Company Lies

Brett Aquila

More hometime? Some people love living on the road for weeks at a time.

Fewer maximum driving hours available? Some people need every mile they can get to feed their families.

More regular or predictable routes available? A lot of drivers would get bored to death.

More money? Well that's a real toughy. First of all, pay by the mile or by the hour or on salary? Overtime? Layover pay? How would this all be structured?

So that's why when you say, "Hey, let's rally the troops and demand more!" I say ok, but come up with some specifics that will actually work first. How do we gather? What do we ask for? Who do we ask? It's an immensely complex and difficult proposition

This is almost an outright obfuscation. You are basically saying that before I start that we should unionize or do something to protect our jobs & out futures that i basically become an organizer/union representative.

Jukebox, This is the first time you have been here in 7 months. You are being very contemptuous. We really don't thrive on that here. Please take your attitude to another forum.

"obfuscation"

Dems is some kinda fancy talkin!

Brett Aquila

More hometime? Some people love living on the road for weeks at a time.

Fewer maximum driving hours available? Some people need every mile they can get to feed their families.

More regular or predictable routes available? A lot of drivers would get bored to death.

More money? Well that's a real toughy. First of all, pay by the mile or by the hour or on salary? Overtime? Layover pay? How would this all be structured?

So that's why when you say, "Hey, let's rally the troops and demand more!" I say ok, but come up with some specifics that will actually work first. How do we gather? What do we ask for? Who do we ask? It's an immensely complex and difficult proposition

This is almost an outright obfuscation. You are basically saying that before I state that we should unionize or do something to protect our jobs & out futures that i basically become an organizer/union representative.

Whet he is saying is that you need a strategy before you let loose with the battle cry.

It is really very simple, you want to keep your job do your work. The way to keep your job in an at will state is to perform well. Don't like where you work, move on. As tor the being fired for going to your dad's funeral, I call bull **** on that one. There is more to that story, just like the whining truck drivers that get fired. Probably took too much time off than what the company would allow.

I have worked on both sides and I absolutely hated the union side of things.

I work for one of those companies you claim have a reputation for not treating their drivers well, Werner to be exact. Guess what, for the most part they have treated me very well. I also happen to be a trainer for them too, so I also see how they treat the students i get too. They get treated pretty good too.

The people who complain about not getting treated well are also the people that don't perform their jobs well and end up getting fired or writing because they're not getting miles due to their performance. Those people then go online to wine about how they were treated but don't tell you why.

I didn't go through company sponsored training either. Not because it is a bad idea, but because Werner doesn't offer it and there weren't any companies that do hiring in my area. I'm not sure where you get the idea that the training from those companies isn't recognized by other companies. It gets you your cdl. Now if you stay with them for at least a year, you are now an experienced driver. If you go to a new company will you have to go through some training? Sure but that's because you have to learn the new company's way of doing things.

J. Box describes Company schools:

I can't speak for all drivers but when I heard of company sponsored training programs I was very wary of them. (A) These programs are not for everyone and in fact of you have to attend one of these programs trucking may not be for you or at least it may not be the right time for you to try your hand at trucking. Some people may have had great experiences through these programs but there are lots of con's that come with them. (B) One of the biggest con's is that other companies don't honor whatever training certificates you recieved from the previous company. So if you ever leave the company you may have to pay out of pocket for third party training or sign into another training contract. These contracts aren't usually free either, you the driver end up paying for them in some shape or form. I think its great for young single people who have no other options or just want to see the world for cheap. I paid CASH MONEY for my training and I'm very glad that I did because I definitely made good on the investment.

(A): OK, people should decide if trucking is "for them" before going to a company sponsored school? The vets possible driver students since they are probably going to have a job when they graduate. I figure the danger of in going to private school because you pays your money and gets your training certificate. Qualification for private school: $$$$. Qualification for company consider training: the background check needed for a truck driving job.

(B) As long as any school meets the PTDI standards, that'll transfer for most companies.

Of course no company will give you absolutely free training. You do pay it back by driving for the company. Buy your own training, either you get the company to pay for it, of you just sunk $4000 of your very own money just to avoid a contract. Now that's very expensive "freedom". It seems you've never learned the value of using Other People's Money!

