Considering Werner - General Thoughts?

[Iron_Weasel]

Excuse the random thought pattern in the post...it's late......
And before anyone suggests it...yes..I did a search but still had some questions and wanted input.

I've been out of school for almost 2 weeks and have somewhat narrowed my list down to a few companies that I am considering.
Right now, Werner is at the top of my list (subject to change, of course) so I'd like to get some general thoughts from people.
First off, I am well aware of the low pay. Fortunately, I don't have to have "top dollar" right out the door. I can deal with .26 cpm while I get some experience under my belt (then go on to a better company obviously).

Anyway, anyone currently drive for Werner have anything (good or bad) to say about the paperless log system?
I was in the IT industry for almost 10 years so I can navigate my way around computers and related gadgets with no problems.

From talking to one of the recruiters, I got some basic information such as the speed the trucks are locked at (65MPH) what kind of trucks, benefits, etc. Call it "newbie-itis", but I kinda like the Freightliner Century's, which the recruiter tells me they run quite a few of.
I'm built like a stick (6' tall but only pushing about 155 lbs.) so for those of you who have driven a Century before - would it be comfortable for me?

How does Werner run its trainees? Give you a few days of "training" then rag on you like you were a team so the "trainer" can bank some bucks while sleeping, or do they actually let you do things so you can learn?

Overall, aside from the low pay, is there anything I should watch out for?



On a side note, the other companies I'm considering:

US Express (Kinda worried about the automatics though)

TMC (Some of the tarps probably weigh more than I do)

Swift (Yeah, I know...but they have a terminal here in Albuquerque)

Hunt (Would prefer Crete, but I don't have my hazmat and I can't wait around a month to get a job)

I'm always on the lookout for other potential employers, but it seems like very few companies will hire newbies out of my area (New Mexico).

[BIG JEEP on 44's]

They run the following..

Peterbuilts...387..379
Kenworths... W-900....T-600
Freightliner Century Classic XL....

the 387 and century have similar room inside..you would be fine a 6,2 in these 2 trucks ...as well as the Classic XL....Forget the others ....

as for how they are issued at the end of your training you will be handed a sheet and you will be asked to write down 3 trucks you would like to get checked off in order of preference.....I always asked to RECOVER a truck because you can pick whatever is open for recovery ....And with high turn over there is usually a big variety....If you have the option go 387 it has the room of the freightliners ..but rides like any other Pete or KW ..SMOOTH...the Classic ..and century...DO NOT .....



As for how hard they run you in training it all depends on your trainer and how he runs...you could run real hard or hardly at all...I had a couple trainers they were night and day one was regional and went home every week I only ran 30 hrs tops every week ..my second trainer I ran 11 went to sleep woke up then ran 11 just like a team i liked this because I goty my hours done asap ....


The Qualcom is simple ...And really requires no real training ...infact the macro's don't even need be memorized as you can scroll through them using the +- key on the key pad ......Don't even think about this being an issue it's about as simple as it gets ..i think a speak & spell is more complicated to use ........As for the log system and getting good miles it wouldn't matter if you were running loose leaf at Werner as it's not their log system holding back you miles it's there crappy freight ..yeah they got freight ...But if I showed you my last 6 pay-checks 80 % of my trips are between 150 and 350 miles ...and they weren't drop and hook.....2500 miles a week is what you can expect a week ,and it will feel like your running much more with these trips , but you won't mistake the fact you ran 2500 miles as at .26 cpm you will only be netting around $500.00...even less if you go regional ....


I don't have anything real negative to say about Werner ,and if I request hometime on a certain date I've always been there on it or early...But I drive to make $$$$ and although you said you don't need top dollar I still think you will be disapointed with your earnings here ....I was...that's why I turned my truck in last week after 14 months I have no horror stories of 700 mile weeks but do the math .26 x 2500-3000 it ain't much ...and you will have 2000 mile weeks here ,and that's at .26... :sad:


I would take the time to get your HAZ-MAT if that's all that's keeping you from Crete ... :wink: even if you sit for 30 days you will be better off in the long run money wise .....

[fireman932003]

Ok, I just left Werner for the second time. When I was there the first time I was a trainer, if you want to call it that. Training will be for the most part ran like a team operation. The learning will be up to you. Now, you may get a good trainer and actualy learn something from them. As far as the picking the top three trucks, they don't do that at least at the terminals I have been to and where I got my truck. They just gave you what was open. I did make a suggestion but I did not get that. Don't expect many miles. When I left the second time I was getting anywhere from 1200 to 850 miles a week. I was on a regional run though so that may make the diffrence. The paperless logs is a joke. You could be a computer expert and not be able to manage these. It has a bad habbit of making mistakes. They like to run you with little time to get there also. One load I picked up in Owensboro KY and had to be in Chicago in 6 hrs. It takes 7 to do it. Then they wanted to know why I was late. I have been driving nine yrs and have never been late till I went back to Werner. But, these are just my experiences though. You may go there and be perfectly happy there like I was the first time. BOL

