Roehl Company Sponsored Training

Really what it comes down to is whether you want to sign their agreement. They are not changing it for you. You already listed several flatbedders that don't run the west. The only one I didn't see is Western Express. Good luck in your decision making.

Infidel counters:

Wow! Thanks for assuming the worst about my character right off the bat. I find your reply very condescending. You may have been doing this longer, but I assure you I am not some 20 year old kid that doesn't know how the world works.

Infidel, I wrote this for a person who lists less than 20 posts here (meaning rather new to TT, but beyond that I do not know), who uses the classification Company Driver In Training (another "new" indicator). I see you are from Boulder City, where I've been a couple of times to see the BOULDER DAM movie. Beyond that, I do not know if you are 19 or 79 years old or what your past experience is. I am writing for a poster that seems to be a bit worried about committing their (short term) future to paying off their education in a lifetime trade.

For someone who writes "Im still stuck on the longevity contract. I just cant get past it. Been trying to sell myself on it since Thursday.". Seems you can't talk yourself into the commitment for one reason or another.

Did you take a minute to read why? And yeah Im new too trucking. You are selling new people short. Just cause we might be new to this, doesn't mean you are the only one knows about hard work. It seems like you are more inclined to put new drivers down right away (the ones who have doubts about any facet of a company anyway) than actually look at the argument. If you were to read my first reply and my post on this. I feel like I explained my position quite clearly. Yet you continue to mis-characterize my position. So I guess I just cant find a way too communicate with you.

Thanks for your help.

Dude you are so out of line here. Errol has almost 2000 posts, has achieved moderator status, and you state all he does is put new drivers down? You have no idea how many newbies he has helped, none.

My relationship with the DMs, planners and my performance record enable an incredible degree of flexibility and preferred status in my job. That does not occur unless you establish yourself as a "committed" driver with your employer.

Is your commitment to you doing what is best for you and your family. Or is it to the company as a whole? What you are doing is smart by having a good relationship with people you work with you are able to get whats in your best interest. What would the companies commitment to you be if that didn't go so smoothly? From what I hear one accident, even if not your fault can ruin you personally as a driver.

I guess it boils down to this for me. A company is an entity under the law. You are required to do whats in that companies best interest. Particularly if that comapny is publicly traded. Make no mistake! That companies commitment is too its shareholders. Or its owners. It has no commitment to you. If firing you on the spot will save them 5 cents in liability that's what they will do. You as a worker are a means to an end. They have more work then they can handle so they hire people who trade their labor for a benefit (pay, resume enhancer etc..).

If I make a commitment to work for a company for 9 months or a year. Its a conditional commitment. You do for me and I will do for you. I guess this can be seen as a purely somantic argument. But I was trying to steer us away from feeling like these are arbitrary commitments that we as drivers must make. When some one comes here for help and advice and its kinda like 'who cares how ridiculous their rules are and requirements might be, why would you try and get the best deal for your labor? Make a commitment to do it anyway!'. Well that just seems kinda..... dumb.

My commitments are too my family and too myself. Having a good job is a tool to achieving my commitment to them.

Sorry for highjacking the thread.

Infidel counters:

Wow! Thanks for assuming the worst about my character right off the bat. I find your reply very condescending. You may have been doing this longer, but I assure you I am not some 20 year old kid that doesn't know how the world works.

Infidel, I wrote this for a person who lists less than 20 posts here (meaning rather new to TT, but beyond that I do not know), who uses the classification Company Driver In Training (another "new" indicator). I see you are from Boulder City, where I've been a couple of times to see the BOULDER DAM movie. Beyond that, I do not know if you are 19 or 79 years old or what your past experience is. I am writing for a poster that seems to be a bit worried about committing their (short term) future to paying off their education in a lifetime trade.

For someone who writes "Im still stuck on the longevity contract. I just cant get past it. Been trying to sell myself on it since Thursday.". Seems you can't talk yourself into the commitment for one reason or another.

