Looking For Job After Leaving Crst Under Contract And Only 2 Months Otr

I had a terrible experience with crst. I went through the company sponsored training and spent two miserable months Otr with with them and couldn't make any money. I have been back home since August and have since been driving a school bus which doesn't pay very well. I would like to know if I have any option to get back out on the road for another company. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Welcome!

The problem, which you may or may not know already, is that CRST has been known to legally prevent you from getting on with a competitor until your tuition is paid off. So if you can find a way to pay them whatever you owe at this point that would clear you to move onto other companies.

I went through the company sponsored training and spent two miserable months Otr with with them and couldn't make any money. I have been back home since August and have since been driving a school bus which doesn't pay very well

It doesn't sound like you had any kind of a plan when you quit CRST. It sounds like you simply gotted p*ssed off and quit. Now here we are going into December and not only are you not making good money but your career is going backward and your contract with CRST would have been nearly completed by now. You certainly would have figured out how to make better money if you were still there.

Have you considered going back and completing the contract? That is what you agreed to do after all and you'd be in a much better position right now if you had stuck to the plan.

You have to willing to pay your dues in this industry and you have to learn to be patient. The economy isn't going very strong right now and freight has been slower than it normally is at this time of the year. It also takes time to establish a great reputation with dispatch by working hard, being safe, and being on time to all of your appointments. Once you've proven yourself to be a great driver the miles will be there. They're normally not going to just load a new team with 6,000 miles a week straight out of the gate. They're going to give you time to settle in out there and demonstrate what you can do first.

I think you would be in a better position right now if you had stayed with CRST and I think you should consider going back there and completing your contract if they'll take you back. Your first year in this industry is all about learning your trade and establishing the foundation of your career. You agreed to work for them if they would agree to pay for your training. They showed you all the patience and confidence in the world by paying for your training, teaching you the basics, and then enduring the thousand or so mistakes all rookies make their first year. In return you immediately walk away because you're not getting enough miles? It sounds to me like you were more than happy to accept the patience, money, time, and trust they invested in you and the risks they were willing to take on you but you weren't willing to give anything in return.

Justin, you said you walked away after two months of no money. There are two factors that make that happen. First, as a new driver you will make mistakes, even if you don't mean to. I ran out my 14 hour clock and even my 70 hours - a few times I ended up with a maximum drive/duty time of 3 hours in a day! Doesn't help the pocket book.

And your dispatcher wants to make sure the new driver has time to mess up, and also you don't get those 2000 mile loads until the dispatcher is sure you can handle it. All this does take a few months. Ride it out with CRST, and you should be making decent money in just a few months more.

Hey Justin, Welcome aboard man!

I have to tell you, I really wish you had been in here before you started your career. Without any pretension I can assure you that we could have helped you get off to a much better start. It wasn't so much that you made a poor choice with CRST, We've actually had several of our members in here get started with them, one of them left after a while and then decided he wanted to go back and he is now a trainer with them.

I really do agree with Brett that your smartest option is to get back on with them and finish what you started. He said this:

It doesn't sound like you had any kind of a plan when you quit CRST.

I would add that it also seems to me that you really didn't realize what you were getting into when you started with CRST. Try and put behind you all those thoughts that CRST failed you and didn't "give you enough miles to make any money." One of the biggest problems we see rookie drivers facing these days is their pre-conceived ideas about how the industry works, or should work. In part this is due to the never ending libelous, and slanderous comments that are so prevalent on the internet concerning so called "starter companies." It is a travesty, in my way of thinking, the way this culture of armchair critics has launched itself into it's own aura of expertise, when the simple truth is that these people are complete nimrods and buffoons who have no credibility or experience to support their authoritatively presented claims against well meaning companies whose sole desire is to provide an inexpensive way for a person with no means to enter this industry and quite possibly change their lives and brighten their futures immensely.

Had we been involved with you at an earlier point in your career search, I can assure you that you would have been much more successful. That is not being boastful, we have the numbers to back that claim up. I find it disconcerting every time someone like yourself seems to jump into our conversations after they have experienced a frustrating failure at getting started in trucking. It frustrates me because I know how difficult it can be to get started in trucking, and if you had just had us to kind of guide you along the way through the confusing maze, you would have been able to make it right on through the confusing and disconcerting things that made you think your best option was to quit.

