Frustrations With Werner Enterprises, I'm Finished With Them

i started with werner enterprises on December 12th assigned to family dollar with the completion of training. the recruiters lied through there teeth, they said i would be in orientation for two days, get on a trainers truck, drive for a week and be home for Christmas. well that did not happen. i went to werner, went through orientation and sat in the Allentown hotel and did nothing for two weeks. they did allow people to go home for christmas, so i went home for christmas. after sitting there for two weeks and doing nothing, i was highly frustrated but i did not know what to do, i had no other employment. i returned to the allentown hotel and terminal and waited another 1-1/2 weeks for a trainer. i finally got my trainer assignment and had a decent trainer. i ran dollar tree with him for a 1-1/2 weeks. he then informed me he was going home for a week and i would have to sit in a hotel. i had already been away from my family for 3 weeks. i requested a leave of absence so i could see my wife and child. i went home for 4 days and had to return to Allentown yet again. again i waited another 1-1/2 weeks and got with another trainer. i drove over the road with him for 6 weeks and got my 250 hours or so. in the time i was with him, i maybe did 10-15 backings. i could not count how many times he didnt want to be bothered teaching me backing and just did it himself. when i was backing, he would get irritated with me if i struggled, hello jerk im learning and you are supposed to be teaching me. he also failed to show me how to properly interpret qualcom messages from the fleet managers or teaching what macros to send when, he really didnt feel like being a teacher. to make matters even worse once he got me past curfew he tried running me overnights 9pm-8am. i was tried explaining him that i did not sleep well during the day and that i had to leave a third shift job once in my life because i never was able to adapt. regardless he tried running me like that anyways. i did it two nights and almost fell asleep behind the wheel. i told him the next morning that i refused to run like that anymore, having to sleep during the day in a moving truck was dangerous for me. i ended up calling the fleet manager and they adjusted so i could drive during the day. i got my time on the truck went back to allentown and tested out. i passed everything but really dont feel that my backing is good enough, and frankly i dont know how to properly use the qualcom. after being gone 8 weeks i went home on a leave of absence. let me add one more thing, running a student as a team truck is foolish, dangerous, and does not teach you properly. its a way of running more miles off the backs of the students.

when i went home i decided i really had enough of werner, and i started to look for local jobs. unable to find a local job, i did find a more local, smaller carrier to work for. the company is called wadhams enterprises and they have 400 or so trucks vs. the 7,000 some trucks that werner has. they will send me with a trainer for a week or two but told me i would not required the full length of training. they will bring me in next wendsday for drug test and physical. they will then put me through 1 day of orientation and another day of smith systems. that friday after the smith systems class, they will make the arrangements for a trainer and monday i will get a trainer. i will not sit in a hotel over the weekend, i will go home to my family for the weekend. driving training will start that monday and will run monday thru friday. i will go home every weekend during training, no 34 hour resets spent at truck stops. i also have been told NO TEAM driving on student trucks. if the truck is moving, both people are to be in the front watching or driving. if a student goes in the back and sleeps while the truck is moving, its considered sleeping on the job. your job is learn driving the truck, not sleeping on the job. the company runs northeast regional 1,800-2,500 miles per week. they do not run drivers over the weekend. no one works weekends. i also have the ability to transfer over to the milk hauling or fuel hauling division after a year, and keep all of my seniority and higher CPM rates that come with length of service. they offer paid vacations and paid personal days. the division that i will be starting with is rist, the dry van division.

i have a wife of 12 years and a 5 year old child. i hated spending 8 weeks away from them. the OTR lifestyle is a poor fit for a family man, and brought me to tears more then once. werner just comes across as just another mega carrier that does not care about its employees. the training with the first trainer was decent, the second trainer really didnt show me much and more or less used me to put more miles on the truck. i would say that there trainers are a mixed bag of bad and good. no consistency. i could have requested a new trainer, but that would mean sitting for another two weeks, no good options. running as a team is not good training, allot of major carriers do this. i like what i hear from the smaller company and not running students as a team is much better training, less using students to make more miles. being home over the weekends will help prevent the emotional pain i was going through. 5 days gone and home weekends is manageable. depression wasn't setting in until i was gone more then a week. being able to transfer into a home daily job after a year is fantastic.

