Western Express Trucking Contract

I read this and didn’t post originally purposely. OS your spot on. John has alot to learn and was looking for validation. That said there are some companies out there that are very misleading. My employee was at just such a company. Low miles or when the miles came all of a sudden strange deductions that always were listed as “due to company”. When she tried tracking down the exact reason through payroll the transfer from person to person game started, because noone wanted to be on the hook for the answer. Despite everything I coached and trained her by phone and she completed her 1 yr contract. Her DM said she was his top driver and wanted her to train. He told her the only way to make any money there was to be a trainer. She made 28k her first year.

On her aniversary date she turned in her 2 week notice in person and asked what they wanted her to do during the 2 week period. It took them 3 days to tell her to clean out her truck. None of the folks involved knew what to do, because noone ever gave a proper notice.

I guess I stole a good driver from them, oops.

Morale to the story. Not all companies are as reputable as others.

What kind of contract did you sign if company?

What kind of contract did you sign if company?

Probably the same one you signed when you began training with W.Ex. Jim.

What kind of contract did you sign if company?

Probably the same one you signed when you began training with W.Ex. Jim.

Well that's what got me curious G-town, I read everything I signed but it also wasn't what i would be worried about.

Unless he is talking about a longevity contract that might be different and haven't seen one myself yet.

A good case of the grass looking greener at the other company, however regardless of where you are if you dont put in the hard work fertilizing and watering the grass it wont grow green wherever you are. Put the work into it and you make your grass green wherever you may find yourself, refuse to put the work into it and dead grass will follow you.

Sometimes you try but I don't stop moving and on Fridays after my dm goes home is dead after that and the driver turnover rate here is bad but still have hours of driving delivered a load today that was due tomorrow and no preplan so what do I do this week check is 488 and trust me when I tell that I put in the work is that at 26 cpm you wont go far

What kind of contract did you sign if company?

The contract states that they are covering for my cdl and I got my cdl with my money not through any company they said they have to cover my training which I didn't get any it was just team driving now they tell me if I want miles to train which I'm not ready to do.

I read this and didn’t post originally purposely. OS your spot on. John has alot to learn and was looking for validation. That said there are some companies out there that are very misleading. My employee was at just such a company. Low miles or when the miles came all of a sudden strange deductions that always were listed as “due to company”. When she tried tracking down the exact reason through payroll the transfer from person to person game started, because noone wanted to be on the hook for the answer. Despite everything I coached and trained her by phone and she completed her 1 yr contract. Her DM said she was his top driver and wanted her to train. He told her the only way to make any money there was to be a trainer. She made 28k her first year.

On her aniversary date she turned in her 2 week notice in person and asked what they wanted her to do during the 2 week period. It took them 3 days to tell her to clean out her truck. None of the folks involved knew what to do, because noone ever gave a proper notice.

I guess I stole a good driver from them, oops.

Morale to the story. Not all companies are as reputable as others.

I spent four days in PA for a broken driver side mirror which they said it wasn't dot violation but I wasn't going to drive under those circumstances without being able to see out of my left side so it took them 4 days for them to put that mirror that only took 25 minutes to mount what was I supposed to drive like that have an accident and lose my license and they just put another driver on that truck common lets be honest here they dont protect drivers how can you tell me to drive like that and say it doesn't matter common man

John, you are fixated on this whole false narrative that says, "Some trucking companies are good, and some of them are bad." It's a thought process that kills many a budding trucking career. Here's the problem with that sort of thinking...

• It draws your focus away from the things that you can do to improve your results.
• it gives you a "scapegoat." This thinking provides you a psuedo exoneration, keeping you from realizing how much control you have over your own destiny.
• It demoralizes you by directing your thoughts into avenues that claim you are a victim.
• It causes you to give up your authority over your own results. That's the truck drivers key to success. You forfeit that by convincing yourself somebody else is controlling you.
• It puts blinders on you so that you can't even see the simple solution.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. You keep using the fact that driver turnover is high as a supporting argument that the company is bad. Guess what? Driver turnover rate is high across the industry. Some statisticians put it at near 100%! So, can we therefore claim the whole idea of having a career as a trucker is bad? Of course not! There are plenty of satisfied and completely happy truckers out here - I'm one of them. I was one of them while employed at Western Express. There's a lot of supporting evidence to that in our old forum conversations.

Do you want to know why the turnover rate is so high? Most new drivers can't figure out how to make a successful run at this. Sound familiar? It's your biggest frustration. You're convinced some diabolical force outside yourself is exercising it's efforts against you. Do you realize that you are the reason Western Express lives or dies? They cannot survive with drivers who can't muster enough productivity to make money for them. That means that one of their goals for you is that you make as much money as you possibly can.

In trucking, our paycheck is actually a good evaluation of how we are performing at our given assignment. Can you try to look at it that way? There's no other productive way to see it. You are allowing it to tell you, "My company is really, really bad." Don't you realize how unproductive that mindset has become? It keeps you from figuring out how to change the dynamics of your career.

Continued...

I completely understand your complaint about the low pay rate. My whole group of new drivers at our Western Express orientation started at the same kind of rate you did. It was low. Out of about fifty of us, I only knew of one other driver in my orientation class who stayed for one year. Here's how I tackled that problem. I doubled down on learning how to be more productive. One of the many positive results was that they started bumping my pay rate up almost quarterly.

You mentioned delivering early, and then sitting and waiting for a load. Here's how I handled that situation. I consistently delivered early. Every time I got an assignment I would lay out a plan to get it in early. Then I would get on the phone with the customer and get my appointment changed. My next step was to message my dispatcher on the Qualcomm with an updated ETA (estimated time of arrival) and my PTA (projected time of availability). I did all of this before I even left out with that current load. By taking those measures you are accomplishing a lot of positive things.

• You are establishing a track record of being able to do what you say.
• You are challenging yourself to be more productive.
• You are moving your focus to what you can do to change the trajectory of your career, and away from that demoralizing narrative that claims your company doesn't care about your success.
• You are establishing a record of communications that put your dispatcher in the enviable position of having a driver who can help him earn more money for himself, and his driver, by utilizing your available hours more efficiently.

My practices were not a magical formula that changed things overnight. I still sat and waited on occasion, but it didn't take too long for my dispatcher to realize, "Wow, I've got a guy here who gets it! He's keeping me informed, he's doing what he says, he's taking responsibility, and he's making things happen out there." You've got to sell yourself and your abilities to that team in the office.

Trust me, they've got good solid drivers that are earning a great living. Those drivers put in the effort of establishing themselves. They didn't waste their time trying to convince others of how bad the company was. That's a completely non-productive effort. Don't waste a minute on it.

John, you can fire up your trucking career. You don't have to be the below-average driver your mindset has you captive to. Get in there and make the effort. Establish a track record that gets noticed. You've got to stand out in this business. Average performers get mediocre results. Top Tier Drivers manage their way to levels of productivity that set them apart. Anybody that wants to excel at trucking has got to get their mind right and take the appropriate actions that set them on the correct path. You've got to have a plan and execute it flawlessly. You're efforts will eventually have you getting dispatched as much as 5,000 Miles In One Week!