Want to stay broke? Work for Conway!

I come up with an extrapolation of $31,235.13/year -- ($20,422.97 * 52 / 34). But I agree that's still not an amount worth running OTR for an experienced driver. Are those take-home numbers or your gross pay? Did you have your hazmat endorsement? Passport? Did you jump through the macro hoops & request breakdown pay, layover, detention, etc?

 

Ok, that makes sense. If I remember correctly, you were living in Southern California so assuming single filing status & working backwards I get an extrapolated gross pay of a little over $42,500/year:

$42,500 * 7.65% = $3251.25 -- Medicare + Social Security
($42,500-$36,250) * 25% + $4991.25 = $6553.75 -- Federal Income Tax
($42,500-$37,005) * 8% + $1278.12 = $1717.72 -- California Income Tax

$3,251.25 + $6,553.75 + $1717.72 = $11,522.72 in taxes

$42,500 - $11,522.72 = $30,977.28 take home (not quite $31,235 -- but close enough for back of envelope). That also doesn't include any pre-tax deductions (like benefits).



$42,500 is still on the low side of 2nd year hazmat OTR driver earnings though -- I don't blame you for trying to find more pay elsewhere...

 

Can you imagine another industry, like Retail, using something like HireRight to blackball workers in the industry?? Think about it. Here is another area where we need help. The only other area I can think of like this is evictions, where services will comb court records to see if your name came up with an unlawful detainer to warn off future potential landlords that you might be a deadbeat.

Back in the day, drivers were put through a fairly thorough road test by a very senior, well-qualified driver. The hire, not-hire decision was based on that road test, not on a DAC report or HireRight report tailored to punish drivers for leaving. Why do companies, mega carriers in particular, need HireRight when they have access to your MVR??

The OTR industry, in particular, has this unconscionable blackball system. Can it be changed? Yes! Is it funny? No! Could small groups of drivers start taking particular companies on with class actions for damaging their earnings potential? I think, YES! Should we put up with this? I think, NO!

Thanks to Surfer Joe and double yellow, we're starting to get some good, hard facts on earnings at Con-way TruckLoad. What about the Con-way culture. What is it like to work for Con-way?

xlsdraw says he did OK there but they retaliated when he left and that Con-way's not interested or willing to correct the record. That's company culture--or could be.

It MATTERS.

 

Surfer Joe, I'm wondering what your financial target was daily/weekly/monthly/yearly. My target is always an equivalent of $750/week net or $1000-$1200/wk gross for trucking.

My 5 months at Gordon wasn't any where near that ballpark. Your income @ Con-way appears much better than what I had at Gordon. (First 13 of 30 loads less than 200 miles--less than $60--no loading/unloading pay for most part, detention requires hoops, no pay for scaling. Lots of 'free' labor donated to Gordon so Gordon could make money, whether I did or not... )

And I'm always wondering 'what it was like' working for this company or that, in this case Con-way.

At any given company, wages and runs will vary. That's normal. But things like how much they vary and why--very helpful to know. Thanks. Vic

(Or double yellow or anyone else to respond with personal knowledge of Con-way Truckload.)

 

I have to say I think it's funny when I see people on here saying they agreed to take such and such a load with Conway, because Conway is forced dispatch, and you were made aware of that from day one. If you refused a load for any other reason besides being out of hours, a valid safety issue, or maybe bad paperwork coming from Mexico, you have violated your agreement with your employer. I only ever refused one load, coming out of Laredo with paperwork that didn't match the seal# on the trailer at the broker and no one would sign that they broke the seal at the broker. The Laredo terminal had no problem with it and sent me on with another load.

You will find people here, and at terminals and truckstops who are either happy or not with Conway Freight or T/L, or any other company for that matter. You will also find people who sit at the terminal for days, off the board, perfectly capable of running, but sitting there complaining about how they don't get any miles. Meanwhile, they are shopping at Wal-Mart, staying at the Holiday Inn for $40 bucks a night and riding the shuttle listening to Cindy rattle on about whatever, the whole time they could be making money.

My last year at T/L I made 52K gross. I took a fair amount of hometime, two weeks for Christmas and at least 4-5 days any other time. I usually stayed out 4-5 weeks. I also lost a month of driving being in two of the Prostars, once in Knoxville for 9 days, most of it documented on here. If you add that month back in to the mix, I probably would have broke the 55-56K mark.

My point is, you will get out of Conway, or wherever you go, what you put into it. You're going to have some problems anywhere. Trucks break down and freight gets slow from time to time. If you are not happy with your fleet manager, get another one. I went thru two before I got the last one I had (Josh), and I still talk to him on occasion. There are also going to be people who are never happy with whatever they get; do your best to stay away from them, they will suck the life out of you.