How about this if wadhams turns out to be most of what i want i will come back here with a glowing review. i know several people in trucking and they all think this is a positive move. one guy i know actually drove for werner early during his carrier. another guy i know works in the milk hauling divisions.

I don't want you to think I am being rude or mean, but I do want you to understand what our issue is with not only your post, but your whole approach to getting started in this career. You simply don't understand how one makes a good start as a truck driver. We could care less about your glowing report about Wadham's just as much as we disliked your slanderous report about Werner. They both indicate that you are trying to circumvent every thing that we teach folks about what you need to do to succeed at this business.

You made so many blunders in your start, and then you started blaming Werner, until we pressed you and then you switched the blame to large carriers in general. The blame game does not fly in this career, and according to your statement above it sounds like all these people that you "know" and listen to, have just about ruined any chance of your success.

I am really taking the time with you to explain these things so that hopefully some other newbie coming in here and reading this thread will benefit from our wisdom, I am beginning to have my serious doubts that you will.

Let's just start with your huge list of blunders from the start...

NUMBER ONE:

You decided to start on a Dollar Store account. We tell people all the time to not do this, it is a brutal job for a rookie.

NUMBER TWO:

You started during the Holidays. That was a big reason for you sitting at a hotel. Duh... Yes those folks who are training drivers would like to spend a little time with their families - the very thing that you've been ranting against. Trainers are available when they are available. It was bad timing on your part, but that is just part of being the new guy, you might have to wait a little while for a trainer to be available.

NUMBER THREE:

You thought you could go to a local job right from the start after you finished school. Look, I'll give some consolation to you if you were mis-lead by all these people you know, or maybe even the school personnel, but if you had been in here asking some of the professionals who have been doing this for years we could have set all this straight for ya. We always recommend that you go with an Over The Road job for one full year at the start. That is the industry standard for being considered experienced, and that is what the local companies need so that they can get you onto their insurance policies at reasonable rate. There are rare occasions when a new student driver can land a local job, but those opportunities are few and far between. Quite often that newbie ends up in an accident due to the rigorous requirements of driving a big rig locally, and that ends their career prematurely because no one wants to touch them now. They have no over the road experience, and they have an accident on their record - they are basically cut off from most trucking opportunities now. It is a bad way to start, but you are going to find all this out on your own doing a regional North East job. I drive the North East all the time, I have some regular customers there on my dedicated job. It is tough up there, even for an experienced driver.

NUMBER FOUR:

You thought this job would not require you to drive at night. Truck driving is all about making your self productive and efficient. This is a performance based job. You will soon discover that successful drivers in the North East drive at night, because that is the way they get the most done. If you have got to drive in the day time, you are going to be exposing yourself to so many more risks up in that area, but you will learn, or else you will be back on line slamming another company for their deceptive hiring practices.

Continued...

NUMBER FIVE:

You thought you could manage a pleasant balance of family life with your new trucking career. I know you are convinced that Wadham's holds this magical formula that is going to enable you to be a big part of your family's life, but most local/regional drivers find that it is just as frustrating. You will get home on the weekends alright, but you are going to be exhausted and needing to re-charge for the next long week ahead. If a person does well at this job, they are a top performer, and that takes commitment and work that you (at this point) have shown little understanding about, or inclination to aspire to.

I could keep going on and on because you have laid out a virtual litany of misunderstandings about making a decent start at this career.

I would appreciate it if you would do me a favor, and this is for your benefit. Please take the time to click on these links and listen to these Podcasts. They will give you the opportunity to hear some common sense about how to understand the whole business of breaking into this career.

Boot Camp

Sticking With It

Do You Have What It Takes?

Why Is Training Rushed?

I also have a brother in law that once worked for Werner. he told me they tell you that you get home for 34 hour resets, but it doesn't always happen that way. the company im going to informed me that typically i will get 55 hours per week at home, and that at the very least i will get 34 hours at home guaranteed. i have a family, house, dogs, ect ect. family time is a requirement for me. i think im making the right move. i also know someone who already works for wadhams milk hauling division and he really likes it there. several truckers that i know all said the same thing, get out of the mega carrier asap.

