A New Turn On My Winding Road

After driving local for three months I got fired. Well, personally I think that the company could keep me, but I respect their policies and decisions anyway, and I understand that insuring drivers is a complicated area. I am also grateful for the experience I accumulated over these months: my driving and especially backing skills significantly improved after making 10-15 deliveries/pickups every day in New England. Overall, it was a good company with good and hard working people. The two things I did wrong that terminated my employment was a broken mirror and a cracked plastic corner of a straight truck. I took off the mirror while backing to the door at the home terminal , it got caught by a yard horse's mirror parked next to me. So I was put into a straight truck for two weeks, and probably it was one of the low hanging branches, I cannot say for sure - touching/hitting tree branches is a common thing in residential areas, I noticed that cracked corner only when taking my post trip pictures. And next day I was terminated. I was upset because I liked everything - the job, the people, and the pay... Anyway, I started browsing craigslist and career websites again. It is hard, I need to tell you, to find a good job with only 6 months of experience and a poor safety record! Hard, but possible. Finally, I found a company that is willing to give another chance, it is a Western Express. They need a NE regional van driver, orientation is 2 days, then they assign a truck and I can start driving. Life is good!

Well that sucks! I'm glad you were able to find another company. You will find Western Express to a bit more forgiving in the accident policy...but try not to test them..lol. True, they may not pay as much as some others but they run newer equipment, give zero resistance when something needs fixed (encourage it actually) and have tons of miles available. Their health insurance is half the cost of my current company.When I left them they were in the process of changing pay for experienced drivers. I was dry van , about a month or two later they called me wanting me to come back and offered me $ .51 cpm. Had they offered that a few months before I left I'd probably still be there. I liked the company and had a great DM.

Just try not to pay attention to all the negative stuff you hear and remember...THEY GAVE YOU A CHANCE WHEN NO ONE ELSE WOULD.

That seems kind of harsh, in that both accidents involved fairly minor damage to the company's equipment, not anything at a customer's location or with another motorist. They could, and maybe will, take care of the repairs without even notifying their insurer. Still, when one door closes, another opens. Keep the positive attitude and you'll be fine.

Local companies are typically more harsh when it comes to accidents as they do not have much financial wiggle room as the larger carriers do. Ive known 2 drivers with my company that were let go from local companies, 1 for having one backing mishap and the other for not hitting production metrics during his first 3 months, they required so many loads a day or something like that.

They also can tend to be more political to work for, have to take that on a case by case basis though. Thats why going local straight out the gate is not the best idea.

Good luck Andrey, I hope WE works out for you

That seems kind of harsh, in that both accidents involved fairly minor damage to the company's equipment, not anything at a customer's location or with another motorist. They could, and maybe will, take care of the repairs without even notifying their insurer. Still, when one door closes, another opens. Keep the positive attitude and you'll be fine.

Just try not to pay attention to all the negative stuff you hear

I realized that something is wrong when I talked to 3-4 WE drivers at two local truck stops. Nobody had any big problems with the company. But if you go to youtube, it is just wow :-)

<. But if you go to youtube, it is just wow :-)

Youtube is where the perpetually offended garner support for their self-declared victim status.

I also could not find work (private school on my own and a stale CDL). One outfit gave me a shot, and no one else would. I won't badmouth them to this day, i left after 13 or 14 months to go a different direction. They had a different business model than I wanted to work on, and that's okay. Taking the job with Western Express is your opportunity to continue to learn, to improve your skills, and prove to the company that you ride for the brand. Glad that you landed on your feet with a new outfit, good luck!