why I quit TMC (long)

I'll try to write this from as unbiased a perspective as possible and stick to the facts, don't want to discourage any new guys from starting there. they are still a decent place to get a year or two of experience, I just had a particularly bad experience there for about the last year.

I could probably write a book, but here are some things that were major factors in my decision to quit:

slow trucks: my truck was governed at 62 and went 60 in real life. it would not pull hills and got passed by every single vehicle on the road. 5MPH didn't make a huge difference in productivity, it just got old not being able to pass slow cars and having someone on my left side passing 100% of the time. I cannot take a company seriously if their trucks will not run the legal speed limit. I am not a super trucker and am not asking for a triple digit truck. 65 was fine.

low pay: this is due to a number of factors. I averaged $916 a week for the past 13 weeks, which isn't great, not awful either, however TMC kept most of the money I earned. they would not reimburse expenses and would deduct comcheks I had already turned in expenses against. I caught them forgetting to pay $230 in expenses. they made it right once I caught them, but this had been going on since we lost EZpass and made me very, very angry. I cannot take a company seriously if they steal from me. also, they cut pay earlier this year and called it their new pay package. my pay was cut a penny per mile. I took home $400-$650 a week. I stayed out 2 weeks about a month ago, worked 7 days in a row the first week, and still did not break $1000 gross pay for the week.

unpaid work/wasted time/dangerous working conditions: every week I would spend 8-10 hours volunteering my time throwing straps or chains and tarping. this was not a problem when I started, I am a hard worker and chose flatbed because it paid more than van or reefer. when TMC hauled freight for profitable rates, they paid me enough to offset the work I did, I did not view it as unpaid work. the longer I worked there, the pay I brought home simply did not justify the amount of work I did. there were also quite a few miles between point A and point B than TMC claimed there were. this amounted to unpaid work. their pay scale and dispatched miles is a borderline scam. I didn't particularly enjoy strapping loads of aluminum standing in 4" of water at Alcan in Oswego, NY, nor did I enjoy doing a trailer swap in a foot of mud at SSAB in Montpelier, IA. not when they expected us to keep our trucks immaculate. in 2 years they sent me to some really, really messed up places. I could tell some stories.

they would not pay DOT fines: I was hauling a load of pipe in KS, when the all 5 of the boards supplied by the shipper between the two stacks of pipe snapped and caused all my straps to loosen up less than a mile before a scale. I had no time to stop safely and tighten them, I was pulled in and given a level 2 and a $200 fine. I explained the situation to safety. they said safety would like you to pay the fine. I said I would like safety to pay the fine. they would not pursue the shipper and would pay the fine. this was in NO WAY my fault. I was aware of the problem immediately and would have stopped to tighten the straps as soon as I safely could have. I contacted the DA's office and they dropped the case. I was given $400 in fines in NY for a bad trailer tire and no reverse lights on my truck. truck had just been serviced 2 weeks prior. safety would like me to pay the fine since it's in my name. I got into an argument with safety over this, and my safety manager routed me 250 miles out of the way (unpaid) to win the argument face to face, and still attempted to make me pay the fines. in NY, you have around 48 hours to get the violations fixed and they'll drop the fine. I contacted the court and showed documentation the violations had been fixed. the court told me no one from TMC had contacted them to show this documentation. again, they dropped the fines. this made me extremely angry, I am not making that much money to begin with and am not going to pay fines on TMC's equipment.

they do some things that are just, sorta, well creepy: every time I'd roll into Indy, usually to be counseled by safety, my FM would call and wonder why I hadn't checked in yet. the qualcomm shows the truck at the terminal, when in reality, I am at the truck wash. I might have been waiting there for an hour. they were always watching. always. just wish they would have let me do my job and left me alone. company culture at TMC is very unique in that safety and management use intimidation, bullying and scare tactics to get their point across. this was very unnerving, as an adult, I do not let people talk to me the way my team leader sometimes did. they will also route you to a terminal for a conference call with safety or your team leader, which is usually a conversation that could have happened on a cell phone. team leaders are bean counters, and when they have too many or too few beans, they get angry and yell at you. I knew it was just an act and did not take the temper tantrum seriously. I got sick of being routed through Indy, felt like going to the principal's office. I cannot take a company seriously if they do not know how to effectively manage their employees and treat them like adults.

