My FFE experience

I do thank you i Love driving but these compaines... just wish they could be honest I am fully aware trucking is not a exact science but Geez. That freaking recruiter was all like 5000 so naturally took 1000 off what she said lol. But your post is helpful did you ever run into any hands running teams there? I know it would just be something you heard and I will take it with a grain of salt, but any additional if you have any thanks!

 

Do you know of any team companies that hire less than 23 that's our biggest hurdle to climb right now.

 

what are you looking to pull and do either of you needs school/training whats your driving experience like?

 

I have school and experience and he will be a grad as of this coming fri. As far as what we haul that doesnt really matter just looking to get some good experience and build up time to be able to choose in a year or two. Should of mentioned that I have been out of the game almost 3yrs sorry.

 

walk, when I was with them (been a few months now) I did better than some of their teams (but I was tight with a few dispatchers). My beef with FFE wasn't the miles (for the most part, but you know how you can have up and down weeks so...), but instead with having to fight with payroll so often. I know of people who had no problems with them, and others like myself so like everything else in the industry it's a crapshoot.

 

By fighting with payroll I do remember reading I think your post about this. If you would not mind revisiting this what are the main problems with payroll? Thanks

 

I will give a few of the incidents where I got screwed by payroll

(1)on MULTIPLE occassions work had to be done on the rig or new trailer I had got ( I pulled alot of drop and hook loads). When I would scan in the receipts with the paperwork of the load that work had been done on they would claim they didn't receive the receipt. Now the real kicker is they give you 2 weeks to get them the receipt, but never tell you that they "didn't receive it" until 2 weeks later when they deduct that com-check from your pay.

(2) layover pay/deadhead miles - This one is actually a little weird, but bear with me. The best example of this is when I was sitting in Atlanta waiting on a load friday evening. I get a QC message dispatched to a food ministry about 3 hours NORTH of my location, so I head up there and check in. Only to find out 2 other drivers have been dispatched on the load and got there before I did. So I sit there for 4 hours (you know how good this is for that 14 hour window we get to play with) waiting for my next load. FINALLY I get another dispatch that I am supposed to be at Sara Lee by 11pm, and I have just enough time to get there as it's 2 hours south of Atlanta (yes I had to work the book to do it). I manage to get down there, and it turns out that it picks up 11pm, 2 days LATER. I sat for essentially 3 days when I could have been rolling. 2 of the days i got paid layover for, the day I ran though I got NO layover and NO DH miles on the load. In fact I got a message about my excessive out of route miles.

(3)redispatched - I doubt this one happens very often, but I took a load from Chicago to Ontario, CA. I got it there 2 days early (I planned on getting a 34 hour reset, or possibly dropping the load at our drop yard like I had done several times before). I get there early, and sure enough they have a load they need a OTR driver on, but I need a trailer, so I head to the drop yard. I get there and there are no empty reefers (had to have a reefer), BUT I was already dispatched on this next load. Well after waiting all day another driver comes in who has a reefer, so they give him the load, and redispatch me back on my original load + give me layover pay for the 2 days I sat at the drop yard. Problem was is they only paid me for city pay when I unloaded. Somehow the computer got screwed up that I was supposed to also get paid all those miles from Chicago to LA.

 

Well, I put in my app else where. I got in a heated argument with my FM and spoke my mind and finally got to come home. Going to clean the truck out and waiting to get an ok to be hired and team with a friend of mind that gave me an awsome offer to better myself at JCT so I'm just waiting for the ok then I'm gonna tell FFE what they can do with their truck.

Here's the scoop on what happened this trip out. I'll start at the load I picked up out of Austin, TX and took to Laredo. Got loaded that morning and was waiting for my 10 hour break to be up. Got a message from someone telling me I needed to flag a "fixed failed fuel transaction" at 10:50. WTF! That mean's I have to restart my 10 hour break for fuel I got at 03:00 that morning. I throw some heated word's across the QC and my FM ask's me what I am going on about. He check's into it and tell's me that message was sent at 10:50 after I ignored the blocked # calling my phone while I was asleep. Why call me, use the QC, that's what you keep telling us to do. Stop calling me. Then told my FM to tell what ever dumb ### sent that message to learn how to type and word a message other wise I would have understood it. Then I told him I was slap sick of these short BS run's I was getting and it wasn't paying my bill's. Start getting me miles and tighten #### up. "yes sir".

I get the load to the yard in Laredo get the trailer inspected to be forwared across the border. Dumb ### mexican working in the office at the Laredo yard was to busy worried about an apple pie from golden corral, he gave me direction's to the "forwarding" company which turned out to be a mini storage unit across the street from the golden corral. Now I have 3 address'. I ask dispatch which one do I need to go to? "the one I gave you." Which ####### one was that because you gave me two you dumb ####! Here I was already heated because I was running around half the day looking for a plce that people kept giving me wrong directions too and I'll leave out the rest.

