U.S XPRESS Dirty Lies and Tricks

Not all companies run their orientation that way. We send someone to our orientation only after we have fully looked them over and committed to them. Since we pay them during the six days of orientation, and in many cases they have been riding with a trainer for anywhere from a week to two weeks by the time they get to orientation, they are already hired and working for us.

In fact, when I attended our orientation, I drove my assigned truck that I had picked up in Michigan to orientation in Indiana, the drove it back home at the end of the week. Had the shop do a few things on it while I was in school.

 

Get over it already, your not missing much by not working at USX. consider them not putting you in a truck as a favor from them to you, much like an early x-mas. cut your losses and continue on. you would have starved working for them anyway. been there, done that. learned a hard lesson.

 

I have to agree with most here. The orientation for a truck driver, is part of the hiring process. There are documents to be signed, backgrounds to be run. And in some cases, character evauls. They grab someone on 2 different days, using 2 different people, asking the same silly questions worded a different way. Then compare the answers. This can take several days.

I do find it a bit dishonest for someone to imply they are hired, then send them home with no reimbursements of expenses though. Unless the person flat out lied about something in their background.

Some companies can get the background, DAC, and MVR done prior to orientation. Those are the ones that can tell you before orientation, whether you have a job or not. Of course having a hot P test at orientation, removes any obligation on the companies part.

 

Since I went through the hiring process at USX and worked there many years I can tell you what the main reason might be for being rejected from this company at the end of orientation. YOUR APPLICATION.

A company like USX does not reject you for hire based on intuition or that you might not fit in to their system or they would only have about a third of their trucks filled.

When you go to orientation you are asked to fill out another application. If this application differs from your DAC or the one you filled out initially, they will show you to the property line.

If you worked for a employer who is dragging their feet on returning employee verification or talks bad about you as a employee they will show you to the property line.

Road tests and physicals are a joke at USX and unless your health is so bad you can't get at least a 90 day physical card ,it all comes down to your application.

Anyone who is a team and gets shown the gate at USX had to have had a serious problem with their application that they could not work around to hire them. USX craves team drivers and will baby the heck out of them to keep them employed with them.

USX like many large OTR company's does not do a lot of vetting prior to orientation because of the cost of doing all the requirements and then not having them show up to orientation. They don't really roll up the sleeves and check you out till you get there.

One thing is for sure. Your application needs to be filled out 100% truthfully as your former employers see it and the 10 year time line for drivers needs to be accurate and documented. The office has so many people to put through that if they have trouble with verification, they will not waste time and will kick you to the curb.

If you get kicked to the curb at the end of orientation, then most likely it was do to your work history and a lack of verification of work history or both

 

How are you going to shift the trucks when they are automatics?

 

Since you understand the way they are then could you help me understand this part...

Paying the way for somone to get to orientation, then when some past employer drags their feet in getting a responce to USX, the person is "shown the line" and then stranded there beacuse of no fault of their own.

I don't understand that part. Please help me understand.

 

Business expenses are tax deductible and the bus, car, plane or bike you rode to orientation comes out of a expense budget. The hotel is prepaid and paid for even if you don't show up and sometimes overbooked on purpose, just like a plane. Since they will be seating you most likely in a truck that needs to be fixed or serviced and need someone to drive it around for almost nothing, they save there also. And they will make lots of money running you hard for awhile when you are cheap to keep the orientation coffers full and the driver mill turning

The expense for paying to get you to orientation on only a chance of being hired is already paid for and reimbursed back to the budget before you even get there. Trainee drivers are only expensive to use if they hit something and cost money. Thats why most of the real pay increases are in the first 2 years,. They crunched the numbers and know chances are, you won't make it to high scale and don't want you then anyway when they have more newbies to process and do it for less. They value experience? look at the pay scale after 2 years and know that your miles will go down as your mileage pay goes up. Been there done that. USX keeps rankings on driver miles on each DM's board When I started at USX I was always in the top 5 the first 2 years plus. After that I was always in the bottom half in miles on the board till my last year OTR after 6 years when I did 96k for the whole year.

More miles, more money? maybe if you are cheap to run. After that it is more money and less miles, way less.

 

So everything is already in the budget and when you don't get hired, it goes right back in and they make out in the process...

So basically... they don't care... OK!

 

Orientation is a game being played, really, and you're stuck in the middle. Companies invented orientations so they can handcuff potential new hires to their outfits while those outfits invest the time and expense to check the backgrounds of the candidates. Sometimes checking a driver's creds can take five days, and some drivers aren't willing to wait that long. If they're not nailed down to a terminal, they may take off in a competitor's rig after about day 3.

Sure, some drivers turn out to be bad investments. These are bad apples and have to be shown the door in orientation. This is a small price to pay to ensure the drivers who are genuine articles remain and don't bolt for some other company.

If your next company allowed you to stay home during 'orientation' instead of bringing you to an internment camp and locking you down, it could lose you to the jaws of a competitor. If you were sitting home watching TV in your Laz-E-Boy while waiting on the company to call you and tell you you are hired, you may get tired of waiting and be lured away to another outfit by its phone calls or slick advertisements. By the time the original outfit is done checking you out (and spending the money such checks require), you could be a thousand miles away holding some other company's steering wheel. Hence 'orientation'.

 

I totally hate games. Specially when I am the pawn being played with. When it comes to becoming a driver for a company, I have the utmost sincerity in driving for them. I am saftey conscious. I do not want to hurt myself or anyone else in this world.

I am a person who has made recent mistakes. During the past 6 months I have spent thousands of dollars to not only better myself, but to also learn this trade. I am a person wanting to turn away from the past that I was. I have to face the wreckage of my past. I just hope someone gives me the chance to prove myself!

Stranding me or ANYONE somewhere surely won't help their reputation any!