Roehl Transport makes it into the BAD company forum

Most counties used to put up for bid collectors for dead animals on or off the side of the road.
As cost go up many counties don't have a budget for or bidders in line with their budget.
So around here the sheriff or road workers pull the dead off to the side of the road for safety.

 

I've heard of this site from many of the students getting into my truck lately and figured I take me a peak. Been with Roehl for almost 9 years now and must say I wasn't shocked by what I saw. To all the guys who quit I can't say I blame ya. They events and trials you wrote of are not unusual at all. Dispite what the company cheerleaders are say I doubt you sucked and were a malcontent. It just didn't work out for you. Much of it is luck of the draw...getting a bad dispatcher, being in the wrong area when frieght was weak there etc. To the super trucker 7/7 trainer who questioned the 80% turnover it was a mistake. It really is closer to 100% annually, didn't you read the code red posters that went up last year. The goal was to bring it down to 50% from 100%. But after we got free laundry and towels at terminals we never heard the phrase code red anymore, go figure... Turnover is still close to 100% hence the reason we rarely leave the house without students assigned to us. I just got back home from being out about six weeks and only had four days without a trusty sidekick with me. PS turnover in the training dept is also rather high which is why we only require six months exp. now.
All that being said I'm not a Roehl hater(although they do a good job of trying to make one sometimes). I am a realist however. Roehl is not that bad once one gets they hang of how they do things. They can be control freaks and that doesn't appeal to everybody. If it rubs you the wrong way in your first month or two it's not going to get better so leaving isn't a bad idea for those people. If your dispatcher is new or blows you as a driver will suffer for it. Not everone has the stomach to go over that persons head to ask/demand a new one. Roehl does however pay new drivers to the industry very well, and their hometime policy is excellent. As a disclaimer I am a National fleet trainer usually doing three to six weeks out at a time getting five to nine days off after.
Finally every student who leaves my truck has my phone # and I am willing to help as I can. This has extended to me asking my disp. to look at their loads and miles so I can better point out what they can do to help themselves. I have also gone to their evo III disp. on their behalf when they are right and getting a raw deal. Finally it is depressing how many of my guys have quit Roehl(usually calling me first) but most have made the cooment that I was the only person they still respected at the company. Most of these guys are now at other companies local and national and having sucessful careers, and when I have a guy quitting I don't hesitate to refer them to other guys for info about their company.
Stop hating people for quitting, to each his own. If your looking for a company give us a try it can be very proffitable to you, and besides nobody looks good in an orange truck.

 

MO family man, that was a great post. Thanks for the perspective! I too still call my trainer with 'stupid' questions and he is still wonderfully supportive even if he is on his off days. I was very fortunate with my trainer, and sounds like the guys you train have been with you too!
In the end, they achieved what they wanted to... they got their CDL's. Whether the company they chose first was the right company or not is almost immaterial.
Good luck with your training. It takes a special type of person to be able to put in a full days work and be babysitting someone else, and having them in your space at the same time!

 

Thanks. I've been doing it about seven years now and don't tell anyone but I really do enjoy it for the most part.

 

Is it still the case where onlty trainers get a condo?I see mostly mid roof tractors.Are Roehl tractors still stripped to the bone trucks?
Skull

 

Condos are bought for training but some solos end up in them. Most solos get midroofs which in my opinion are better for solos. My last mid(its been a while) had alot more storage space than my condo. Putting my junk on the top bunk is pointless it will just fall off. The mids had the shelves all the way areound the back. I miss those. We don't get the cheapest interiors avail. but not much more. I can't miss what I never had and what I have suits me fine.

 

Yes Roehl runs stripped to the bone trucks. Now you can stop asking this stupid question over and over again. Its pretty simple, run a plain truck and make more money or drive a fancy Pete or Kenworth and make less.

 

Fast and/or pretty trucks meant lower pay when I drove. The prettier or faster the machines, the lower the pay rate. This was true for the MOST part. Remember--I did work for SwiftQuit, and Swift doesn't adhere to this rule--at Swift, one drives slow, plain-vanilla trucks for low pay to boot.

Driving pretty rigs also meant I was expected to stick my neck out and take unnecessary risks for desk drivers. If my truck had a top speed of 80, I was expected to drive it 80 no matter where I was. No, these outfits didn't come out and tell me directly to fireball, they'd just give me insane delivery schedules, such as running from Chula Vista, Cally to Hunt's Point in 48 hours.

 

Yeap. You read right, Mack. I left Chula on a Friday morning and was expected to be in Hunt's Point 48 hours later. I didn't make it, but I was only 12 hours late. I had to spend the night in the place. However, I did sleep well in that ungoverned, extended hood, chrome-for-miles 379. This is the run I've talked about before that paid around 12 cents per mile. No, I didn't have any problems spending the night in Hunt's Point.

Hey--I was a college student and took the job thinking it'd last only the summer....it actually ended up lasting only 8 days. Also, this Cally-based company (it was run by Romanian immigrants) tried to rip me off on the run, so I had to file a wage claim against them. A claim I won, even though I filed it from Salt Lake. Cally's not ALL bad.