I read recently somewhere that the average expense that these companies put out to train a new driver and get them on board as a solo driver is around 9,000 dollars per new rookie student. So, that is why CRST would like for you to finish what you started - they actually have a vested interest in you - that means they want you to succeed! Please, hear me when I tell you that you made some blunders in your start. This business is completely performance based - that means that you will earn each and every dime you get, nobody will hold your hand, and nobody will pad your wallet just to keep you interested. Rookies and beginners are expected to jump in there and prove themselves - that takes time. You gave it "two miserable months OTR." That wasn't even enough time for them to know what truck number you were in!

I completely empathize with you if you were not getting by, but that is the kind of things we tell people to prepare for. I always encourage folks to try and save a little money before they get started in this career. You may very well need it at the beginning. People read these advertisements about how much a truck driver makes and they think they are just going to magically show up for the job and start making a killing. What the new guys never seem to understand is that you have got to be a proven "mover and shaker" to make it in this business, and that just takes some exposure, and some hard lessons learned along the way to get to that point. None of us broke out at the beginning making the big bucks - gosh, I remember getting some 175 dollar to 245 dollar checks during my first three months solo. But every once in a while I'd hit a big one, like 800 or 900 dollars. Then I would sit back and review that week and learn from what took place during the week. I'd start trying to duplicate my efforts, and learn from my mistakes. Pretty soon it was an aberration to get those small checks, and I figured out it didn't have anything to do with my dispatcher , or my company. My success or failure was solely upon my own efforts, my successes and failures were inextricably related to the size of my paychecks.

Justin, I would encourage you to go back to CRST, humble yourself and call them up and start a conversation about finishing up what you started. It will open up your future opportunities if you follow this advise, and if I'm reading you correctly that is what you wanted, you just didn't realize about the big pot holes in the road to success. Hang in there and be tough, do what ever they call upon you to do, and figure out how to be early and efficient with your delivery times. After about three months of consistency from you things will get much better - that is the way it works. You may not like it that way, and you more than likely never expected it to be that way, but that is the way it works. If you can produce and perform the way they expect you to then you will be on the road to success. Don't keep killing yourself with that low paying bus driver job.

....Continued

Get right back in the saddle and show them just how "cowboy tough" you are. Go into it with a whole new attitude and approach. You can do this.

One more thing. At CRST we realize you will be team driving - man, that is a tough way to get started. We understand that, and it is probably one of many things you struggled with, even though you never mentioned it. It is what it is, and since that is the way you chose to make your start you are just going to have to figure out how to make it work. I hope for your sake you can find someone with whom you can work and be somewhat content with, but even if it is difficult you will be doing yourself a huge favor by finishing up what you started. CRST doesn't play games with their contractual agreements, they mean everything they say. You will have problems landing a job because of their integrity - that's right - you may not think of it as integrity, but that is what it is. Doing what you say is a very simple definition of integrity, and that is what they do.

Justin, I hope we have helped you, but I know that you've noticed we didn't sit here and jump on the bandwagon of putting out a bunch of slanderous remarks about CRST. We absolutely believe you can succeed at this, and we know that CRST is not the easiest place to get started, but it can be done. we know this because we have members in here who have done it with a fair amount of success. You can do it also. I hope you will jump back on that "horse that throwed ya" and show him how it's gonna be from now on. If you will stay in here and bring your concerns and problems to us we will walk you through everything we can, but ultimately it will be up to you. But if you've got a bunch of understanding folks here to lean on for some support I think you will find your way to success. I wish you the best my friend, and seriously hope we can brag about you as a success story one day soon!

Never burn any bridges you cross in life. I found this to be too true more than once! The grass, is NOT always greener on the other side! I left 1 or 2 jobs, for what I was "told" was a better opportunity, only to find out , it was not so. Had to humble myself and go back to the old job(s)

Sometimes, we just have to suck it up, and put on our big boy panties, and get thru a little rough patch. Only to see we didn't have it so bad afterall

Justin, I wanted to bump this one back up to see if you had any response to our advice.

Justin, I wanted to bump this one back up to see if you had any response to our advice.

Justin don't leave us hanging