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The good, the bad, and the ugly at Seward MF
The following is my opinion.
I just quit Seward Motor Freight on February 25th, 2011. I will give you the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I will do it in that order. It is important to me to tell the whole truth exactly how things went down, and I will name names. And I will sign this post. Only cowards post anonymously in my opinion. I started work on July 15th, 2010 so my tenure at Seward lasted seven and a half months. First a little background on me. I worked as a company driver for a year out of CDL school, then bought a truck after that and ran as an O/O for two years
until my truck took a crap, so I went back to being a company driver with Seward. Everyone I interacted with at the Seward office and shop were pleasant. I did however meet some jerky drivers, and two in particular stood out the very first day I was assigned my truck. Upstairs in the driver's lounge these two guys were holding court about how aweful Seward was to their drivers, how "all you guys are settin' up to be screwed when you leave," and other foul garbage. Mind you, these were current, gainfully employed Seward drivers ripping their own company. I have very little patience for crybaby truckers so I gathered my stuff to head out. The last thing I remember hearing one of these two clowns say as I walked out the door was be ready to get hit with petty crap on your dac, you better make sure you take hundreds of pictures of your truck, better give a full two weeks notice, clean your truck good, etc., etc., etc. because the safety guy here will rip you to shreds on your dac when you depart. At the time I didn't catch the name of the guy they were talking about. I remember thinking to myself that ain't gonna happen to me because I keep my mouth and my left door shut and I bust my behind every day of the year.
My first truck was a 2004 Pete 379 that I really liked except it broke down about six or seven times in my first five weeks. Eventually they moved me into a 2007 Int'l 9400 that was a great truck and went six months without a breakdown. My driver manager was Mike, a total professional who was the best dispatcher I've ever had in trucking. When I learned I would be switched to one of the two other dispatchers, neither of which I was too thrilled about, I requested to stay on his board, and he said yes. Fantastic guy to work with and for. My other favorite person at Seward was Sharon, my payroll person. Wonderful lady, extremely competent, rarely made a payroll mistake, and in the rare case she ever did, it was handled the following Friday. Actually you couldn't go wrong with either payroll lady, as Mary Lou was great too. I was pretty happy with my miles too. Of course I ran a lot because I worked a lot. I requested five total home days in seven and a half months. That's right, that's not a typo, five total days. I worked all the time and I gave 100% of what I had to this company.
So that sums up the good: eventually got into a great truck, got some good miles, good all-around salt-of-the-earth Nebraska people, great dispatcher and payroll person. And one other thing. In fairness to Seward they did give me a one cent raise as promised after 90 days, and they paid all my earned bonuses.
Now for the bad. About six weeks or so ago I came into the terminal for a pm and one of the shop guys came to me and said there might be a rivet missing on my truck and the stack looked indented. I asked him to show me and sure enough the stack had a tiny dent about a quarter-inch from the very top and a rivet was missing on the right side panel, also at the very top. It is hard to say what caused it but a logical guess would be that I scraped a low hanging branch while delivering the load that very day. Why do I know that? Because the rivet wasn't missing when I PTI'd my truck that morning. And the stack was fine. So our assistant safety guy, Dave, tells me to go inside and write it up. So I do that and I ask if this is considered by Seward to be an accident. I'm told to go see Doyle in the body shop and we'll go from there. So late in the afternoon on a Friday I drive the tractor accross the lot for Doyle to look at. He leans a ladder up against the tractor, climbs up while I hold the ladder firmly for him, pulls a two cent rivet out of his shirt pocket, and air drills it into place. Then he pulls out his hammer and whacks the stack five or six times until the thing looks brand new. You'd never know a branch touched the truck, other than some cosmetic scratches that were denoted back last August by Karla (another good person) when I was assigned the truck. The whole deal took no more than a minute or two and a two cent part. Now I don't know about you but I do not believe that this rises to the level of a dac-reportable accident. Still I hadn't heard definitively that it wasn't and I was concerned. I pulled my truck back over to the shop, which was closed by this time, and out walked
Dave. I remember what he said to me like he just said it five seconds ago.
"Mark, don't worry about this, it's basically nothing. It's gonna end up being nothing."
I told him that sounded great to me, and thanked him for going out of his way to come over and tell me this. I was under a load so I skedattled on down the road like the matter was behind me, feeling pretty darn good, as I almost always am. I'm just a happy guy by nature.
Well fast forward four or so weeks and I give my full two weeks notice. Due to a family illness I needed to be closer to home. So my last day I finally get back to clean out my truck and mail box, and turn stuff in, and what magically appears in my mailbox? An accident. Written up. And get this. It is assigned a cost of $306.79! No kidding. For a rivet and several
whacks of a hammer... and two minutes of time. Can you believe it? I couldn't. Especially after I was told it was nothing. I'm driving down a truck-worthy road delivering Seward freight, scrape a branch (probably) that was most likely hanging 13'4" instead of 13'8", and that cost two cents and two minutes of time to reverse. In the last 48 hours I have spoken with numerous people about this, including two safety managers of other companies, all of whom say they would never list this on a driver's dac. One said he might consider it if the driver was a jerk or a bad employee. But the head of safety, Erich, said he would hire me back, and that every other department at Seward had reported back that I was an exemplary employee and they wanted me back also. I was told I was the only driver at Seward to hit the 12,000 mile bonus for December, 2010. I ran over Christmas. I regularly attended safety meetings, I received my safety bonus for the only full quarter I worked at Seward, Q4. I hit numerous mileage and idle time bonuses. I took great care of the equipment, as proven by my six month string of no repairs, which only happens if you PTI your truck often and properly. I have a CSA score of 10 and didn't add a single point to Seward's carrier score. I ran every load I was assigned and never bitched about down time. I recovered three different trucks for Seward. I spent two hours cleaning my truck when it was assigned because the pig before me left garbage and some unidentifiable green ooze that no one had ever seen before. I spent another two hours spit-shining and vacuuming it on my final day. And I was never late even once to a shipper or a consignee. Ever. So it is a pretty safe bet that I wasn't considered a jerk or a bad employee.