Did you take a minute to read why? And yeah Im new too trucking. You are selling new people short. Just cause we might be new to this, doesn't mean you are the only one knows about hard work. It seems like you are more inclined to put new drivers down right away (the ones who have doubts about any facet of a company anyway) than actually look at the argument. If you were to read my first reply and my post on this. I feel like I explained my position quite clearly. Yet you continue to mis-characterize my position. So I guess I just cant find a way too communicate with you.

Thanks for your help.

Dude you are so out of line here. Errol has almost 2000 posts, has achieved moderator status, and you state all he does is put new drivers down? You have no idea how many newbies he has helped, none.

Dude he did in fact put me down. Maybe not "put down" per se. But yeah he did sell me short. Dont care if he has 2 million posts. I can only go by what the man has written to me.

Really what it comes down to is whether you want to sign their agreement. They are not changing it for you. You already listed several flatbedders that don't run the west. The only one I didn't see is Western Express. Good luck in your decision making.

Nope I agree I dont think they will. But I will (and have) asked anyway. Thanks for the info on Western Express I will look into them.

Infidel, have you checked into Central Oregon? They are a great flat-bed operation that hires form the Western parts of the country. I highly recommend them, and think you should check into them before making a decision.

FYI. I think Roehl runs a great operation, you can't go wrong there. You'll just have to get past your way of thinking that what they are doing is "indentured servitude" - it's far from that. It is only a way for them to try and recoup their training expenses. The average expense for training someone for this job is nearing ten thousand dollars per employee these days.

I'm like you, I have done a lot of things in life, including running my own business for thirty years. Trucking is so different from any other type of business that I have ever been associated with that you just have to throw most of your pre-conceived ideas of how things should be done out the window. Any time I see someone refer to that commitment they are asking for like you did I can usually figure that they came across that idea from some disgruntled (former) truck drivers blabbering their spiel on the internet. Be careful about what you believe or read on line concerning trucking - most of it is questionable at best. We try real hard to combat the erroneous information out there, but it is a never ending battle because there is just so much junk that keeps on reproducing itself on-line because there are a lot of folks who try to break into this industry and fail. Unfortunately those vast numbers of people are constantly blaming their own shortcomings on the trucking industry and the large trucking companies.

Your decision and choice is basically going to boil down to your own personal preference on length of training time and commitment. Swift and/or Roehl will both require something from you, but both places have plenty of opportunities available for you to go into. You stated that you already had your CDL. Do you have a current training certificate, or have you been out of the truck for a while so that you are required to go through some sort of training like a refresher course? The reason I ask is that I'm not sure if Central Oregon has that type of training available.

Infidel is non-plussed:

Did you take a minute to read why? And yeah Im new too trucking. You are selling new people short. Just cause we might be new to this, doesn't mean you are the only one knows about hard work. It seems like you are more inclined to put new drivers down right away (the ones who have doubts about any facet of a company anyway) than actually look at the argument. If you were to read my first reply and my post on this. I feel like I explained my position quite clearly. Yet you continue to mis-characterize my position. So I guess I just cant find a way too communicate with you.

I take your first question to be, basically, Swift or Roehl? I am not going to dictate an answer, you are the one to make your decision. I provided my view on both, and pointed out, disclosure like, that I drive for Swift. The choice is still yours: Swift or Roehl.

"hard work": I never mentioned "work" at all. I was talking about your choice, the main question you posed.

I do not talk down, belittle or otherwise abuse new people. I spent ten years teaching middle school math. I am able to answer any question I have an answer to in a way that is direct for the questioner. My fault is when more experienced people get an answer, I may put in too much information, mainly for the benefit of newer people to read. If I have an opinion, I allude to that. If I do not have an idea about the answer, I usually don't participate in that thread.

It seems aphorism is in order:

If you come in on a high horse, you have a tendency to look down on others, most probably wrongly.

My relationship with the DMs, planners and my performance record enable an incredible degree of flexibility and preferred status in my job. That does not occur unless you establish yourself as a "committed" driver with your employer.

Is your commitment to you doing what is best for you and your family. Or is it to the company as a whole? What you are doing is smart by having a good relationship with people you work with you are able to get whats in your best interest. What would the companies commitment to you be if that didn't go so smoothly? From what I hear one accident, even if not your fault can ruin you personally as a driver.