[BIG JEEP on 44's]

Ok, I just left Werner for the second time. When I was there the first time I was a trainer, if you want to call it that. Training will be for the most part ran like a team operation. The learning will be up to you. Now, you may get a good trainer and actualy learn something from them. As far as the picking the top three trucks, they don't do that at least at the terminals I have been to and where I got my truck. They just gave you what was open. I did make a suggestion but I did not get that. Don't expect many miles. When I left the second time I was getting anywhere from 1200 to 850 miles a week. I was on a regional run though so that may make the diffrence. The paperless logs is a joke. You could be a computer expert and not be able to manage these. It has a bad habbit of making mistakes. They like to run you with little time to get there also. One load I picked up in Owensboro KY and had to be in Chicago in 6 hrs. It takes 7 to do it. Then they wanted to know why I was late. I have been driving nine yrs and have never been late till I went back to Werner. But, these are just my experiences though. You may go there and be perfectly happy there like I was the first time. BOL

Yeah ,But how about them sweet 150-300 miles trips

I just turned in my keys I started out on the 11 western and went to 48 states....No difference except I think running 11 western I had slightly long mile trips as i was always going from California to Utah ...But on 48 I always seemed to be running between PA,NJ,NY,MA,CT,VA with the occasional big miler to MI or IN then right back to PA,NJ,MA,NY...This don't add up to much at .28 CPM..........


In Ohmaha they do the sheet where you list 3 trucks by preference.....Most other terminals I guess they just tell you what's available....

[Erik]

i think the moral of the story is to stay away from werner.low pay,low miles,high turnover.maybe if people would quit working for these big company *******s they would step up and do the right thing to keep drivers....

[Bigmon]

There was a Werner truck on the news getting towed out of the snow in Denver a few days ago. What advertising.

[grayhair]

here comes a long reply from a former werner driver... I left werner about three weeks ago. the reason was I wanted to be home a little more often. I went to work for Werner in june. because I had spent the previous two months in training with another company, I had to do 140 hours of OTR "training". I had a good trainer. I did learn a few things from him. We ran like a team. In the 2 1/2 weeks of training, I ran out of my 70 hours twice. After my training was done, it was back to the terminal for 2 days of orientation. Then you were issued a truck. I was assigned 48 state. I was issued a KW900 with 125k miles on it. The air conditioning quit working 1 week out on the road, the sleeper compartment leaked water when it rained real hard and I had to have two different sets of keys for the truck. one set for the doors and the other for the ignition and storage compartments. Their service department is a joke. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Werner and they take for ever to fix something. It took them two days (wheels not turning, you ain't earning) to "fix" the air conditioning. They recharged the system and said it was okay. A week later, in Arizona, I sent my dispatcher a "break down" macro. She wanted me to keep running. I then sent them "I am shutting down because the air don't work and I could not take the heat anymore". Took the truck to the nearset T/A truckstop and they had the air problem fixed in half an hour. The problem was a control valve on the firewall under the hood. It was not open, and kept sending heat into the system.
The first of August, I went team with a friend of mine. We got the miles, but they pay .29 cpm and you split that. We were "Team Werner" (just in time deliveries). The qualcomm and the satellite are your enemies. If you stop for 15 minutes to get something to eat, you get a message like we got.."keep the load moving using all available hours and doing it in a safe and legal manner". Lets not forget the Hazmat load we were given but not told it was hazmat. We were not given any placards for the truck and were not told it was hazmat. We do not have hazmat endorsements. We were informed that we had to follow the route given us over the qualcomm to the letter. No deviation would be allowed. It took us across Indiana and Ohio on US 20. Even though the tollroads would have been quicker. We came out of Illinois on 80/90/94 and the delivery point was three miles south of the Ohio Turnpike, yet we had to take US 20 across Indiana and Ohio. We only found out it was hazmat when we delivered it and asked the dude unloading the truck what the 1400 pounds of algecide was. He said pool chlorine. Then a week later, Werner tried to put another hazmat load on us. We learned form our first mistake. Man did we make the shipper mad when we told him we could not take the load.
Hometime..if you wanted to be home on a certain date, you had to tell them that you need to be home at a specific time on that date or you might get home the day after you requested.
I personally fired my first dispatcher because she treated me like dirt. I did my best to meet deadlines, most times i was early. One time I told her I could not make the delivery time as whomever it was that sets deliveries, set it to early. She told me that the computer says I could make it. I told her to put the computer behind the wheel then.
Regarding running team... we got a brand new 387 on Sept 5th. It had 770 miles on the odometer. When we started our hometime on October 1st, the odometer had 21,000 + on it. That's right, we ran over 20000 miles in Sept.
I currently have a "local " job. Got it with the 6 months of expereince I had. It pays 35cpm, offers benefits, I get 5 days vacation time after 6 months and I do not go west of Nebraska and will rarely, if ever, go into NYC. My first check was for 1745 miles and I did not run an entire week. I already have over 2000 miles for this week in, am spending the weekend at home and will have another 300-400 mile run to turn in for payday. Oh yeah, if I tell my company there is something wrong with my truck/trailer, they tell me to get it fixed right away. Currently, my assigned truck is in for repair. I noticed a definite lean to the tractor the other day. Told the garage about it and I received a phone call from dispatch telling me my truck is down and that I will be using a different one Sunday night. Turns out the last load I had and the rough roads I had to travel, broke a spring.
Werner is okay for training and getting some experience, but for me it was not the right carrier for the long term. By the way, I bet there were other carriers being towed out of the snow in Denver last week. I saw a Conway Express double on its side in Southern Indiana yesterday morning. It is not the company that puts the truck in the ditch or on its side, it is the driver going to fast for conditions.