I loved driving OTR and had a lot of fun doing it and learned a ton of stuff I never would have experienced anywhere else. I got see the whole US from one end to the other, twice thru a change of the seasons and meet lots of people all the way from Duck Lake Saskatchewan to Brownsville TX and everywhere in between. From Calexico's awesome ag scenerey to Flaming Gorge WY, even across Three Sisters in snow and ice when I probably should have shut down, to watching the sun come up and go down on the same day thru the same windshield, several states from where I started. Sunrise on the Acthafalaya Basin Bridge and running the Gorge with a full box on a frosty fall morning. Up and down thru Tehachapi, Donner, Snoqualmie, Fourth of July and the Grapevine. Nothing like 60 down thru AZ or 54 all the way from El Paso to KS. I ran thru my 70 many times and sat on my ### for longer than I cared to sometimes, but most of the time I probably needed the break and got caught up on sleep and laundry.

Truth is, I'd drive OTR again in a minute, if I didn't have other things in life that don't fit well with that lifestyle. It's a tough job and it's not for everyone, but it has a lot of rewards just the same. Turn the radios and cell phone off, grab some gears and enjoy the scenery, focus on improving your shifting and listen to the engine spin that turbo. You're sitting on 500HP and a gearbox that can can haul 80k anyhwere you need to take it. You have best view of the road, and a piece of plastic in your pocket that can get you a job any day of the week in any state. Appreciate what you have.......for all to soon it will be over and there will be no time for regretting. Be safe out there, winter is on it's way. It's snowing in the passes in MT and UT,....get another blanket out, and enjoy the good sleeping weather.

Have a safe ride driver.....If you're ever in Port Allen,LA stop in to Cash's and have some Red Beans and Rice for me after you mop the love bugs off the widshield. It's a 1/4 mile north of I-10 @ exit 151 and there's ALWAYS parking there. Pull forward after you fuel and help someone back in when you see they are having trouble, it will come back to you.

 

Stockholm Syndrome and Bashing OTR Drivers

When you hear drivers bashing drivers who complain about the long hours, forced dispatch, lack of hometime and low pay from OTR, I can't help but believe we have a lot of Stockholm Syndrome, where drivers manifest empathy and sympathy for oppressive mega carriers and the OTR industry generally rather than support their fellow traveller, fellow OTR drivers.

See, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon, according to this Wikipedia article, in which traumatic bonding results from “strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.”

The article goes on to list battered-partners, hazing and military basic training as examples of this odd bonding between the oppressor and oppressed. I think we can safely add OTR drivers. It helps explain the rush to defend abusive mega carriers and what seems over-the-top bashing at drivers who don't just go along, who point out the obvious abuses and get bashed for their efforts.

 

Maybe military basic training requires training abuse in order to set discipline in the heat of battle--the enemy is trying to kill us, after all. And soldiers will be subjected to the worst, including being maimed or worse. But OTR? The abusive working conditions--what's the attraction?? --what's the payoff??

The payoff for the carrier includes being held harmless whether the driver makes any money or not. That's a pretty good deal for the carrier, especially compared to hourly. It's not so clear what, if any, payoff is there for the OTR driver. The deck is stacked against him/her and favors the mega carrier to an extent that makes odds at a casino look darn good. The OTR driver's position is pretty helpless, if you ask me.

We are the backbone of the country. We deserve better. Drivers who dismiss valid OTR complaints and bash other drivers on the basis of, "It was good enough for me so it ought to be good enough for you. Suck it up, crybaby" strike me as pathological because they've numbed themselves to the circumstances and valid complaints of fellow drivers.

Stockholm Syndrome. It's a pathetic flavor of blame the victim where the victim blames him/herself and others caught in similar circumstances.

 

So you think working for an OTR trucking company is like being beaten with soap-filled socks? Like being held in utter isolation and raped for years? Wee bit of a hyperbole, no?

It is a business partnership; if the rewards aren't commensurate with the work -- vote with your feet and leave. If the company leaves a negative remark on your DAC -- you probably deserved it. If not, you're well within your rights to file civil suit for damages.


I'm sick of hearing "drivers are the backbone of the country." All productive members of society are the backbone of the country. We're no more special than construction workers, mechanics, teachers, police, fire, doctors, nurses, garbage men, military, etc. When did a paycheck & sense of personal pride become insufficient compensation for hard work?

This sense of entitlement is what is wrong with the country today. The vast majority of people complaining about "being exploited" by OTR companies have only themselves to blame. They've made life decisions that have so severely limited their options, they have no other choice than work for a bad company in an industry in which they have no interest or aptitude. And still, rather than grind it out for a year or two & move upward/onward, they hop around looking for marginal improvements in their immediate situation -- continuing to cripple their long-term outlook.

 

If its the Stockholm Syndrome that is so easy to find examples of, there is an equal number of whiners on the other side of the conversation, just as easy to find, yet they don't have a syndrome named for them. How about Lazy #####, socially inept syndrome. The complainers also complain about all other drivers, (they complain about you to Victor), they complain about shippers, receivers, forklift drivers, big companies, little companies, owner ops, company drivers, trainers and students etc. They generally don't get along with anybody.

The only even handed naysayer I have seen in here is XLS. He or she does tell the whole story good and bad.