I guess it boils down to this for me. A company is an entity under the law. You are required to do whats in that companies best interest. Particularly if that comapny is publicly traded. Make no mistake! That companies commitment is too its shareholders. Or its owners. It has no commitment to you. If firing you on the spot will save them 5 cents in liability that's what they will do. You as a worker are a means to an end. They have more work then they can handle so they hire people who trade their labor for a benefit (pay, resume enhancer etc..).

If I make a commitment to work for a company for 9 months or a year. Its a conditional commitment. You do for me and I will do for you. I guess this can be seen as a purely somantic argument. But I was trying to steer us away from feeling like these are arbitrary commitments that we as drivers must make. When some one comes here for help and advice and its kinda like 'who cares how ridiculous their rules are and requirements might be, why would you try and get the best deal for your labor? Make a commitment to do it anyway!'. Well that just seems kinda..... dumb.

My commitments are too my family and too myself. Having a good job is a tool to achieving my commitment to them.

Sorry for highjacking the thread.

It's a two-way street. Figure it out cause you seem to have all the answers.

Hharleywood, I got confused in here and actually thought Infidel had started this thread - My bad! Part of the information I gave him was intended for you. Rather than re-do it all, just take a look at what I stated above, and if you find anything useful, then I'm glad to have offered it!

Infidel, have you checked into Central Oregon? They are a great flat-bed operation that hires form the Western parts of the country. I highly recommend them, and think you should check into them before making a decision.

FYI. I think Roehl runs a great operation, you can't go wrong there. You'll just have to get past your way of thinking that what they are doing is "indentured servitude" - it's far from that. It is only a way for them to try and recoup their training expenses. The average expense for training someone for this job is nearing ten thousand dollars per employee these days.

I'm like you, I have done a lot of things in life, including running my own business for thirty years. Trucking is so different from any other type of business that I have ever been associated with that you just have to throw most of your pre-conceived ideas of how things should be done out the window. Any time I see someone refer to that commitment they are asking for like you did I can usually figure that they came across that idea from some disgruntled (former) truck drivers blabbering their spiel on the internet. Be careful about what you believe or read on line concerning trucking - most of it is questionable at best. We try real hard to combat the erroneous information out there, but it is a never ending battle because there is just so much junk that keeps on reproducing itself on-line because there are a lot of folks who try to break into this industry and fail. Unfortunately those vast numbers of people are constantly blaming their own shortcomings on the trucking industry and the large trucking companies.

Your decision and choice is basically going to boil down to your own personal preference on length of training time and commitment. Swift and/or Roehl will both require something from you, but both places have plenty of opportunities available for you to go into. You stated that you already had your CDL. Do you have a current training certificate, or have you been out of the truck for a while so that you are required to go through some sort of training like a refresher course? The reason I ask is that I'm not sure if Central Oregon has that type of training available.

Thanks OldSchool. And thats why I called it indentured and left off servitude. But the definition fits. And its the best word to get my point across. And Im very cautious about what I read on the internet. I got this as I was reading it in my paperwork pack I have to sign before showing up for orientation. Then I called my recruiter immediately.

I have my CDL already. Got it past October at a local school in North Las Vegas. I went into debt over 4k already to get it. I did this to make sure I was not indebted to a trucking company. So the last thing I want to do is be 7k in the hole if for some reason this doesn't work out. Part of it is also my first experience with trucking. I wasn't sure if I was even going to try it again. But I payed for the CDL so I should at least try it one more time. In case you didn't read it, I wrote the "My nightmare" post a couple weeks back. If you read that it may give you some background to my mindset. Cause if I get a trainer like that again I will be 7k in debt. So I'm just trying my best to make sure that does not happen. Because of that I am now being super picky I guess.

Im not sure were Swift keeps coming from. I have never really considered them. Only cause of the no pet policy. But I was considering Knight. No flatbed it looks like. Or the military apprenticeship program. But also out of Phoenix.

Also thanks for the heads up about Roehl. Did you work for them? Thats the thing. I really dont like that contract (lol just in case you didnt notice). But I keep hearing good stuff about them. Maybe I should just put my fears aside.