Van Wyk Inc.

well you see the seniority system is so screwed up out here it doesn't make any sense... you have one guy who all he does is jersey city, most guys don't mind cause hardly anybody wants to go there because its the cheapest run... another guy who all he wants to do is go to Albany because they have parking.... you have two guys who all they want to do is run Norton's together (literally together and one guy left for a couple of months) and you have a few more who has there wishes and so on....

now with that being said at times i think its a crock of #### that when i call early enough in the morning i say hey whats up with a Albany i get told no Albany but i got a Werner's here and then find out that someone else has an Albany who called after me.... (found this out, one day when talking to someone there) so its some bs.... you got quite a few guys who wont run west of Pennsylvania and you got guys who will not even think twice about working or running on a weekend... i understand they look out for us alot here but #### sometimes its just to much... i find it pretty odd that certain ones couldn't buy a load out of Front Royal (including myself( during the Winter but them same boys (first paragraph) was up and down 95/81 all winter long... i mean i haven't done nothing to anybody in either office or pissed anyone off to my knowledge, but i guess that just how #### works in Waynesboro...

 

This company is nothing more than a "big fleet" these days. Same mentality in the office. We're nothing but warm bodies who make the trucks move.

 

in certain aspects they are.... i must say, i've had things get fixed on this truck that i know #### well Schneider wouldn't have even thought about fixing, even tho at times Tim can be Oblivious he isn't as strict as past safety managers, and i know over here on the east were pretty much home when expected.... now when it comes to dispatching now thats a whole another story... ESPECIALLY out here on the east...... but the only "big fleet mentality" aspect i can see is the dispatching....

when they start telling us what roads we can and can't run, strict idling rules, cut the trucks back even further, things get fixed when they want to, and so on... then i will say we're more big fleet mentality, but i think 75% of the Schneider's, Swifties, J.B.'s, and other Mega's would rather have are gig's then theirs.... long as those things don't change then im here until i can find a top-notch local gig which seems it will be a while but even with the BS that goes on here its better than the majority of OTR jos out here and i wouldn't leave here to go drive OTR for anybody else...

 

Thanks Larry! Kinda obvious but for some reason I assumed that door was for something else!

 

Hawk, yer right actually. They ain't 100% "big fleet" yet but they're headed that way. I've been driving for Van Wyk for 6 years. In the last year or so, coincidentally right about the time they made the transition to e-logs, they've changed a lot.
They're clamping down on home time, not getting us home when we need to be, even when we remind them every day. Pay is down too.
What Mike told me is that they're either stagnating or LOWERING their "rates" but making up the difference in "fuel surcharge". We don't get a percentage of the fuel surcharge. "Percent of gross revenue" obviously doesn't mean GROSS REVENUE.

 

My opinion is that we are a far cry from a "mega fleet". There is 0 hassle from the shop when we need to get something fixed, none of this sending in a canned message & sitting around waiting for the maintenance gods to decide if they really want to get it fixed. Yes dispatch can be a little goofy, but sometimes it is caused by drivers not knowing how to run their log book causing dispatch to restructure a plan they had set up. As far as the pecking order goes, it's a matter of the squeeky wheel gets the grease. I've heard the phrase "if I don't get this load I'll quit" more times than I can count. I was standing at Dale's desk one day when a driver said that & I politely replied see ya later! Polite? No, but it was the truth from my stand point. I go through it quite a bit, if it was up to me I'd never go East of Davenport. Most guys want to run out west during the summer but as soon as there's a possibility of having to sling iron to get up and over a pass you can't get those guys to do it. It's all part of the game. That's my two cents I guess. Good to hear Scotty the Body got you fixed up Hawk, did they have to take your DPF over to Doonan there in GB for the cleaning or did he just put a new one on?

 

Rob, Who did you drive for before VW? I drove for Covenant, and I can say that Van Wyk isn't anywhere near that bad but it could be that their ratio of drivers to office/shop employees is better. We don't have to talk to our dispatchers through bulletproof glass but what I'm saying it that "family-run" company doesn't seem that way any more. Half the time the tension upstairs in operations is so thick you couldn't cut it with a chain saw. The only time they seem to act like normal people is when Mike is out on the road somewhere. I don't really "get" why they're so afraid of Mike either. (Even Dale is afraid of him) The guy might be moody at times but really he ain't a bad guy, nothing to be afraid of.

 

I certainly feel like a megafleet driver at this particular moment. Prime has me surrounded as I stay up all night waiting for the foreign security lord attempt to pronounce my name and company name. My first time at Wakefern, which I learned is a dirty cover for SHOP RITE! ########. I'm boycotting all grocery stores, and Walmart. Target in Fort Dodge wins.

 

Rob, Larry, what are you doing up?! And yes Rob, I'm going home...eventually.