[BIG JEEP on 44's]

There was a Werner truck on the news getting towed out of the snow in Denver a few days ago. What advertising.

I live an hour outside Denver we got well over a foot of snow ,But Denver only got a few inches ..was the truck BOBTAIL ??? ...I don't see Werner as top paying outfit ...But I don't see how a Werner truck stuck in the snow says much positive or negative about the company ,as I'm sure all other companies have sent wreckers out to unstuck a truck or 2 during snowfall....on a side note it does make laugh because it wasn't a big snowfall ...

[Bigmon]

It was a 53 foot dry van. Werner got towed on tv. haha. It does reflect the compnay. End of story. The Conway on it's side probably got cut off by Weener.

[yoopr]

There was a Werner truck on the news getting towed out of the snow in Denver a few days ago. What advertising.

So What-You get buried in a quick snowstorm it's not unusual for 100's of trucks to get buried in it.

[yoopr]

There was a Werner truck on the news getting towed out of the snow in Denver a few days ago. What advertising.

So What-You get buried in a quick snowstorm it's not unusual for 100's of trucks to get buried in it.

I don't think Werner was in Denver-I think he was on the Eastern or Western Slope west of Denver and you don't have a clue what happened. The Eastern and Western slopes on 70 can get 3' of snow before you can say It's snowing.

[BIG JEEP on 44's]

It was a 53 foot dry van. Werner got towed on tv. haha. It does reflect the compnay. End of story. The Conway on it's side probably got cut off by Weener.

Possibly or the Weener ended up ditched trying to avoid the flopped Conway ...I grew up in the foothills of the Adirondacks in N.Y. and have lived here in Colorado at 9k feet for almost 10 years so I know how to drive the snow and drive steep grades in the snow.....most make the mistake of driving way to fast pushing the limited traction available to the limit and all it takes is a sharp turn of the wheel to start a skid hell just a sharp bump .....back to Conway and Werner if it were the Weeners fault I would say lack of skill and experience in winter driving,and for Conway based on what I have seen I would say ...TOO FAST ..for winter driving conditions....some of the dumbest winter driving I've seen during heavy snowfall is done by yellow....ups...fed-ex ltl drivers in day cabs....

[yoopr]

I don't even think Werner was even in the Ditch-Looked like he was just stuck up to his Axles in snow on 70

[BIG JEEP on 44's]

I don't even think Werner was even in the Ditch-Looked like he was just stuck up to his Axles in snow on 70

Was this in Denver or I-70 comming over the moutain pass ???..makes sense if it was in the high country as it did come down very heavy ..

[yoopr]

I don't even think Werner was even in the Ditch-Looked like he was just stuck up to his Axles in snow on 70

Was this in Denver or I-70 comming over the moutain pass ???..makes sense if it was in the high country as it did come down very heavy ..

The photo I saw on the News Looked like it was up on the Slope and not in Denver.

[-FlyByNight-]

I would take the time to get your HAZ-MAT if that's all that's keeping you from Crete ... :wink: even if you sit for 30 days you will be better off in the long run money wise .....

Very wise advice indeed IMHO. I think you would find the difference between Crete and Werner to be night and day. Not to mention you'd save yourself TONS of headaches and regret. I've never worked for Werner, but based on what I've heard about them, would never want to. I've worked for Arrow Trucking (4 months), Marten Transport (14 months) and now Crete Carrier (Almost 6 months) and I can honestly tell you that Crete is head and shoulders above the other two in virtually every way IMO. Crete was my first choice out of school, but I spoke to a new recruiter at the time and she wasn't aware that I'd gone to a school they hire students out of. I was in a hurry to get a job and as a result rather than waiting and talking to another recruiter, rushed and took a job with Arrow. I would save you all I went through in the 18 months before I finally made it to Crete. I can't say I totally regret that I worked for Arrow and Marten though, because it wasn't all bad and I learned a lot, but mostly I feel I appreciate what I have at Crete more because of my experiences at those other companies and will be less likely to leave in search of greener grass now. :wink: