The Quickest You Ever Quit An Trucking Job...

I walked into Risinger bros in Shelbyville Illinois once to get an application once after the first sentence out the dispatchers mouth I told them to forget it that I would never work for anyone that hired idiots like their dispatcher !!! Does that count ? LOL

 

Some interesting stories in here, thumbs up

Dave

 

What the heck was the 1st sentence out of the dispatchers mouth?
My shortest stay at a company is 14 months.

 

Oh hell, I got disqualified with SWIFT because I had too much experience, that happened when the hiring guy was reviewing my application. I had been driving 10 yrs at the point.

 

Aside from SWIFT, my shortest time with a company actually collecting a paycheck was 5 days. Denver Post distribution dept., delivering papers from the printer facility to the carriers. Two night with a trainer, my first night by myself it snowed like mad, they tried sending me to Cheyenne. I-25 was closed, they told me to go up US 85, it was closed. Left me sitting at the scales in Ft. Collins for 90 minutes while they debated what to do with the papers. Finally had me take the to Longmont and drop them, um, all the ads were for Cheyenne Wyoming, sure that was fun. Next night I was supposed to report in at 9 pm, at Noon I had a 102 deg. fever, at 6 pm I blacked out on the couch, at 8:30 pm I took a double show of Nyquil. At 9 pm they called looking for me, my wife told them what happened and that I was under Dr's orders not to go anywhere, we had just talked to the Dr on the phone. They said if I wasn't there by 10 pm, I was fired. Next morning I was at the Dr's office, he wrote me a note that I had the flu (all the symptoms plus a 103 deg. fever) and was supposed to be off for 72 hrs. They weren't happy, supervisor called me again that night, direct quote "just take some Nyquil and get your butt in here, I need you in Grand Junction by 3 am".......um, Nyquil normally puts people to sleep. Next day, I visited his boss, handed him the note from my Dr. and my ID badge and quit. 10 pm that night they fired the guy who threatened to fire me.

 

Three weeks. Came off hometime and couldn't find my tractor in the yard. After drivng and walking it a few times, I call the after hours "hotline". Get connected to the mechanic on call, and was told my truck was in the shop, not finished with some work done over the weekend. Terminal closed and locked up on Sunday. I am told to take a loaner truck and given the number. I ask, "that's fine, but is someone going to come in and open the shop so I can get my basic tools, navigation aids, and bedding out of my truck?" I get a pretty resounding "no". That, plus not being allowed to switch fleets after I had stated that I didn't like the short haul northeast runs and preferred to run the eastern half of the country, was enough to send me packing.

 

I worked at a local refrigerated food delivery company for 3 months. At the interview I was told 50-70 hours a week, overtime for anything over 40 hours, plus a daily bonus of $30 mon-thurs, $35 on friday, and $53 on saturday just for showing up to work on time. Hourly pay was $7.65/hour but with the bonuses it was closer to $11/hour. At the end of the interview I'm handed my information packets and company paperwork...then he hands me a fistful of looseleaf logs and tells me when I need more they are in the drivers lounge, at that point I should've knew something was up.

The reality, you are working 80-90 hours a week mon-sat. The only hourly paid runs are the short ones, usually school deliveries and such. The rest of the routes are salary pay, instead of clocking in you fill out a salary sheet which pays a flat amount for the haul. Well since you are not clocking in on these runs you don't get the daily bonus, and you don't clock in on these runs because they cannot be done legally and they do not want a timeclock record of the hours you worked. I had 2 routes, both salary. tues-thurs-sat run was covering for a guy out on medical due to shoulder injury unloading the truck, mon-wed-fri run was covering for a driver out for rehab after failing a random. In order to do these routes you had to fill out 18 logs a week, 3 per day. One in the morning, one at the end of the route so you have hours to get back to the terminal, and one at home so you have a 10 hour break logged before leaving at 3am the next day. Pay was every 2 weeks, take home was $1,400 per pay, that's $700 per week.

I knew it was not worth it and in the end my fiancee convinced me of this by telling me she would rather have me quit there and go back otr.

Longest route I ever did for that company was 605mi round trip, 18 stops, 1 pickup. You do the math.

 

One trip from NC to VA.....and i walked from a Mail contractor......
When hired i was shown newer model trucks,very nice people and told about how well the pay was.
The trucks were nice....the one i took my road test in was a 2010 and super clean.

When i got to the local yard in NC all the trucks were junk,nasty filthy 62 mph trucks with over a million miles on them.
I ran one load back to VA to the home terminal and decided to tell them to stick it.
Lies lies and more lies from that POS outfit!

They never paid me a dime for driving my personal vehicle 350 miles each way for orientation or for the load i hauled...

Also was told i would get an assigned truck then found out it was slip seat.....screw that!

 

I quite in an interview, had been hired over the phone. Told the owner that it wasn't something i wanted to get back into.
Him...Don't you want to work?
me...Yes, that's why i interviewed with another company this morning as well.
Him....BS, you just can't handle the work, but will you still do the two runs I have you listed for?
me...I will do those two runs, but nothing else.

He called me at the end of the second run, demanding that I do another. Could not understand that I wasn't going to do another, for him. I should have left, after I met the owner, and he immediately insulted the car that i was driving.

 

Shortest 10 years then I quit driving for myself.