Jukebox, I do appreciate your sincerity. And of course you raise some legitimate concerns, of which there is no shortage in trucking. Unfortunately a lot of your ideas or concerns sound like they're coming straight from the truck driver's lounge though. You haven't done any real deep digging for facts. You've listened to the typical complaints you'll hear 10,000 times a day from coast to coast in this industry and simply bought into them.

For instance, the large carriers don't have a good reputation for treating their drivers well. And yet we have drivers here from all of the companies you were referring to and they all say the exact opposite of what you're saying.

You say the training program at carriers doesn't transfer to other carriers but it most certainly does. You might have to pay off your contract before you can leave for another company but all of the major carriers have very legitimate training programs. You have to remember, they're training their own drivers. I could see you making that argument for private schools who train students and send them on their way. But to say a company doesn't have a legitimate training program for their own drivers sounds kinda suicidal on the company's part, does it not?

You mentioned another 'truck stop legend' - small companies treat you better than large companies. Complete fallacy. I've worked for companies with 5 trucks, 11 trucks, 2,100 trucks, and over 5,000 trucks and everything in between. The best company I ever worked for in my career was the largest company I ever worked for. They had a long list of perks, beautiful equipment, great pay, tons of various divisions to choose from, and treated us well. It was yet another major company where you could walk right into the offices of the owners and say hi. They also gave me lots of favors over the years for the hard work I put in and the great results I had. In short, they treated me like family.

The worst one I ever worked for was the one with 11 trucks because the guy wasn't doing well financially. It was his first trucking company and he was hanging on by a thread when I came onboard. I worked there for a year. He had no perks, no national accounts set up, and we couldn't do anything without waiting for him to pay for it first because he didn't have credit anywhere. His trucks were older but decently maintained. This was back in the days of paper logs and you simply didn't work at that company if following the logbook rules was on your agenda. I was turning crazy miles. Eventually I quit because after running over 24,000 miles in a 6 week period (try that with electronic logs) I finally arrived home on a Saturday just to get a call the next day saying I had to leave out again Monday morning. 24,000 miles in 6 weeks and the guy says I can have one full day off before leaving home again. I told him I had had enough. I wouldn't do it. So he fired me, flew someone out to get the truck, and put on my DAC that I had abandoned the truck, which I obviously did not. Great guy. Yay small companies. Yay being 'treated like family'.

So again, the 'truck stop legend' that small companies treat you like family and that the large carriers are these evil empires is not the experience I've had and it clearly isn't the experience the people here in our community are having.

The automation thing? To be honest, trying to stifle technology is a losing proposition. I personally don't think we're within two or three decades of seeing any sort of impact from autonomous vehicles anyhow. Just recently a car with autonomous features failed to see a tractor trailer completely blocking the highway when making a turn across traffic and a car slammed straight into it, killing the driver. Successes don't tell you where you stand with something. Failures do. A vehicle with autonomous features failed to identify a tractor trailer sitting perpendicular to the highway. That is where autonomous vehicles are today. A long, long ways off.

If you want to worry about something taking our jobs, worry about drones. They're far more of a threat than computers driving trucks.

And one last thing:

This is almost an outright obfuscation. You are basically saying that before I start that we should unionize or do something to protect our jobs & out futures that i basically become an organizer/union representative.

Pat was exactly right. I was indeed saying, "you need a strategy before you let loose with the battle cry." I'm also saying it's incredibly important that you get your facts straight. You can scream truck stop rumors and you'll get a lot of people who raise their fists in support. But that's not the type of people you'll ultimately need to convince. It's people in government, upper management, and long time veteran drivers that will need convincing that change is needed. It would be nice if we could all just stop working and everyone would suddenly have to cater to our needs. But that simply isn't the case. You would have to rally important, powerful, intelligent people that are willing to stand up and represent the cause. Things like "large companies have bad reputations" or "we have to stop the advance of technology" simply isn't going to win the attention of movers and shakers. You need solid facts to get the ball rolling and a clear goals in mind to shoot for.

I always enjoy conversations about complex topics like this, especially when we can do it without insulting each other and this one is going pretty well I'd say.