Should I stay or go?

I've had my first job in trucking for almost 3 months. Part time technically, but often 40-60 hrs a week over 3-4 days. It's for a small agricultural/cattle company near where I live. It's been quite the experience...some good, some bad (really bad) - but I'm no quitter so I've stuck with it to see how things go. They're good guys and have been very accommodating to me being a new guy with no experience. But some of their equipment has been proven to be unsafe and they like to bend the rules a bit. There are some things that we're exempt from (since our truck is a farm truck mainly doing non-commercial work). However, I'm not entirely comfortable with some of their practices and preferences on how things are done.

Pay has become an issue as well. Recently I've spent quite a few hours doing job-related activities that they have not paid me for. Overall they are unorganized at this point and to their credit have had some bad luck - it's costing me a lot of time that I do not get compensated for. I also only get paid for loaded miles, which is quite common..but only about 50% of my miles are loaded. I'm prepared to speak with them about that but am just going to leave it alone if I decide to go a different direction at this point.

Happy to go into further detail about things, but I'm looking for advice on whether to stay or go. Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

Thank you and I agree, when I'm doing anything related to my job activities I should be "on the clock" and getting paid for it. No pay for two 5.5 hour drives back after dropping off a load. No pay for two 8 hour drives to TX to pick up a load. Got paid for 1 hour of loading once when it took 2.5 hours. No pay for going to pull a broken-down tractor off of its load. No pay for running around town essentially running errands and swapping trucks and trailers. Gaining experience comes with a price but it's been a bit much in terms of hours spent for the pay I've received.

 

I hear you there. I fully expect to have some extracurricular duties that are in my pay structure. Getting paid for 1 hour of loading regardless of how long it takes...so be it, I think a lot of companies do that. It's not an hourly position so I don't expect to be paid for every bit of time I spend working for them. The problem is that when I did get the calculator out to see what my "hourly rate" technically would have been on a given day or week, the rate was falling below minimum wage. Being a company driver certainly isn't the best paying job in the world, but it's absolutely not a minimum wage position - especially flatbed work. This problem could be alleviated if they are willing to improve my pay structure just a bit, but that still leaves my other concerns regarding safety etc.