student driver questions on USA..

They are calling me now wanting me to come back. Something about a 5,000.00 dollar sign on bonus.

 

After reading your post I tried to get in touch with some of the other drivers I upgraded with whom are not with the company anymore. One told me this morning they have been contacted by the company to come back. This driver told me he was told that changes are in the works. This driver said not no but HELL no. I guess somebody in the recruiting dept is going through some of the recent quits to see if they can con somebody to come back. I hope any driver contacted will give that 5 grand some serious thought in regard to the fact you WILL LOSE more then that amount after a year there.

 

Oh No. I'm no going back there.

 

I am currently in Dalton Ga. I just had a chance encounter with a driver from my USA Truck upgrade class. This guy is driving for Crete now and we discussed the stuff that's happened since Jan 2011. There was a bit under 40 people in that class and he and I talked about the people we know and have kept up with since. ALL of the people we have cell phone numbers for today no longer drive for USA Truck by our count this is 34 people, and several have reported being contacted by the company to come back. Several were terminated by safety one by operations (me) but the remainder left because of the lack of miles or tractor issues. It's kind of sad this company has this high of a turnover rate, and I put 100% of the blame squarely on Cliff Beckham!

 

I have had nothing but problems with USA Truck. I was let go due to safety issues after 6 weeks of horrible training. My one "trainer" slept the entire time.
Good luck. Maybe you will end up with good trainers. BUT do yourself a favor and make sure your training IS NOT DEDICATED. You will learn NOTHING from it. I am looking
to put USA in my rearview Mirror soon.

 

Exray, normally I stand by your opinions but this time I have to strongly disagree. Here's why.

1. Those that were terminated by Safety were done so for a reason. I've found that the tards that work at extension 5 when you call Van Buren are not the same as the people at the terminals (with the exception of the douche at Carlisle). I've met most of them on my free time and just #### chatted (not in for counseling) and most of them are straight up and reasonable people. The two best are Lawrence Davis at West Memphis and the guy in Phoenix. Point is, these are the ones that actually fire 98% of the people that get fired out there. They cut drivers a lot of slack and try to work with those who show a willingness to correct whatever their problems are. I've discovered from having long conversations with Joe Lyons (Fuel Economy) that even his department is not itching to turn trucks down as long as the driver in question shows a willingness or desire to correct their issue. Bottom line, if those folks got canned by Safety, they were making flagrant violations or dangerous acts and deserved to be fired. I don't count them as people whose opinion of USA Truck would have ANY bearing whatsoever. We are better off without them because every time they screw up, it reflects upon the carrier and it increases the odds that I will be detained in a scale house or on the side of the road because others have caused us a poor reputation.

2. Miles- I cannot understand how anybody (Regional not included) is still not getting enough miles. I have not had a week below 2500 since at least April, and even then my lowest was 2200. I even got a msg from my FM on Friday saying that I needed to pick up my efficiency as the average for our fleet last week was 2850 and I only achieved 2650 bringing me into whopping last place. I can't speak for all the friends that you know but I have a theory as far as many of those who quit go. Its the same thing I've been saying for awhile. Too many demands and not enough willingness to bend for the company. Almost all of those I've seen packing bags and cleaning out trucks voluntarily told me the usual...."I DON'T do Northeast. I DON'T carry HAZMAT. I turn down loads under 300 miles. I WILL go home every 2 weeks without fail." Usually these guys are the same ones that claim to have been driving for 15-20 years and they have this mentality like they are O/Os and that they dictate policy to the company and the FM is just their secretary. First of all, if you've been driving that long, WHY are you working for a training company? Second of all, if you want to dictate 100% where and how you work, why don't you just buy your own truck or get your own authority? I guess having worked in other career fields makes me impatient with people. I just can't understand where some get this notion that they are like an individual contractor and not an employee of a corporation.

I can't speak for the truck issues as I've had them too. All I can say is that I've been told several times that the new policy is that if they driver is to be taken out of their truck for more than 2-3 days without a projected completion date for repairs, every attempt is to be made to reassign them to a newer truck. I also know that the company is getting away from sending new drivers to drop yards and salvage yards at the four corners of the earth to pick up abandoned trucks. I've been seeing tractors piggy-backed to terminals and I'm aware that many of the maintenance sections at terminals are asking drivers waiting repairs to volunteer to go pick up abandoned trucks. They are even finally taking notice of an idea that I suggested 6 months ago and trying to utilize loaded trucks to ferry students and new hires to their truck assignments instead of placing them in cabs and Greyhounds.

