Small carriers and bennies?

It is unfortunate that companies use a "cookie cutter" approach to hiring. When I was training new drivers years ago, I had some young drivers, totally "wet behind the ears" that made excellent drivers. I have checked out some that supposedly had time behind the wheel that I wouldn't let them out of the gate on their own. But, there is really no way to tell what you got till you see them in action. So the carriers just use the "cookie cutter" approach and you have to fit into their predetermined idea of time behind the wheel to be able to qualify. Even then, I have seen so-called Experienced drivers with several years go right out and do a full gainer in a ditch with a truck within 2 weeks of being hired. We had one at Fremont do this just last year, in summer, clear weather, in Kansas. Had one at my last carrier that managed to cross a median, kill 6 college students in a van, within a week of hire and hadn't even filled out one log book page! So much for those "experienced" drivers.

A lot of times, if a newbie has the right attitude, I would take them over one of those experienced billy bob bigriggers any day. I have seen way too many no count "experienced" drivers in nearly 3 decades at this game. There are some truly great experienced drivers, but for every one of them, there is a knothead experienced driver that thinks that the road belongs to him and he can play smokey and the bandit.

But it is a system we have to live with. But, it is worth the wait to get the experience and keep a clean record so that you can get on with the better carriers. There is no "perfect" carrier in the industry. I equate trucking, in some ways, to Vietnam. There may not have been any "safe" places in the Nam, but along with that, there were some truly nasty places.

 

Your original post only asked about the benefits working for smaller companies , not ones hiring inexperienced drivers . They have no need to hire inexperienced drivers although ESP has trained salesmen and warehousemen they already employed to be drivers .

 

Oldnew, thanks for starting this thread. Have a year now and plan to stay where I'm at for another. Kind of like stability you know. lol

 

This is the 2nd small company I've worked for, 1st small trucking company though. I will always try and stay with a small company. 1. typically your a name, not a number, 2. the office door is generally open, not by appt., 3. the care given to the equipment is generally better, 4. pay and benies may be lower than a large company, but the more personable approach some times offsets that and makes you feel part of the family.

I work for a small family run company. 12 company drivers and 2 owner operators. The office/dispatch space is all the same, only seperated by a partial wall. I've been there 12 yrs, generally we get some type of cash bonus every year at Christmas, plus grocery store gift cards at X-mas and t-day. This is year I didn't get a bonus, or come to think of it a review on my anniversry, but considering I'm topped out and the economy sucks, at least I have a good job. We can BS with one another and generally no offense is taken, I can often, within reason, chew my boss's butts out as much as they chew mine out. When my Mom died in '03, the 3rd phone call I made was to the company to tell them. I reported for work the monday after (she died on a sat.), worked two days and took the next 5 off. They paid me for three of the five (w,T,F)without me asking about it, I currently get 3 weeks vacation per year, 401K, and hell I drive a new truck. The only time I'm a number is when I fuel the truck in the yard, otherwise we're treated like a person. The only time I leave the truck keys in the office is if I'm on vacation and leaving town, I have a company Mastercard for fuel/repairs/etc. when on the road. The company trusts me to use my judgement with it. Granted I have to call in first for repairs, but otherwise I use my judgement. When fueling on the road, they know that I'll try to find the cheapest truckstop, that still has quality fuel. Recently when a blizzard shutdown the highway, since they didn't know when the highway would reopen, and they didn't want the truck to idle for 20+ hrs, they had me get a hotel room (heck I've done that many times on their dime), when I told them that I didn't have money to eat, they told me to use the credit card, and no, they didn't back charge me for the expenses (roughly $40 for dinner and breakfast).