My time with USXpress.

So here it is. I got lucky in the beginning. I don't think I could've asked for a better trainer. I trained on the Dollar Tree Joliet account, and he lived 28 miles from me, so whenever he had hometime (which was every weekend), I had hometime. He was really cool and respectful and everything, and we just got along. Still good friends, actually.

So after training, I had gotten talked out of going OTR and into running for Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree was alright, good crew, good money, almost always running, big delivery area, got me home every weekend, whether I wanted to go or not. But I had to unload my own trailer, fingerprint the entire load, at a pretty good speed. Gets pretty tiring. Ask my trainer, after 3 years of running Dollar Tree, he was recently diagnosed with a stress fracture in his lowest vertebrae, and may never be able to drive professionally again.

So in December, freight started to drop off, and the account manager was forced to let some drivers go. Being low on the totem pole, I was one of those drivers. So I got transferred to the Dollar General Marion, IN account. Thus begins trouble. I couldn't get along with the staff very well, I'm not sure why. I think it's mostly because I'm a really laid back guy, and they're not so laid back. Maybe it was because they always wanted me to run late late late into the night, shut down around 1am, get up at 5am to unload at my first stop, then go back to bed, to get up at 11am and finish my route, then run a full 14 hour day, just to do it all over again. I didn't mind doing that once in a while, but not with every load. I had a few disputes with store managers, and it mutually decided that Dollar General wasn't for me. No harm, no foul, just a bad situation.

Ok, so let's go OTR. I had to bobtail to the Medway terminal to sit for a day, not meet my new FM, then repower a load that was already late. But, extremely long story short, I got horrible miles. I mostly just took my medicine and ran what I was given, hoping something better was coming. Nothing better came. Let me give some examples.

I take a load, I arrive at the destination, still no preplan. They're almost done unloading me when I finally get a preplan. Okay, so I accept the preplan. 2 hours later, they finally send me the load info. I've had that happen once where they made me late for pickup. And I wasn't just sitting there, I was bugging them for my dispatch info.

I had to get repowered for a load due to hours, had a nice 2500 mile load out next. Repower showed up, load no longer available. I ask what's up. They tell me they had to give that load to the lease operator so he would take the repower. But, just to iterate, if I, as a company driver, were to refuse a load or set conditions, they could and probably would fire me.

(This was about a month ago)I spent 4 days sitting in the Colton, CA terminal waiting for a load. I took that load, then was told to sit 2 days in SLC. Was reassigned to take a local load. Had to sit 3 hours waiting for a window because Useless Express failed to reschedule an appointment with the receiver (since the original driver showed up 5 hours late), then it took them 5 hours to unload me. Still fighting to get my detention pay. Lady in payroll said the charge was denied, the customer won't pay it since it was late. I told her (and this was a couple days ago) that I really don't care who pays it, I sat for 8 hours, somebody owes me some money.

I send my dispatcher a satcom once asking "whats the status of my det pay for load # (load number)." She starts to argue that I'm getting det pay for my last load because I didn't show up on time. I tell her to call me, we're not on the same page here. She sends me her extension. 20 minutes later, I'm off hold, telling her, "I'm not talking about my load yesterday, I'm talking about load # (whatever)." She says, "Well, you need to be more specific." I say, "You need to read my messages. I told you what load." This type of communication was quite common.

Then I had to put my truck in the shop about a week ago. Sat three days. Still waiting on my breakdown pay.

So I sent my FM a satcom message stating, "im turning in my keys may 17 at the s holland terminal. not making the money i need, time to move on." she sends a message back stating, "ok." That was a week's notice. I hear nothing else from her after that, except that i get a couple of awesome runs from MO to Laredo, then from Laredo to WI. So when I park my truck and send a satcom stating, "ok, i quit." i said some stuff about payroll, then logged off the computer and shut it down. Then I get a phone call from a suprised weekend dispatcher trying to talk me out of quitting. By that time, I had already turned in my keys and was headed home. I told there was nothing he could do, I had made up my mind. He said he was sorry to see me go, that in the little bit that he had dealt with me, he considered me to be one of his best drivers, that he didn't have to hold my hand or babysit me or drive my truck over the phone, that he could just tell me where to go and what to do and I would go there and do it and he didn't have to worry about anything. While that was flattering and all, I came into this industry to make money, and that's just not happening here.

So about 2 hours later, I get another call from the driver liaision in OKC, wanting to know what he could do to keep me from quitting. I told him the same thing I told the dispatcher. Later, something occurred to me and I called him back. I asked him why everyone is freaking out that I'm quitting now, when I told my FM I was quitting a week ago. I told him how I sent her a satcom telling her I quit, and I didn't think she even read it. I told him how we just can't get along, how she doesn't seem to listen to anything I say or read anything I send her. He agreed, told me she was new, and that he was typing up a profile and sending an email to her boss to let him know.

I'll be calling her on Monday to make it abundantly clear that if they don't have my detention and breakdown pay on this last check, I WILL take it to court. I'm normally a very nice, easy-going guy. I find it hard to be rude, sometimes to my own disadvantage. But I've had it.

So that's my story, for what it's worth.

Bottom line, if you can get into one of the dedicated accounts (where you have to unload every trailer you pull) and can make it work for you, then US Xpress isn't that bad. I highly recommend the crew at the Dollar Tree Joliet office. As my trainer told me, I've got all kinds of respect and praise for the Dollar Tree crew, but I've got nothing good to say about US Xpress. I know some drivers have a lot of luck with these, uh, people, but I'm not one of them, and only one other driver I've actually met is.

And just think, this was the short version. If you can't tell, I like to write.

 

If only I'd had my camera with me....

Shoot! Just realized I have a camera phone!

That truck was freakin spotless when I parked it. I even Febreezed it. Now, it's not detailed like it was when I got it, but it's not disgusting like the first truck I was assigned. Dangit... Now I wish I had taken pictures of the interior.

I talked to the shop boss, let him know it was cleaned and stuff, told him where the cabinet is, and that I had permission from my ops manager to take it out. Cabinet is, in fact, serving as a small table in his office. That was on the Dolgen account.

I'm just a little worried that USX will end up smearing stuff all over my DAC. I'm already set up to go to Central, I just have to call the recruiter this week to get the bus ticket and whatnot ready.

 

Alladin, after you compliment my intelligence (which I'm still looking for, by the way, where did you last see it?) I have ask what seems like a rather dumb question.

What's LTL and TL stand for?