Tractor!! Do you have the popcorn?

I know its a long post, heck its been a long 3 months and more adventure then i cared for lol. one more thing, wadhams is allowing me to take my own car to phelps for orientation so i wont be stuck ridding the bus or at a hotel with no transportation. i like what i hear from them so far.

Against my better judgment.

So how long have you been driving?

Unfortunately it is to late to change your title but I think it would be a valuable thread if you could focus on what you are looking for In a company and if this new company is a better fit for you. And than tell us about your experience with them keeping in mind comparing the two is ok however bad mouthing so to speak is frowned upon.I for one am curious of have how you like your new opportunity.

Tractor!! Do you have the popcorn?

And some Ice Cold Coca Cola! Yes.....A shameless plug for my new Employer!

I'm a Pepsi guy.. but for another day I'm at home so coke is fine as long as it has some scotch in it.

i like what i hear from them so far.

Isn't it true that you liked what you heard from Werner before you actually began to experience a few bumps in the road on the way to your new career?

ad356, here is what I would like for you to do for me. You can really help me understand a mysterious phenomenon that occurs in here at least once a week it seems. You just happen to be part of the phenomenon tonight, so I am hoping you can explain it to me, please.

Why is it that you, a person whom we have never heard from before, or have had any contact with prior to this, come into our little forum with such bravado telling us just how sorry the trucking company is that you chose to go to work for? We've all been through the trials of orientations and training that didn't go so smoothly, yet we all managed to go on to becoming professional over the road drivers and have enjoyed our careers immensely. In fact many of us drive for Werner, and can speak out in their defense and tell of how great a company they are to work for.

You see you can blame all you want on Werner, but the truth is that you simply are not cut out for the job, or you had completely false expectations and you didn't do your due diligence in preparing yourself for the many rude awakenings that will impose themselves upon each and every newbie who is trying to make a start in this career.

You obviously are not aware of our methods here and our habits of preparing folks for the very things that upset your little apple cart.

I don't understand it. Is it just that Trucking trucking kicked your tail, and now you think it is somehow manly to blow a bunch of smoke up our backside so that we will think you are better and smarter than us? What is the motivation of such a show of ignorance on how to make a good start in this career. I am genuinely interested in your response, because every time you new failures at truck driving come in here with these lengthy haughty posts against some trucking company I scratch my head and just wonder why are they doing this?

I honestly think reading certain things on this site should be homework for truck driving schools.

i like what i hear from them so far.

Isn't it true that you liked what you heard from Werner before you actually began to experience a few bumps in the road on the way to your new career?

ad356, here is what I would like for you to do for me. You can really help me understand a mysterious phenomenon that occurs in here at least once a week it seems. You just happen to be part of the phenomenon tonight, so I am hoping you can explain it to me, please.

Why is it that you, a person whom we have never heard from before, or have had any contact with prior to this, come into our little forum with such bravado telling us just how sorry the trucking company is that you chose to go to work for? We've all been through the trials of orientations and training that didn't go so smoothly, yet we all managed to go on to becoming professional over the road drivers and have enjoyed our careers immensely. In fact many of us drive for Werner, and can speak out in their defense and tell of how great a company they are to work for.

You see you can blame all you want on Werner, but the truth is that you simply are not cut out for the job, or you had completely false expectations and you didn't do your due diligence in preparing yourself for the many rude awakenings that will impose themselves upon each and every newbie who is trying to make a start in this career.

You obviously are not aware of our methods here and our habits of preparing folks for the very things that upset your little apple cart.

I don't understand it. Is it just that Trucking trucking kicked your tail, and now you think it is somehow manly to blow a bunch of smoke up our backside so that we will think you are better and smarter than us? What is the motivation of such a show of ignorance on how to make a good start in this career. I am genuinely interested in your response, because every time you new failures at truck driving come in here with these lengthy haughty posts against some trucking company I scratch my head and just wonder why are they doing this?