Despite all this Erich has refused to reverse this decision.
And now it has morphed into something very, very ugly indeed. I was fortunate enough to find a dedicated job that would allow me to go through the house at least two or three times a week in addition to being home every Friday night through Sunday afternoon so I could look in on my dad. Sure it was a pay cut but nothing is more important than my family. It was a really lucky find with a good company. Normally drivers have to run elsewhere and wait for this account to open up. But Seward torpedoed me. Someone at the Seward office faxed to this carrier in respose to a request for driver history a letter stating not only did I incur an accident, but that it was unreported. I was set for orientation starting
Sunday but was called and told Thursday morning that I was no longer eligible for employment. So my family got kicked in the gut several weeks ago with the bad news of my dad's health, and Seward has now kicked me and my family twice while on the ground. My family is devastated. We are not well off people. We are hard workers just getting by. Most reputable companies will not hire a driver with a non-reported accident, and Erich is well aware of this fact. He knows exactly what this is doing to me and my family as I have explained it to him repeatedly. But not an ounce of compassion. Less common sense. And never once any concern that the dollar amount he was given was completely bogus. It appears to be a mere inconvenience that I was there to witness the entire one or two minutes spent on the truck. I begged him to look into this further and not take my word for it. Review the truck check-in paperwork to verify tree branch scratches were previously reported. Talk to the body shop. If need be, jog Doyle's memory of the repair by asking him about the big dude holding the ladder for you that time you replaced a rivet and hammered the stack. Verify with Cat that they did indeed jerry-rig a temporary wire clamp for the stack, another thing they listed on the work order that they shouldn't have. It's just frustrating because this is my life and I am not even getting promised return phone calls from Erich. It's as if you're an ex-employee now so we couldn't care less about you. This is not a 5000 truck company. This is a 100 truck company, located in a small midwest town, where people treat each other with respect, or so I was told.
I am not a vindictive guy. I don't sue. I don't threaten to sue. I don't have the money for that anyway. But I do believe in the Bible, and I do firmly believe in forgiveness. So I will forgive, and in time I will forget. The pain this has caused my family and me, both now and ongoing, is indeed severe, and I would never wish it on Erich, or Dave, or anyone else at Seward. If the rolls were reversed and I was the head of safety deciding whether or not to destroy one of my best driver's records over "basically nothing," thus making employment in this industry difficult, I would consider this to be a non-event and would not report this to Hireright. Could I report it? Yes. Would I report it? No way. I would never do something so petty to Erich, or any other driver. But then I respect the difficulty of the job and the tough life it is for OTR drivers out there. And I certainly would never call it a non-reported accident. How can you report something you didn't see or hear? I certainly would have caught it on the next morning's PTI. You can make up your own mind on this. Let me know what you think, whether you agree with me or not.
Here's the kicker. I certainly deserve a large part of the blame for all of this. No, nothing I did in the truck could have been different, I believe. But I did not do my proper due diligence on this company. And I take full responsibility for my role in that. You folks considering working for Seward will not make that same mistake, because simply by reading my post right now on this trucker forum under the Seward Motor Freight heading, you are doing your due diligence. You are gathering information about this company, and you should be commended for that.
I have gone around and around on this with Erich, both of us being cordial and polite to the other, and that is the way I plan on keeping it. I don't swear and call names and he doesn't either, which I am thankful for. But I would strongly advise against driving for Seward Motor Freight. Up until my final days I would have never said that. In fact, I was still planning on possibly coming back if my dad's situation cleared. But what happened to me in the final week was unconsionable in my opinion. I am absolutely 100% terrified of this company, and this man. And you should be too. He wields immense, unchecked power over all those who end up driving for Seward, and has apparently shown a desire to use it. If they can do this to me, one of their best and hard-working drivers, what do you think could happen to you? You better seriously consider this.
When I was in CDL school more than four years ago our instructor drilled into our heads over and over again how important it was to protect your CDL and dac report, because that and a clean MVR was worth money. And the way to do that is good, clean driving. If my driving employment prospects can be so devastated by Seward Motor Freight over such a petty, inconsequential matter, what will your prospects be when you depart, should you decide to work there? Do you think you will fare better than me? Perhaps. Most likely not.
In the end, those two guys up in the driver's lounge my very first day were correct and I guess I should have paid them some heed. It turns out I was the clown for not doing my proper due diligence on Seward. And boy am I paying for it dearly.
Best of luck with whatever motor carrier you decide to drive for. If anyone has any further questions just fire away and I will answer them with total honesty.
The preceeding is my opinion.
Mark M. Chase
Former Seward driver
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