My first few months @ Central Reefer (CRSI)
 

Day 0

I just graduated from truck school and have been hired by centralref. I get on the greyhound to attend orientation tomarrow. I am going to post on here about my experiances since I have found it helpfull where others did.

So far I have been impressed with my dealings with central. One example is that after my recruiter finalized my hiring and gave me the list of things to bring to orientation. I then got another call within minutes from salt lake to congradulate me into joining the company and also to go over the items to bring with me again to make sure none where missed and to answer any other questions the recruiter may not have answered for me.

Also while other companies would take a day or two to return my calls no matter who I called at central I always got called back within 30 minutes usually sooner. If I asked a question and they did not know the answer they would find out from someone who did.

Soon we will see if they treat thier current drivers as well as thier soon to be drivers.

--
The Roach

NEWSFLASH
 

You're not "hired" yet. You won't be until you upgrade to solo driver. You probably confused "prehire" with "hire". BOL[/b]

Well I may not be officially 'Hired' until after I go solo, but I will be collecting a paycheck from them starting next week and that is the most important thing to me right now :)

Thank you for the advice though, I do have other stuff lined up already in case central does not work for me.

Day 0.5

If you can afford it I would suggest skipping the greyhound and fly instead, the trip down was... well interesting. We where met at the greyhound station by a very nice lady who drives the Central Ref shuttle. They provide us with free trips to the store and restaurants several times a day for food and goods. The cafeteria here is closed on the weekend. There is an arcade room, movie room, free movies to watch, and vending machines. The dorm's are livable. Larger than the inside of a truck I guess they are concrete and echo's real loud whenever someone closes a door. They contain a chair and a bunk-bed.

Today is an off day, the real stuff starts tomorrow.

Good Luck, Cockroach--I know a guy that used to work for them, he stayed quite some time until until personal problems cost him his job. As far as I know, he was happy there.
You have to get through orientation, DOT physical, and background/employment history checks before they actually hire you.
Good luck, and happy trails.

that dont sound to "liveable" to me, what happened to stoves, micros and showers fridge etc.....ya know, (High class hotels)...lol[/quote]

There are also showers, a microwave, a separate smoking break-room, a store (closed sunday) a kennel, and it looks like they have some dispatchers here in this building.

Did not see a stove or a fridge but I can live without those for 3 days.

Cockroach, I am half ways through their driving school in California so I will probably be seeing ya in a terminal some day soon.

From what I have seen so far, I think we will be happy we started with them. I think we could have done alot worse than Central.

Best of luck to you!!!


Tom

Good luck to y'all... They are Swift's little reefer sister company. I've had a few friends drive for them, and not many stayed terribly long, mostly ended up as owner ops and couldn't make enough to make the truck payment. Other than that, I've not had many dealings with them, but chances are you'll see the inside of more than one Swift terminal as a drop yard/fueling point.

Thanks tndieselgrl....as long as all I do is get fuel and x-change a trailer there, I will be happy. :)