No jobs in florida

I did my refresher at RM, i paid 600 for it back in dec.07, and i was a student.

 

Don't let all the bs scare you, Werner is a fine company. You get 1 per 7 with Werner, we used to take ours once a month 4 days off, but we've recently started doing 2 every 2 weeks as the yard was getting horrid at once a month.

 

If you do run into any problems let me know, in my measly year here I've managed to get a few connections >.>

Through my patient practice of looking at the big picture I guess. I think I should warn you, I am a level headed person. I don't expect miracles, and trucking is in a hard spot right now with the rest of the country... hell world.

Has Werner irritated me. Yes. For the first three months on team I would have pushed a button to nuke the omaha terminal more then once. I hated my dispatcher and thought he was purposely trying to kill me. I thought he was mean and rude. And lazy to boot.

I was like EVERY OTHER NEWBIE who comes into trucking but worse, I'd jumped into team driving from the GET GO. Probably a dumb choice. I went solo 30 days, hated that with a passion, realized it wasn't the dispatcher, it was how I was LOOKING at everything. Anytime something sucked I blamed dispatch, when breakdown took 3 hours to get back to us, I blamed dispatch. So on.

Things you should realize, dispatcher are people. Sure alot of them are idiots, but they are people. They have feelings and they can read you like a book. If you are approaching them with a bow down to me for I am one of the greatly needed drivers you have to cater to to run your silly business, they will treat you like an arrogant butthead. Would you like someone whom acted as if they knew it all 3 days in? Whom demanded things of you like they were your owner? Whom acted as if you had to bow to their every whim? Whose hand needed to be held on every choice? Whom freaked on you for things you cannot change? Most of the day, dispatchers deal with people whom do these things, and many of them are newbies at Werner. Dispatchers have taken a drivers are buttheads attitude. You have to work to change it. In the end many drivers walk into there expecting respect from day 1, and few get it. You don't get respect, regardless of your expierence, at any job period. You have to earn it. So does the dispatcher.

I discovered butting heads with dispatch made both our lives suck because I went into respect me or I quit mode. To the dispatcher at a large company that tone is as useful as that tone as a Walmart worker. Sorry, name me one job you can go into which if you don't do this for me I quit attitude and make it?

ALOT OF DRIVERS DO THIS.

Its fustrating when I read someone whose been in the trucking business 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month whom is now crying on the forums about how they were wronged, making flamboyant claims that most people with any expierence knows has to have more to the story. And then these people are tarnishing reputation. In fact I have to say 60 % or more of the werner sucks posts are from people whom expierenced werner for a short period, with a limited amount of contact (aka a trainer, or two), and have decided to denounce them based on this. My trainer didn't sleep at place with a bathroom, my trainer had bad bowel habits (which smells so much of exaggeration its almost a lie), and my new truck has problems. -.-

This would be akin to denouncing the entire trucking industry because of the actions of a few drivers. But everyone is willing to leap onto this bandwagon mouths foaming when very few (or none) have worked there. -.-

Wow this got longer then I meant, sorry I guess I am just fustrated.


What I mean to say is, Werner isn't perfect I can name 20 things they can change, and many times I wanted to throw my QC out the window. But if you approach this from the get go with a measure of calm and knowledge you will have a much more easier time adjusting then I did.

For one, dispatchers at Werner are fairly limited in what they can ACTUALLY do themselves, but if you aren't a prick, they are willing to work to get these things done for you. For instance, they do not assign your loads, the planner does, you have no direct contact with the planner. Half the time the planner just sees a truck the drivers on it, and the late loads you have and dont check your hours. The planner in my opinion needs some work, but if you aren't getting loaded it CANNOT BE because your dispatcher hates you. Though I guess if they hate you ENOUGH they can go to the planner and say don't give this truck loads, but really now, they have better ways to spend their day and I really doubt that they can get that to work without getting in trouble.

They cannot get your truck fixed on the road, that requires breakdown and in most causes they cannot get your truck removed from repair list at a terminal. But they can rush your truck through but only if you meet certain requirements. For instance, we had a load that was JT team already running late, and we needed a started. Omaha had a 5 day hold period for repairs, backed up all terminals seem to be, we got our truck towed in their and repaired in a matter of hours.

They can get you a split if you are there early and the load is going to be delivered tomorrow or the next day. They can fix some pay issues. They cannot get you better directions, they are not allowed to call the customer, only customer service managers are allowed to.

So on...

Any questions ask me.

And no for those who think all I see is Werner being the best company ever, are they? Hardly, but they are not the inbred group of demons seeking to suck the life out of drivers one by one. They are a newbie company, which I think they should be PRAISED for because they get to deal with stupidity the year or more exp only companies won't even think about dealing with. But it does mean there is no end of drivers to replace you so the whole I will quit tactic doesn't work.

I am stuck on a load thats 25 miles long and delivers tommorrow night lol. So its not all sunshine and roses. But, to be fair, it is my husbands fault. But the point is, the reason I am on a 25 mile load is because we lost the load we had setup, and they didn't want to pay us the 40.00 layover we would have gotten if we had sat without a load. So we have a load now. But, got to take the punches, we get miles fine when we run fine, and frankly, they have to watch their bottom line too.

 

Not sure where you went to cdl school, but the info I was given a few weeks ago came from the Jacksonville Fl. location student recruiter.The school dir's number is 904 783 3333 if you would like to call to verify anything I posted about refresher training.

 

i went to the TAMPA facility, because it was a year and half since i grad. they saw fit to chg. me a little something. its all good i got my start and come JAN. 09 i have my year in.

also the co. i went with has reimbursed me that sum.

 

good luck!!!!

 

Hey Pat how are you? I talked with Jen a few minutes and she told me bout you....I was sorry to hear that too...but anyway don't forget me..I am hanging in there but barely....you take care..