TMC Transportation, Inc. - Des Moines, Ia.

Hey there eckz I'm starting at U.S. Truck Driver Trainig School in a week and have pretty much narrowed my search to TMC. Any input would be much appreciated.

 

Well we do have a lot of information about TMC in this section of the forum:

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/tmc/

If there is anything you don't learn after reading those threads feel free to ask.

 

I went to school there. Where you live is an excellent area for freight with TMC. I am easily home every weekend, sometimes a day or two early (if i so choose, like this week) I may even end up training you.

I don't have much negative to say about TMC in general, every company has it's quirks, after a while the only thing that really changes is the name on your door. The fact is, that i make good money, and i'm home when i want / need to be. That's what matters.

I also drive a nice truck, that i'm comfortable in, that is taken care of meticulously.

 

Here is a good example of a crappy week with TMC, (And how, by keeping a positive attitude towards getting screwed (Because you will, at times) can help you keep moving forward in this business, not just with TMC but for anyone you drive for.

I picked up a 670 Mile run in Monroe Michigan (Home) ran it over to Westfield, MA (Lowes distro center). I WANTED to unload on tuesday morning, well, lowes wasn't havin' it. So i got stuck sitting on the load for a day.

Got over there Weds at about 8AM, unloaded at noon, went and found the preloaded trailer i was picking up. Peice of junk, no sideboxes, etc. Oh well. The load paid 1100 to the truck to take it 300 miles over to Amherst (I make 30% of the loads gross, that's a buck a mile to me.. Plus the tarp fee)

The trailer i was leaving there had a problem, one of the landing gear legs wouldn't go down. So i had to find a board to place underneath it. Well, i spoke to the manager of the yard and he told me it was just fine that i dropped it there, as long as i let someone in road repair know it was here so they could get it fixed and ready to go. Ok, no problem. I sent my Qualcomm macro in to road repair, an hour later (After i had already moved all my equipment over to the other trailer, and secured the load) they told me that i wasnt to leave that trailer there, ad that TMC would be stuck with a non compliance from lowes if i did (They don't want damaged trailers at the yard there...) Ok, fine. So i swap all my stuff back into the broken down trailer, unsecured the load etc. And about 4 hours later my fleet manager (Who was back from lunch called me and told me they were going to let me take the trailer.. ) So i had to swap everything back out again, resecure the load. About an hour later i scale it out... Gross: 89,900 lol.

So i call safety, listen... I've been here about 9 hours now. I'm not crossing any scales, can i run the load? Nope.. Too heavy, have them fix you. Ok, no problem. Another 2 hours goes by.. Well, you get the idea. A week from hell. So, i finally get done. Run my arse off over to Amherst, happy that tomorrow i'll be 3 miles away from a John Deere yard (4 buck a mile runs). I get empty at 7am, wait around for about 2 hours and my FM calls me, tells me theres nothing coming out of there, cept a load going to Wisconsin that doesn't deliver until Monday... So i'm home a day early, when i should've had a 1600 dollar week. The light note? I drove 970 miles this week, and grossed 975 dollars. That's more than a dollar a mile. Even on a crappy week i make good money!

 

Ya'll need to get terrylamar back. I miss having someone from the cult to argue with....

 

Thanks for the input eckz. Keep the rubber on the road.

 

Yeah, what happened to ole' Terry?


I'll argue with you, if you want.

 

Terry is no longer trucking. He is running a Martial Arts school somewhere in Austin TX I think.

 

Yeah, I got a PM from him a few weeks ago. He told me that. He said he would drop in from time to time. I hated to see him go. A lot of people thought we had it in for each other, but we enjoyed picking on each other because we had rival flatbed co's. Terry is and was a good guy. I enjoyed geeting him rattled every chance I got. The owner of mav and tmc are actually good friends. Terry was fun to pick on.

 

Well. lets see you are in one of those show trucks that drive from truck wash to truck wash. Reckon you will do, but terry had that awe about him that was easy to stir him up....