they do some things just really don't need to be done: I was written up for an unauthorized snow shovel during service in Des Moines. it fit nicely under my headache rack. it was secured with a bungee, completely safe and not even visible from the road. you know, a tool that's required to do my job in the winter. I removed it, sat it on my dropped trailer, bobtailed to the shop, joked with the service manager that I was just going to put the #### thing right back once he signed the truck inspection form, and he signed it and I thought I was good to go. NOPE! monday morning, mass email goes out, driver left terminal without having bad truck inspection signed off on! the shop foreman forgot to enter it in the computer that it had been signed off on. I sent in the paper with his signature with my paperwork that day and joked with my FM that this is really, really stupid. between that and constant qualcomm messages about truck washes, I realized their priorities are not in line, and they are wasting time and money managing things that do not need to be managed. I cannot take a company seriously whose business model revolves around managing truck washes. all they care about is what their equipment looks like.

micromanagement: suggested fuel stops is a good example. I tried hard to follow them at first, when I'd ask for another fuel stop because the suggested stop wasn't on my route, I never received a response. eventually I disregarded all suggested fuel stops, and if I complied with one, it was a coincidence. surprised they didn't tell me where to eat and take a leak too. as a professional driver, I know when my truck needs fuel and am not going to stop if I don't need to eat, shower, send it paperwork, and have 3/4 tank of fuel. I stopped for 22 gallons of fuel once. I cannot take a company seriously if they make me stop for 22 gallons of fuel.

dispatch is robotic and impersonal: my FM was a good guy, I think, had to call once a month to make sure he was still alive. I NEVER got load options the last few months, maybe once a month, just send in empty and new load was on its way. didn't matter where I wanted to go. didn't matter where I didn't want to go. I had been asking for over a year for a west coast run. they got me to Denver a couple times and I had to beg for those runs. I knew the runs were there, I just never got them. I enjoyed long haul and was productive at it. had a long run here and there, but all they really seem to care about is 5 loads a week. if that's 5 runs that average out to 350 miles each, then the driver does a lot of work and doesn't make a whole lot of money, especially if he's on mileage. I cannot take a company seriously if they won't give me the runs I ask for, and for no good reason.

they don't fix their trucks: I had problems with massive antifreeze leaks last winter. I'd lose gallons of antifreeze anytime I parked the truck for more than 24 hours and it was really cold out. had it looked at in Indy, then Des Moines, then had FM email the VP of maintenance and suggested they send me to a Cat dealer that was qualified to fix the leak, instead they sent me to Indy again and told me to put a bucket under it when I parked if it was going to be cold. $130,000 truck and their professional truck repair facility tells me to use a bucket. I was spending $50 a week on antifreeze at truckstops and eventually sent the shop a message asking if they'd let me strap a 55 gallon drum of antifreeze to the trailer because it's much cheaper in bulk. I ran into a driver last week who had hit a deer and damaged his charge air cooler, causing him to lose turbocharger boost. they would not pay to have it replaced on the road and instead said they'll fix it next service. his truck would not pull hills and was getting poor fuel economy. his certification and pay were negatively affected by his fuel economy. I am not making this up, I'll give you his phone number. I think I talked him into quitting too.

the final straw was last Friday, I was empty at 6AM, 300 miles from home. my FM took the day off and didn't tell any of us. the FM covering his fleet took care of all his own drivers first. about 9AM I got a load. empty at 6AM and home at 6PM 300 miles from home. could have been home at 2PM. the 8 hour rule applied every Friday, no matter how close I was to home or how early I was empty, it would always be at least 8 hours between when I was empty and reloaded. no more!

in summary, I worked really hard week in and week out, didn't make very much money, and felt like I was still in high school most of the time working there. I was hired by a company that will remain confidential, one that pays about 50% more than I made at TMC in 2009, for much less work. a company that isn't going to scam me out of every last dime they possibly can. the number one issue here was pay. I could have dealt with most of these problems for the right amount of money.

to be fair, I made money there at first, and things were real nice in 2008 with fast truck, decent pay, and EZpass. didn't have problems with them stealing expenses from me until we lost EZpass. they did a few nice things for me, my FM used to take me out to dinner in DSM, and really came through for me getting me home when my grandfather died. I felt that was handled very professionally. I will never forget pulling into the abandoned parking lot at what used to be my family's trucking company and seeing another TMC truck waiting to take my load. I had some good times there and some awful times. towards the end it just became unbearable. they no longer meet my standards for a quality job.

 

as of now 2. I worked at my family's small trucking company full time since college until it closed in 2007. started painting trailers and moved my way up to management after I graduated. there is nothing in this area that pays what I was making so I went to TMC. I had never driven fulltime before coming to TMC, but they hired me as experienced since I'd had my CDL for a few years and driven part time. I'd take a regional reefer run once or twice a week when I was in college for extra money. I am in no way a career trucker.