But when I got to the Laredo yard that night, that jack ### Ray working at the safety desk, I dialed in the call number and he get's an attitude from hell with me because I didn't tell him where I was. "You have atleast 20 camera's and a key pad at a gate and you can't figure out what gate I'm calling from? Are you serious. I told him if he ever get's loud with me and disrespect's me like that again I would come to the yard and hit him so ####### hard in between the eye's I guarantee he would drool every time he smiles for the rest of his life. He hung up on me and opened the gate.

Needless to say, I haven't been back to the yard in Lancaster and seem's like someone doesn't want me coming in there because they've had me running load's around it. Anyhow. Sitting in Laredo after all the BS with that previous load. They kept sending me a preplan going to Ogden, UT. sitting right there on the yard. They took that preplan off me 4 times and finally landed me a load back to Ft. Worth. I asked what was wrong with the Ogden load, "It has a week on it and we need this one here asap." OK, you have 4 other truck's sitting on this yard doing nothing, who's the customer for the Ogden load, "Hershey" ####!!! I want it! 1,400 miles with a week's time. I got it there in two and a half day's, droped and loaded right back out of Hershey to Aurora, WA, north of Tacoma. 850 miles. Ran like hell and kicked that off. Was pretty much out of hour's and couldn't take the load they gave me picking up in Oregon so I took a 34 turned the truck off, opened the window's and enjoyed the cool weather. Picked up another load in Wenatchee, WA. 2200 miles to Ft. Worth, kicked it off at the WMDC in Cleburne. Said I was ready to go to the house. We don't show you down for home time. Excuse me? I sent in a message on the QC on the 24th of last month telling them I wanted to be home on the 3rd. FM said he checked message's for the 24th, 25th, and 26th and saw nothing about me mentioning home time. Dude, your full of #### because I sent the message and gott the reply of "gotcha down". So I end up taking another load to tighten up and get some extra miles on the check this week. Ft. Worth to Lufkin, TX. 198 miles. Back to BS run's so I told them I am going home after I kick this load off at Brookshires. "OK"

Never had problems with directions before. Come back to work for them and go back to some of the same place's and notice the direction's are no longer the same as they were but like someone went into he computer system and went stupid on everything. I can barely find anything with the BS they've been giving me. Fuel routing has almost ran me dry a few times. #### near didn't make it to one fuel stop in New mexico as my truck was spitting and sputtering from running on fumes while still running through a construction zone. I'm lucky I made it into the fuel island.

Everytime I ask them something all I get is "I don't know" weather it be my FM, load planner, or payroll but when they ask me something they DEMAND an answer. They screwed me. Said I would start at .31 said last time I worked here I was at 32, ok we'll get it fixed, no problem. Do the math on my miles and find out I'm only making 31. Ask why that was and they didn't have an answer and never bothered to fix it.

Average length of haul now is 500 miles. Worse than before and get treated even worse like everyone there took their daily dose of stupid every day. So here I am working on a beer trying to relax from the stress of being broke which I will finally see a decent check this week over the $200 norm I get. I am waiting for them to do one thing to piss me off and will tell them sense you people want to treat us like ####, I won't be nice and bring the truck back, it will be parked at the petro in Shreveport and have fun finding the key's. They will be there some where.

So I'm looking forward to the .16cpm to start with a 8k mile minimum a week and if it look's good on his book's he'll bump me up to 18 maybe even 20cpm. He know's I'll run and I just can't do it with this BS I'v been having to deal with back at this #### hole company that I hope fold's up and goes out of business. FFE will promised you everything and tell you they are doing good and don't have any debt's but they are actually not doing worth a #### and have just as many truck's sitting on the yard empty as they do on the road. Saw a train out west had about 15-20 of our trailers. There's the ####### problem. They trow the #### on a train and that's miles driver's aren't getting because it's saving them a bundle.

I have a daughter to take care of and a family to provide for and this #### isn't getting it done. So I got my OOIDA package in the mail, been meeting and talking with other O/O's getting name's and contact info and hopefully I can bank enough and go completely independant and have been studying hard and doing my home work in all the down time I've had. So tomorrow I start getting everything out of the truck except my clothe's, shower bag and bedding.

I must say the truck they gave me is the worst truck I have ever driven. It's an 08' good condition but it ride's like a Mack R model with camel hump suspention and the cab mounted directly to the frame and the seat to the floor, absolutly no air ride. I've been in this truck going on 3 month's and it handles strangly and seem to be having a hard time getting used to this one. Checked out all the steering componet's and everything seem's to be in good order but it just drive's really weird.

Same old hard as a rock vinal seat's. Busted my ### getting out at a rest area in Ogden, UT after running 350 miles solid and was hurting so bad from the ride I could barely move out of the seat. Tried to get out of the truck put my foot on the top step and started to stand up while holding the wheel and grab bar, foot slipped and I went straight to the ground landing on my feet thanking my lucky star's I didn't shatter an ankle because I've seen it happen even from a foot off the ground.

But yea, I'm getting away from this ####. I'm tired of having to do this that and the other and giving it my all when being ran short on sleep and not making #### for it plus all the sitting and waiting at customers. If your thinking about going to work there, do yourself a favor and don't. You'll regret it. I can't believe I went back but I guess I was missing having a job to much that I didn't think it through.