Reddaway P&D

Where at?

 

The company itself is not bad. I worked for the Three Forks MT terminal for 6 or so years. The last three or four years doing P&D. One thing worth pointing out from the very start is that they (just like my current employer/sister company) USF Holland are both owned by YRC. The stability of YRC is one of the reason I am knocking on other doors. Just be aware of how YRC is doing.

Here is the skinny, and you can read past this paragraph if you think you can find more information.

- OT pay after 8 hours daily
- Full health benefits (BCBS Silver). This plan is worth about $27k a year. Your barn is probably not union so there is a $50/month copay
- Fast paced work environment. 3.75 stops per hour requirement. Fifteen minutes or less per stop. This tempo can easily double based on your barn. I am not saying this is how long it usually takes, this is how fast you may have to process each stop. You may have a normal barn with more realistic expectations.
- 5 sick days per year. If you don't use them, they pay you at the beginning of the next year. Same thing goes for your vacation days which go 1,2,3,&4 weeks. You will earn them after 1,3,12,20 years with the company. Sick days are paid out on a 8 hour workday. Vacation days will be paid back based on your weekly earning average. If you make $52k a year, they will pay you $1k a week, or $200 a day. This fluctuates based on annual income.
- You may end of up with junk equipment. My fleet had '96 Freightliners. They were well maintained, but you may not have that same setup. Company provides you a pallet jack and handtruck that you can use for the term of your employment. USF Holland makes us buy or own crap.
- Rain, sleet, snow, or locust falling out of the sky, Reddaway will be there to deliver freight. They only shut down when DoT shuts down the roads
- You may be on a bid system, or you may be on a whatever management decides setup. Be flexible and realize you may spend early or late nights on the dock loading/unloading trailers.
- Three preventable accidents every 9 months. Score more than that and you are out
- Anything under 10 hours a day is a short day (at least for us). Your barn may run short days to cut on OT pay, or they will splurge and run you 70 hours a week with the end of your 10 off being your start time.

I have no idea how your potential barn is set up. You could go back and forth to swap trailers to peddle in the immediate area, or you may end up doubling or tripling to a drop lot to service areas away from your terminal.

Unlike USF Holland that palletizes 99% of their freight, Reddaway is probably closer to 85%. They have a major account with Cooper Tires, so you may or may not see them. Some of the stops I had were tedious, monotonous, and time consuming. Not uncommon for us to spend 3 hours a week kicking 400-800 tires off the back of your trailer.

25% of our stops were bumping docks. 50% were tailgating with a pallet jack. 20% were liftgate with almost half of those being residential. The final 5% were kicking tires, inside deliveries, or a trailer load of boxes going to Jo-Ann's Fabric in the mall. Your barn will/may vary

You may get an assigned truck, or you may skip seats with a linehaul guy. This varies by size of your barn. It's common courtesy for a P&D driver to top off the tank for a linedriver.

I had a horrendous experience during the last year I worked there. So bad I moved back to SC. This was esoteric to my barn which was a satellite hub with no management to handle my situation. I've made some disparaging comments against Reddaway in the past on other threads. Please don't let that discourage you from considering them. What happened to me is not the company culture.

8.0/10 stars is my overall recommendation.

 

That's weird. I started as a linehaul guy straight out of CDL school. You should have gotten your foot in the door with the straight truck gig. At least you would have moved up to Class A after some point. Reddaway is not a bad company. Thanks for keeping us informed. Best wishes to you.