Millis!

The only strange thing I see is the only mention of home time is "hometime you can count on". No mention of how many days out, etc. Also no hiring map at all, no mention of routes, you have to apply first. But otherwise, they do seem to be a great company.

The ONLY negative thing I've heard his they're family own and somewhat resistant to driver input and feedback?

They also got a four and half star rating out of five on the Indeed website.

Totally ignore that kind of baloney. You will not learn anything about any company reading random reviews from the peanut gallery. Not only that, but all of the Paid CDL Training Programs are run by the elite carriers in the nation. These are the largest, most successful companies out there. None of them became one of the upper 1% of successful carriers without treating their drivers well or being a great place to make a living. Think about that for a minute.

[hell is] #4 Driving a Semi Truck through Rush hour traffic in Dallas or Fort Worth or any major city

Over time you'll learn to schedule your runs in such a way that you can mostly avoid the most congested times of the day. Not always, of course, but most of the time.

Oh, I forgot to mention. Don't waste your time analyzing companies until you've applied to a bunch of them and you actually get job offers. People go "shopping for companies" the way they would shop for produce at the grocery store. You're not going to get offers from most of the companies you apply to. So apply first, then compare the companies that are actually willing to give you an opportunity.

Apply For Paid CDL Training

The ONLY negative thing I've heard his they're family own and somewhat resistant to driver input and feedback?

They also got a four and half star rating out of five on the Indeed website.

Totally ignore that kind of baloney. You will not learn anything about any company reading random reviews from the peanut gallery. Not only that, but all of the Paid CDL Training Programs are run by the elite carriers in the nation. These are the largest, most successful companies out there. None of them became one of the upper 1% of successful carriers without treating their drivers well or being a great place to make a living. Think about that for a minute.

[hell is] #4 Driving a Semi Truck through Rush hour traffic in Dallas or Fort Worth or any major city

Over time you'll learn to schedule your runs in such a way that you can mostly avoid the most congested times of the day. Not always, of course, but most of the time.

These companies have thousands, some tens of thousands of employees, and you see maybe 10 to 20 reviews, so how accurate could they be?

There is an old saying in sales. "Do a good job, and if you are lucky, they will tell a friend. Do a bad job, and they will tell 20 friends". All the drivers who feel they have been wronged will post, the ones who love it are going about their day earning money.

I forget what company it was, but it was a well respected company. I was on their Facebook page and some guy posted a negative review, and management called him out right on the page. Basically he was a terminal rat, to be nice. I thought, good for management, sticking up for the company.

All good points about reviews. With Prime I saw more good reviews (In the hundreds) than bad (less than 20 or so)

There's ALWAYS going to be someone who's not a happy camper about something or the other?

Dan S wrote:

All good points about reviews. With Prime I saw more good reviews (In the hundreds) than bad (less than 20 or so)

It's still meaningless.

Most of the people who offer review information good or bad, have very little experience. It's purely subjective, rarely objective and carries very little weight in the grande scheme of "all things trucking". It's just noise. If I want to know something about Prime, I'll ask Rainy or Turtle. Knight; Old School, HO Wolding; Patrick. CFI; Big Scott. West Side; Susan Local Food Service work, Rob. And so forth and so on... They all share one common denominator...a year or more of first-hand experience.

I drive for arguably the most maligned company in the industry, and have zero regrets, and will likely retire as a happy Swift driver. Hard to believe, isn't it? Work for the same company for at least one year, and you'll then begin to understand what they''re all about, and how you fit into a longer-term commitment.

Dan S wrote:

All good points about reviews. With Prime I saw more good reviews (In the hundreds) than bad (less than 20 or so)

It's still meaningless.

Most of the people who offer review information good or bad, have very little experience. It's purely subjective, rarely objective and carries very little weight in the grande scheme of "all things trucking". It's just noise. If I want to know something about Prime, I'll ask Rainy or Turtle. Knight; Old School, HO Wolding; Patrick. CFI; Big Scott. West Side; Susan Local Food Service work, Rob. And so forth and so on... They all share one common denominator...a year or more of first-hand experience.

I drive for arguably the most maligned company in the industry, and have zero regrets, and will likely retire as a happy Swift driver. Hard to believe, isn't it? Work for the same company for at least one year, and you'll then begin to understand what they''re all about, and how you fit into a longer-term commitment.

All good points worth noting and repeating

All very helpful thanks!

LOL Dan...amen on the Greyhound to Springfield!

I thought for sure Roehl was the best bet for new drivers but Millis Transfer appears to be far and away, much better. Better pay, better equipment, greater vacation time, a higher governed speed, "flexible dispatch," Sirius Satellite Radio, Direct TV, automatic transmissions, refrigerators/freezers and so on.

Anyone want to correct me or add anything?

It's become almost a rite of passage for newcomers into trucking to spend inordinate amounts of time searching for some golden nugget of a company that will satisfy their every desire as a newly licensed professional driver. We witness this drama on an almost daily basis in here, and we totally get it. We do what we can to discourage it, but it's like trying to kill a bunch of roaches. No matter how hard you try to stomp them out, poison them, or even just start ignoring them, they just keep on showing up! We can tell you that it's a waste of time, but you're still going to do it. We have explained the folly of this so many times that there is enough information in the pages of this forum to write a book on this subject, yet every new person coming in here continues this same laborious task of hoping to unearth some special needle concealed in a haystack of wonderful companies to work for.

The one important thing every new driver has got to lay hold of is that everything about this career is performance based. Due to the never ending copious flow of misinformation on the web concerning trucking companies and "how they treat their drivers," we face a never ending threat to the solid truths that have helped us become successful drivers. The folks who understand that their success as a truck driver is completely based on their own performance never feel the need to spread outlandish and embellished lies concerning the respective trucking companies they've worked for. If we don't "get it" when it comes to how we make things happen in our favor out here on the road, then we will suffer the consequences of our lack of aptitude for producing results that warrant success.

Success and prosperity are the responsibilities of the driver, and there is no trucking company out here who has the motivation or the time to hold our hands and babysit us. If we don't figure it out then we won't be getting the miles and the special privileges that the Top Tier Drivers regularly get. I don't care what company you go with, even if it is someone who seems totally awesome to you like Millis, they have got a core group of drivers who are really doing well at it, and then they have some lesser drivers who are content to just sort of be slogging their way through the motions of trying to be a decent driver. It's that way at any trucking company. I made right at fifty thousand dollars my rookie year at a company who is slandered on the internet incessantly. I made good money and enjoyed my career because I did a good job. I put that in bold letters because it is a critical truth in this career. At the end of that rookie year I got a letter from an attorney asking me to join in the ranks of many of the other drivers at that company who were filing a class action lawsuit against the company for not paying them enough money to be equivalent to minimum wage! I was laughing all the way to the bank at those knuckleheads who never ever understood that their lack of income had nothing to do with the name of the trucking company on the doors of their truck. It had everything to do with the quality of the person sitting in the driver's seat of that truck!

I believe there are Four Common Traps that new drivers easily ensnare themselves in. Right now you are experiencing the "Research Trap." Hopefully it won't set you back too far, and I am certain you will experience some of the others also, but as long as you can set your focus on the things that make for success out here you will survive falling into these traps. I've said it before, I love your handle - hopefully you will make the transition into a "prodigy," just as many others who have come into contact with us on this journey. You are learning and observing as you go along, and that will continue for some time. You'll get a good dose of reality once you get turned loose in your own truck as a solo driver, and there will be a few of those "face palm" moments come up where you will be thinking, "Man those guys and gals at Trucking Truth sure knew what they were talking about!"