Changes are being made. I understand that you had a bad experience with USA Truck. I understand that no matter how awesome some people are treated, they will feel slighted or just won't like working here. However, as has been said since time immemorial in the trucking industry, every company has its problems. Its just for me, the good outweighs the bad. I'm making $.34/mile now and go to $.36/mile on July 3rd. I have a brand new truck with an APU. I have paper logs. My truck is getting turned up next month to 65MPH for meeting fuel mileage goals. I get more work than I can handle and I get home generally whenever I ask. Is every day awesome? Nope. I get some BS loads like Saturday night when I had a live unload appt at Kroger DC in Cincinnati for 00:30. Bumped the dock at 0400 and left at 0730. It happens. Load after that was 600 miles from Louisville to Dublin, GA. Wasn't supposed to deliver until tomorrow morning but I called ahead and the receiver was 24 hours. I drove straight through today and delivered this evening. Already got a load for tomorrow from Dublin to Chicago. I can't always get what I want, but if I try sometimes, I find I get what I need.

 

The only part of my comment that was an opinion was the last sentence. Everything else is fact. I don't know the exact dates these guys quit. but they are all now driving for other companies. Yes the ones that got fired by safety all had it coming. I spoke to several of them and they all admitted their being fired were their fault. Even in my case I could have been more diplomatic with my comments directed to operations/maintenance, but in my defense they put me through hell and I reached a tipping point.

If you will reread some of my comments I said the company will need good people such as yourself if the company is to make it. There are a lot of great people that still work there drivers as well as non drivers. While my comments sound like sour grapes believe me they are not. I have heard through other people of late some of the changes being made. However only time will tell. I still contend that Cliff Beckham is an idiot as is most of his lackeys. And no matter what changes are made till he is removed and replaced with someone who can do that job, I don't see the company surviving.


After rereading your post I felt the need to add this. (David from my upgrade class) and I were talking back last Feb. He and I both live near each other. He now drives for a local company hauling fuel. David told me he begged his FM for miles for the last 6 months he drove there. He told me he could not seem to get his average up over 2000 miles. He told me he never turned down a load and ran like hell when loaded. Sometime in early Feb he had had enough and put in his notice, worked it out and left his tractor in Atlanta. David and I both talked about the good people we had had the opportunity to meet while we drove there. David like me both hate to have these brief employment times on our Daks, but as he said, sometimes things happen. I am not happy at my present company. However I am trying to stick it out till Aug then I will have a year in. Maybe if there are enough changes made at USA I might come back. Yes I have been cleared to do so. However I am giving serious thought to a local driving job where David works, because I am also getting tired of OTR.

 

Not everyones financial responsibilities are the same. I liked coming home every two weeks. I got by just fine. I work local now. I get two days off every week. That way I can get a few things done at home. Some weeks I was getting only 1400 miles. I won't live in a truck for that. I drive a long nose Peterbuilt now. I was driving a Cascadia. Man it is a sweet ride. As the man said "You got out of a Volkswagon and into a Cadillac". It doesn't die after 3 or 4 minutes. I can idle all day long. The maintenance people don't mess around. I also pull tankers when they need. I get paid percentage of what the truck makes. I think they are happy with me. Y'all have a good day. I'm off today. I have to go get the tags for my car.

 

These Petes are very comfortable to drive. My company gave me one and I don't want to drive another truck haha! Well... maybe a KW . Even though the truck has almost 800k miles on it, it does not look like it on the outside OR the inside. A USA truck with 200k miles can look like crap on the inside with interior pieces missing or broken, etc... My truck doesn't have any idle timer either, but technically it can't because I need to run the PTO in order to unload my tank .

 

"1. Those that were terminated by Safety were done so for a reason. I've found that the tards that work at extension 5 when you call Van Buren are not the same as the people at the terminals (with the exception of the douche at Carlisle). I've met most of them on my free time and just #### chatted (not in for counseling) and most of them are straight up and reasonable people. The two best are Lawrence Davis at West Memphis and the guy in Phoenix. Point is, these are the ones that actually fire 98% of the people that get fired out there. They cut drivers a lot of slack and try to work with those who show a willingness to correct whatever their problems are. I've discovered from having long conversations with Joe Lyons (Fuel Economy) that even his department is not itching to turn trucks down as long as the driver in question shows a willingness or desire to correct their issue. Bottom line, if those folks got canned by Safety, they were making flagrant violations or dangerous acts and deserved to be fired. I don't count them as people whose opinion of USA Truck would have ANY bearing whatsoever. We are better off without them because every time they screw up, it reflects upon the carrier and it increases the odds that I will be detained in a scale house or on the side of the road because others have caused us a poor reputation. "

WHOEVER put that post up there.. WOW.. I got 'let go' or "fired" from the safety douche at the Carlyle terminal. I was willing to work and fix my problems. HE didnt even have the balls to tell me to my face that they let me go.
WELL... HOW BIZZARRE is THIS that TODAY I recieved a call from USA TRUCK asking me if I would like to get my OLD JOB BACK?? LOL... and they raised the price from .26 a mile to .28 WELL. I have no clue what to do or if I should take it.. but I would rather work for a place where I know who to talk to if I had issues or if I got fired who the person was who made the call.
ANYWAY, GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR CHOICE!