[bentstrider]

Any of these companies you mentioned are good if you're like me and don't like to stay home very long.
Some love the drama of being at the house, others just want to get away from it and drift.

[Copperhead]

Knight must be on a hiring spree. I put in an ap with them almost 2 years ago when the carrier I was with decided to sell out, and never heard from them. Got a call from them yesterday wanting me to come on board. I turned them down. I wasn't impressed that it took them two years to get back with me. And I got almost 3 decades of safe over the road driving under my belt including 10 years in Alaska. Maybe that was the problem.... too much experience.

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by Copperhead

Knight must be on a hiring spree. I put in an ap with them almost 2 years ago when the carrier I was with decided to sell out, and never heard from them. Got a call from them yesterday wanting me to come on board. I turned them down. I wasn't impressed that it took them two years to get back with me. And I got almost 3 decades of safe over the road driving under my belt including 10 years in Alaska. Maybe that was the problem.... too much experience.

Perhaps.

What I find funny is that, on another board, I've been reading about companies like Werner and Swift NOT hiring experienced drivers, but rolling out the welcome mat for students. What kind of twisted, backward logic is that??? Oh, I forgot, they probably get govt kickbacks for training, and end up with a few drivers at the bottom of the pay scale.

[bentstrider]

Originally Posted by Copperhead

Knight must be on a hiring spree. I put in an ap with them almost 2 years ago when the carrier I was with decided to sell out, and never heard from them. Got a call from them yesterday wanting me to come on board. I turned them down. I wasn't impressed that it took them two years to get back with me. And I got almost 3 decades of safe over the road driving under my belt including 10 years in Alaska. Maybe that was the problem.... too much experience.

Well, they told me to go down to Ontario in 2010, so there's another door open right there.

But, I'll agree with the other guy about getting more noobs on board who are strictly there for the promise of an overly fat, payday.
At least when I went through training in '04, all of us were there either due to retirement, voluntary job-change, or former parolees with nowhere left to go.
This was CRST though, so.....

[homer]

Originally Posted by Voyager

That pretty much limits me to Swift, Werner, or Knight. Neither are really GREAT choices, but they all fit my needs at the moment. Any ideas, thoughts or information is appreciated and requested.

Thanks.

you are lucky you have a job these days.
my father was in an accident several years ago and i hit the road immediately and had the hospital fax a report to my boss.i was out two months working on the farm and driving mom to visit him in the icu.
my company stopped my medical insurance in two weeks and never did decide if i was on family medical leave but asked me to work asap when i returned.
you know big truck company will park you 1000 miles from phoenix.
perhaps you can use family medical leave and find a real job in phoenix. its not easy since the democrat majority came in but if your a quality employee you will make it.

[nctrucker1]

Originally Posted by Voyager

Perhaps.

What I find funny is that, on another board, I've been reading about companies like Werner and Swift NOT hiring experienced drivers, but rolling out the welcome mat for students. What kind of twisted, backward logic is that??? Oh, I forgot, they probably get govt kickbacks for training, and end up with a few drivers at the bottom of the pay scale.

Most likely, Swift want to run newbies ragged with low pay for being newbies. Since Swift know it will take the newbies a little while to learn that they have been had by Swift.

[jonp]

lol. when I started driving with swift I made 19.5/mile. That is not a misprint.

[Fancy_Maneuvers]

Is it true that Swift nixed their layover pay for company drivers?

And Syncrosonix, I know you don't know me, but as I have been reading these boards for a long while, I could have sworn you were quitting Swift to go back to school. Wasn't that you? And if so, do you mind sharing what happened to your plans?

[Luzon]

I read what was said about Knight. My experience there (2 years ago) was that they had a major shortage of trailers. I spent 6 1/2 hours one time driving from one side of Atlanta to the other in an attempt to find an empty. They send me a new company with directions to try, I'd go there, no trailer. It took about a month to finally get paid the local pay for that crap too. $13/hour just isn't sufficient to drive in Atlanta traffic for over 6 hours. This was a common occurance too, not a one time thing. I've talked to Knight drivers since and they all say there's still a problem finding empties. Another thing about Knight, unless you have a degree you can forget about moving up and out of the truck, into say, dispatch or whatever. They prefer to hire the kids fresh out of college who have absolutely zero experience in trucking, and customer service in many cases.

One day I was sitting at the rest area near MM 60 on I-10 in Florida sometime around June or July - hot. I had delivered my load the night before and spent the night at the rest area. Anyway, it rolled around to almost noon the next day, I was running low on fuel and getting hungry (I didn't carry a refrige at that time) so I called my brand-spanking new and shiny dispatcher, told him I could go about 80 miles to the east for fuel in Marianna or head west and fuel up north of Mobile, about 90 miles. Which way did he want me to go? Not being too concerned about my fuel situation apparently he asked me why I couldn't just pull into a McDonalds or something.

I've never been the best at holding my tongue and that day was no exception. Short of totally blowing my stack at that comment I said something similar to: "Pull into McDonalds? No problem, but how the ^@^&* am I going to get this truck back out". I suggested in the strongest possible way that he get off his ass, walk out to the yard, find one of those big red things with a big box attached to it, all sporting 18 wheels and see if he could figure out how to take one of those through a McDonalds and get it back out again without taking a few cars along for the ride.

I was gone from Knight within two weeks.


Voyager, you may consider giving May Trucking a call too. Living in PA you'd be on the 48 state division pulling reefers but if you move to AZ you might then be able to move to the 11 western states and pull dry vans.

Good luck.

[Luzon]

Originally Posted by Voyager

what I need is places to park the truck at either location, and these companies serve that purpose. Werner would be #1 in that respect because their terminal in PA is closest to the house I currently reside in...

Voyager, why couldn't you park the truck at a truck stop? There's a Pilot 20 miles away:
Pilot Travel Center
SR 93, Box 1114
Drums, PA 18222
I-80/81 & PA93, Exit 256

Yea, it's 20 miles but if that meant picking a "higher tier" company instead of settling on a "lower tier" company then the drive to and from the truck stop would be a small price to pay. Hope this helps.