and they think they can take advantage of students .

I am not stupid enough to think that 8-900 a week is worth it when I hardly see my kids and when Im spending 3-400 of that per month on living expenses for the truck. Dont be an idiot, try a little and you will find you can make the same money with local companies

 

Well, As I said It is my opinion. You live in South Carolina. The jobs do not pay as much where you live, so for YOU it is ok. For me, with small kids, it is not ok. Not to mention that you have 14 years experience. I doubt you would work for ROEHL or any of these other OTR companies that are recruiting students.

My driver trainer worked for ROEHL for 15 years. He just bought a shiny new mobile home in florida for 12k LOL, call me crazy but I want more for myself and my family. Not to mention the guy would lie to his 14 year old daughter that he never sees, to get her off the phone so he could go back to watching lord of the rings on dvd. Quality individual right? He would get all self righteous if I stated any of my opinions to him as well. It is comical how many people start using the word "arrogant" just because someone does not agree with absurd planning, and ######## that comes with OTR companies. I am sorry but i dont think it is arrogance I think it is just the fact that I am not dumb enough to believe the crap these companies are selling

Now a lot of guys keep themselves clean and are respectable people. But you know #### well the majority are exactly what I said. Slobs who dont even shower ever day, who dont want to do physical work and are probably too weird to ever have to be around an actual boss all day. Sorry if this offends you

 

I expected a couple things. I expected that working hard to be a benefit but they are so busy herding people in and out that you dont ever really know anyone at the company. And I expected that a company who is looking for drivers to come 1100 miles from home to work for them would have their stuff planned out a little better. Other than that all I really expected was experience. I wasnt looking to get rich with my first company, but I sure wasnt expecting a company that cant even figure out that if there are 8 trainees then we need 8 driver trainers in wisconsin by monday. Or if we are sending 5 people to georgia to test and get their trucks.... then hmmmm let me see....hmm i guess we need 5 trucks georgia 3 days from now right?

The fleet training manage that was assigned to me had no clue what was even going on. It was the women in the offense who actually got me my trainer and it wasnt even their job.

The truck assigned to me had a history and even after their mechanics worked on it for 13 hours and said it was good.... it broke down

I just dont understand that complete lack of planning and overall lack of any communication, and I dont understand why anyone would write this garbage off as acceptable because its "the trucking world"

tmc would never go for this crap. say what you want about their rules, but you would never deal with this crap from them and more companies should operate like that

 

Im just looking for local work now. To me if i make 700 a week and get home every night then it really is better than making 800 or 900 a week OTR because of the extra expenses. At this point I dont even care, I am willing to go to one of the union companies and work the docks for a year because I dont mind actually having to work.