Real story about CRST

My significant other completed his contract with CRST in February and is gone from the company now. If you are desperate for a job, as we were, then they do offer an alternative to total starvation. He got very lucky in that his mentor was an excellent trainer, but his mentor is the exception rather than the rule. It seems that most of the students come off their 28 days knowing little more than Kirkwood taught them, as well as having picked up very bad habits along the way.

His daytime dispatcher was a good guy, but unfortunately the night and weekend dispatchers seem to have raised "screwing things up" to an art form. In the 7 month period between his hire date and the end of the year, his GROSS pay was $9000. Do the math; that works out to an average of $300/week. In this state if you work full time at McDonald's, you make $290, only work a 40-hour week, and you're home every night. I don't even want to talk about home time.

Now, just to clarify, the company brags that they "split the miles, not the money." It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the effect is exactly the same. 5000 miles x $0.11 = $550. 2500 miles x $0.22 = (you guessed it) $550. So they will be more than happy to guarantee that each driver will get $0.22 per SPLIT mile.

They are so well organized that he got a letter in late December (actually 2 identical letters, in separate envelopes), inviting him to come back and work for the company again. He was on the road at the time with a load so I called him, read him the letter, and asked if there was anything his dispatcher wasn't telling him.

And then there was what I considered the "final straw." About a week before his contract was up, we got another letter from the company congratulating him for the achievement, but explaining that now the money for his driving school had to be counted as income for tax purposes and they would be withholding the extra taxes on it in four weekly payments. In my book that is just another ploy to keep drivers sucked in longer. They also will not send your paperwork from Kirkwood until the taxes have been paid. He called payroll immediately and told them to withhold it all from his next paycheck, and they did so. However, we still have not seen the paperwork from Kirkwood.

The upside? Well, if you had a good mentor and learned good skills instead of bad habits, you can leave them and move on. You've opened a new career path for yourself and opportunities are legion. If things go badly for you, you can comfort yourself that there's always McDonald's.

P.S. I've been wanting to get that off my chest for a while now. Thank you all for the opportunity to do so.

 

out for 20 days home for 10 you slip seat with 2 other drivers and rotate in and out assuming you can find 2 other drivers.

 

I must have been one of the lucky ones. I drove for them for 2 years, had most of the typical problems that most driver's have, but I was always in communication with dispatch...always delivered early and never had a problem getting miles. I have talked to a lot of the drivers at the company and I am sad to say most of the problems can be avoided by communication with dispatch/management instead of complaining. Every driver that I talked to that wasn't happy I always asked the same thing..."Do you deliver on time?" and the answer was always the same.."well usually...."..and therin lies the problem...the answer should always be "yes I deliver on time and if I can't for any unforseen circumstances I let my dispatcher know as soon as possible...not 2 minutes before the load is due."

I averaged 5500 miles/wk...with one week getting 7500. I only left because I finally got tired of knucklehead co-drivers that decided to ride down Donner in 9th gear with no jake on a dry night and 42000 in the box and then tell me that he was doing everything right when we had to pull over because the brakes were smoking

 

Yeah, this....word of advice, as mentioned earlier...DON'T DO IT!!. It will bankrupt you unless you can afford 10 days with no paycheck...you will not get significantly more miles than you would driving team to make it worth it...its strictly a money making tool for the company because they have a truck whose wheels are always turning.

 

They do split the miles not the money. Most companies pay team on rate and the drivers split that...example....team gets paid $.50/mi...they both make $.25...however at CRST based on experience both drivers won't neccessarily make the same money. For example, I made $.36 while the last codriver I had was fresh off his training and only made $.22, so we most defintitely were not splitting the money

 

well i left a voicemail with the recruiter last night and i got an email today, but NO specifics were given.

"You and your codriver will split the miles you both drive directly in half -- you will get paid based on your individual experience while your codriver will get paid based on his/her own experience."

NOT real thrilled with that wording! I mean, how hard is it to say $0.xx per mile?
I'm just hoping that 20/10 program you guys have talked about isn't mandatory - do NOT like the sound of that.
Again, it sounds like this company really screws over the drivers that have to go through their program to get their CDL, but is it any different if you already have it?

 

What is it about the wording you don't get? You get paid individually based on experience...meaning as a student you get .22/mi split..or .11 mi for every mile the truck moves...if you have experience I believe somewhere on the website they break down the pay/experience...

20/10 is not mandatory but it will be brought up and suggested..you will not be penalized for not doing it.

Can't answer the question about going through their program..but my last codriver went through it and well as I mentioned we got miles so I can't say he was getting screwed.

 

It's not that I don't 'get it'. What I was saying was how hard is it to put in writing what they told me over the phone? When the recruiter told me 22cpm TRAINING, and 26cpm team driving after training, I was very clear in asking if that was EACH, and even asked for an example, and was given one - if my mentor and I drove 5K miles in a week, I would get paid 22cpm for 2500miles, about $550. I asked again, wow, that seems like a lot for training pay, highest I've seen with any company that hires new drivers, recruiter responded that yes, they have the best training pay in the business. I'm a big fan of the saying that if it seems too good to be true it probably is, and since she couldn't put the amount in writing that she told me over the phone, that tells me she most likely wasn't completely honest with me. NOT happy about that.

 

If you think that is high for training pay. Then you really haven't done your homework.

There are dozens of companies that pay MUCH more.

 

Well, I guess I should add that the dispatcher told me that my significant other's team was one of the best he had. They were always on time or early, their paperwork was always timely and complete. The only time that they were late, the load was already overdue when it was relayed off to them (it was supposed to have been delivered the previous day), so that wasn't on their shoulders at all.

I've heard other drivers with the company complain about not getting reimbursed for tolls/scales/etc., but if you ask, "Did you transflo the receipts with the paperwork?" the answer was a blank look and "Uh, no." I put that squarely on the plate of the mentors who should have trained these guys in that aspect of the job as well, but clearly failed to do so.

Point taken about the split miles vs. split money issue. My significant other never worked with a driver who was making a different rate than he was himself, so that had not occurred to me.

Also, for twistedjen, far from being mandatory, the 20/10 program is not even available in many places. So you shouldn't have any issues with that.