seeking employment

go to the 'report a bad trucking company' thread, and you will find plenty of first hand experiences there, there may be a couple in the 'report a good trucking company' thread as well.

 

Under the age of 25 and with 4 months driving time makes you a less than desireable candidate to a lot of companies. If you can stick it out where you are, another 8 months of experience there, assuming you have a clean record, makes you a much better candidate to a lot of companies.

There are better places to go to than JB. But most of them won't have anything to do with you until you have a year of clean driving experience. With 4 months behind the wheel, JB will treat you just as another newbie, possibly have you go through some of the training again.

As was recommended, go to the bad companies section and look for JB's name and you will find plenty there. In truth, they are about the same as any of the big companies, not really that much worse, but certainly not much better. The impetus for this site getting started was how badly JB treated someone.

I can;t tell you how important it is to get the first year into the record books and out of the way, and then make a choice about where to go. There are good places to go to, but most of them have requirements that you just don't meet at this point in your career.

If you can, stick it out and stay where you are. That's the best thing for you, as lousy as you may feel it is right now. Then you can make a change to upgrade your employment.

 

Since for the most part, to the driver the dispatcher is his primary contact with the company, they are really having problems with the company. And yes, there are a lot of people that cause their dispatchers heartburn. But in many of the bigger companies, the dispatchers go through so many drivers due to turnover that they never get a chance to really work with them and know their drivers. I have worked for the same dispatcher pretty much fo the last 3.5 years, and he knows me and how I run, and I know him and how he dispatches. And that makes things go a lot smoother as we work.

This week, he assigned me a lod for Friday am, and he sent along the info I needed for that load as well as the follow on later Friday. The reason he sent the extra info then rather than wait till later is he knows how I operate, and knew that I would probably make arrangements to do the Friday load on Thurs eve. The customer receives 24/7 and I knew that, so I figured on knocking it out early. he knows how I work, and I knew what he was doing when he dispatched the loads.

A lot of drivers are just numbers to their dispatchers, and that causes problems, but in some cases it can be partially the drivers fault, and partially the high turnover rates.

one of the most important things you can do with your dispatcher or boss is sit down with them and let them know how you like to run, what you will do, what you won't do, and get the same info back from them. And you have to meet your commitments to build that relationship. If I say that i'll be somewhere, it takes a major problem for it not to happen. And as soon as I see a problem developing, I get on the phone and make whatever arrangements are needed.

Dispatchers are human. They need to know what they can expect from you before they are going to trust you with more than the minimum.

 

its so incredibly easy for us "old timers" with years of experience tell you lesser experienced people to "stick it out"...............

i was given that advice years ago when i started out as well. but i didn't listen (or care to). it DOES make it easier on you "lesser experienced" drivers if you do at least 1 year with 1 company beofre you move on. in fact, your current employer might make you an offer you can't refuse if you stay on as well. you'll never know if you up and quit now. i do know that busting your hump now hurts (actual pain), but it will get better. maybe a different run, maybe a longer run, but less freight handling.

yep, easy as all heck for us "old timers", but we HAVE seen the results time and time again...........

 

True, but you are going to be starting from scratch with the next dispatcher, and losing whatever communication you have built up with your current one over the last 4 months. Trust between the dispatcher and driver doesn't happen overnight. It takes time and experience to make that work in your favor.

Again, unless where you are is completely unbearable until August, stick with it if you cana and use the time to talke to people and research where you want to go, what you want to do, what type of trailers you want to pull, the area you want to run, and the hometime/running schedule you want to have.

I have no problem with people changing jobs, but I always want to see them make an improvement, not just a sideways jump.

 

to heck with that crap most companies will hire you with 6 months exp and the way i see it if you really wanna leave the only thing holding you back is yourself ...and another 2 months