Prime inc aka crime inc

Discussion in 'Report A BAD Trucking Company Here' started by Darkstar45, Feb 6, 2020.

  1. MGE Dawn

    MGE Dawn Road Train Member

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    They weren't consecutive weeks, though. And unfortunately, mathematically, I only needed to be parked for 4 days in a single week, also not necessarily consecutively, to get no paycheck. Fact of the matter is, I was looking into other companies. Chatting with recruiters, seeing who would buy me out of my contract. Found nothing, of course, because why would I? But that's a moot point. What matters is that every time I started drafting my resignation and a request to be routed to the nearest terminal on the Qualcrapp, a load would (finally) come through. I was naive as all hell, and foolish enough to believe that they were finally done wasting my time and their money... that said, most weeks I only took home about $700. That #### collapse of the freight market caused by the trade war happened a few months after I got released to solo, and put an end to my $1k+ weeks because there wasn't 2,500+ miles for me to drive each week... at least, not that they were getting me, anyway
     
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  3. Ex Primus

    Ex Primus Bobtail Member

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    You were with Prime with all this happening? The contract and stuff.
     
  4. MGE Dawn

    MGE Dawn Road Train Member

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    No. I was with Swift. Thought I'd specified that. Just wanted to make a counterpoint to that faulty argument that no company driver takes home less than $900/wk, while also providing further evidence that a mega is a mega is a mega. Granted, Prime seems to have gotten to more scummy levels of mega-ness than Swift is at...
     
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  5. snowlauncher

    snowlauncher Road Train Member

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    To be fair about the training thing, I do believe that even the megas have some good trainers who try to teach those who are willing to listen and learn...
    I used to know a C.R. England trainer who ran a dedicated route to my terminal a couple times a week. He was a REALLY nice driver, and he truly cared about teaching his students properly. He would even take the time to give them one on one backing practice in our yard when things were quiet.
    When I trained OTR, I was with a smaller company, but I had a good trainer who cared about his job. This paired with me being a good student, and there were no problems... after several days of him observing my abilities, he would just hang back in the sleeper while I drove on the open road, and periodically check in on me. If I had any questions, or issues, he was right there to offer advice. In heavier traffic, or big cities, he would take the jump seat. I learned a lot from him.
    He told me about some difficult trainees he had in the past. Some had to be re-assigned to another trainer, and some quit. Not all students are good learners or listeners. There are many factors that come into play.
     
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  6. Llwood

    Llwood Bobtail Member

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    Thats about the 3rd time you've mentioned how exhausting and hard the work is. Maybe this trucking thing isnt exactly your thing so Prime probably isnt entirely the problem here
     
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  7. Darkstar45

    Darkstar45 Bobtail Member

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    There are some but the majority are bad, horrible drivers do illegal stuff all the time, hell I had to teach myself how to back because at 40k miles I still dident know how to so when my trainer was asleep I'd pull into a empty lot and practice there, because of that I took a road test with a local driving job and passed with flying colors, got it into a hard dock first, at the end of the day, trust yourself it's your carrier that someone else can screw up.
     
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  8. timidlady

    timidlady Light Load Member

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    I had trouble with weird trainer stuff too. My trainer would "we" our work instead of taking accountability as a trainer . Maybe that was to make me feel more responsible but I definitely wasn't doing things to be treacherous. I wanted us both to make money and to be profitable. Training wasn't quite as painful for me because of the love and support I have from my family regarding my career decision. My parents own the house I'm living in so my costs at home were very low. But since it's my family's investment that I be here, here I am. I dont take that investment in my life lightly. During logs class, the teacher clearly knew that log violations were trainer issued because she said that the DOT expects some violations to occur. So they seem to start you off on the side of acquiring a few points in the system. I wouldn't be surprised to see more employee testing of government systems in monster corporations. Prime is also testing grounds for 18 year old drivers contracted with the army. I believe they dont want you to have a completely clean HOS record. The points are there to have a very minor flexibility for occasions. It's important to demonstrate flexibility and understanding of risk vs reward as such. Liabilities. The trucking industry promotes rule violations, seedy criminal type white collar crime behavior. I was disappointed my first points came from some stupid "test" from my trainer too. He left me on the training pad alone to practice and went and got coffee. I got yelled at I wasn't supposed to drive alone by another trainer. My wit: I wasn't alon . The lot was full of other trainers and even some DOT testers. Ha. So there. In your face, prime. I got some great answers. It's hard to shame me. But he got mad that I could validate what he did instead of it being a rule break like he planned. that's why I believe it's a test. A normal lazy coffee man woulda laughed at my very true valid point. Not get mad at my work around. Tests. From the government maybe. Checking our ability to perform or flexibility or stresses, physical and environmental. many things start in the trucking industry with trickle down effect.
     
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  9. seawind

    seawind Medium Load Member

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    The other nicknames for the SOB's at Prime are: Slime, Grime and Crime.
     
  10. Darkstar45

    Darkstar45 Bobtail Member

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    Yup, I got hired on at a local company, took their safety test guy said I did very well, was able to back into the dock with only 2 pull up, didn't hit anything, I'm just glad I didn't get any tickets or citations and I dont think the accident I had is even a dot reportable accident so I should be good with the background checks, prime is going to say what their going to say about me regardless on how I worked when I was their since they fired me, and I was honest with the company during my interview and told them why I was fired.
     
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  11. Ex Primus

    Ex Primus Bobtail Member

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    I've done probably about an additional 80,000 to 100,000 miles with a couple other companies since Crime Inc.. I've always easily run 4 hours straight, and can do the 8 before a mandatory 30 if I need to. With the last place, I'd get 12 hours max at home before I was back on the truck and have you heard me #####ing about that? You certainly haven't.That's all partly because that place can leave me alone too. They're there when I need to ask them something, otherwise it's smooth sailin'! At Prime, because of the home time BS they shovel onto people, you're jumping through numerous obstacles to take time off because you're also paying for that truck you're using. So save up a few thousand for a week, then go take time off. Easy, right? Well couple that with the dispatcher that's always yelling at you over "Critical events" and all sorts of other garbage and you're bound to feel pretty depressed, overworked, and start living off of the truckstop garbage, not to mention running as hard as you can to try and get back in the moron's good graces.

    Since I left Prime things have only gotten better. I miss the pay, but then I remind myself, "Hey! I'm not saving every single receipt, having to stop where Prime says to save on fuel, and stacking tens of thousands just to pay taxes! In fact, I'll get money back! This is great."

    It's always this kinda thing like, "Y-yeah! Well! You should be GRATEFUL TO PRIME! In fact, ya know what!? You're not even cut out for this industry!" Do these guys type all this garbage up while you're holding up the fuel line or what?

    Meanwhile, every drop I made with the last company, I happily hopped off the truck, grabbed a pallet jack, and helped unload if the guys didn't have an electric one or needed me to help push stuff off.
     
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