operations supervisor

dock worker

driver/dock coordinator

driver

truck driver

ABF Freight

Coming from a background of working in teams throughout my career, coming to ABF was a culture shock to me. Although you do learn a lot of highly in demand skills, and get to gain a great experience in how the supply chain system works across the US. Unfortunately, this industry is not for everybody especially if you are a family oriented person. The odd working hours are the first thing you that make it difficult to manage a family.
 Next unfortunately working with unions is also very difficult to understand at first, and not for everybody. What you think would make sense is actually the opposite of what you are required to do based off the agreed upon rules. Unfortunately if you have learned anything about leadership in any kind of school, or military background it kind of goes out the window here at ABF. As supervisors you can't count on the drivers to be team players, and will sometimes make planning very difficult for you. 
Now your "colleagues" or fellow supervisors can make or break your team cohesion. When everybody is communicating and willing to take carry their own weight things work well. However, if someone makes a mistake and fails to communicate that can be very detrimental. I found it not a great team working environment because it happened on multiple occasions that clearly, the supervisors were not willing to work together as a team but rather, "every man for themselves". Remember when I said everything about leadership goes out the window here. Some supervisors tend to come off very arrogant, completely disrespectful, and blatantly unprofessional in this work environment. Everywhere I have learned their is never a case where you should scream, yell names, or be verbally abuse of your colleagues. Not all supervisors come off this way, however this was the case with the culture present here at ABF. I wouldn't recommend ABF unless you are a single man that just cares about having a fast paced, high paying job, with a mediocre home life. 



I can only speak from a road driver's perspective. This is by far the best company I have ever worked for and I intend to retire from ABF.

The linehaul dispatchers at my home terminal (Dallas) and all the various terminals I've been through are respectful, laid back, helpful, and easy to talk too. The vast majority (if not all) of your fellow road drivers you meet are also very helpful and easy to talk with. The tractors you drive are in excellent condition, it is rare I drive a unit with more than 400,000 miles. The health benefits are next level, you pay zero out of pocket weekly and the deductibles are super low. 

Your mileage and hourly rate is superb as well. Not as high as some other LTL carriers but the all around work environment and benefits package is WELL worth the minimal difference in pay. 

ABF runs freight 24/7 365 days a year, so starting out on the extra board (being 24/7 on call) can be tough for some. But ABF has even found a way to make that as easy on the road driver as they possibly could. They run the calls on what they call "call blocks" so every 3 hours 12-3-6-9-midnight etc. they do call outs based on drivers needed and your seniority on the board. They also have a really nice website accessible through your mobile device that tells you your current board position 24/7 with real time updates every time you log on. 

On the extra board you will do a mixture of "turn" runs and "laydown" runs, but ABF puts you up in good hotels, most provide a shuttle service, some you take your tractor to, a few they'll even call you an Uber to get you there. It is pretty darn rare that they will keep you out for more than one trip. 99% of the time they are sending you right back to your home terminal in my experience.

All around this is such a great company to work for. Yes it can be tough first starting out with being on call, the slow seasons, etc. But in my honest opinion the grass does not get any greener than ABF.

For a union job it’s as good as it gets but unions make grown men act like children knowing it’s hard for them to get fired.
Everything there is based on seniority so last hired first laid off when it’s slow in the winter. Bottom guy gets the worst equipment, worst routes, worst loads to deliver, worst start time and you are first one laid off when it gets slow and the senior guy thinks he is God and can tell you what to do and throws temper tantrums. This is a physical job you will be using a pallet jack and hand truck all the time and climbing in and out of the truck and trailer all day long. You will also be hand unloading freight and doing residential deliveries, where you have to take freight  into their garage or house by yourself. I moved sofas into homes by myself and would have to slide 400lbs ping pong table out of the back of a semi trailer by myself and take it into a residence by myself so this ain’t no steering wheel holding job. My favorite is you have an inside delivery of furniture and it’s on the second floor of an apartment building or it’s one of those houses on stilts and of course they don’t tell the freight company and they expect you to take it up the stairs and inside with no help lol. They have Teamsters retirement there and no 401k but you have to have 5 years in Teamsters to receive anything from it, plus the pension fund is do to run out of money in 2025 unless they get a government bail out so probably no retirement benefits here. The one good thing is the health insurance is free if you work at least 3 days a week and are full time it is awesome. The Teamsters have the best health insurance out there and I know I used it for 4 surgeries then I left for a job making almost twice as much money and it’s a lot easier work.

Typical day you will work long hours and it will usually be stressful depending on business levels. You have to be proficient with computers and learning new programs but ABF tries to stay current with technology and new ideas so that's a good thing. Room for advancement if you are a go getter but you have to move to larger terminals in other states to advance. You also only get paid once a month at the end of the month if you're salary so budgeting is a must. Culture is very good except they promote work/home life balance which there isn't any where I'm at, it's usually 12 hour days M-F so you don't have a home life except weekends. They do maintain all of the equipment and facilities which is nice, you don't have broken down trucks or anything but you never have enough empty trailers most of the time to load all the freight on. Depending on where you're at the union drivers act like babies and work slow on purpose because there is little recourse that can be taken against them since they are protected by the union, and they know that so you just have to either put up with it or try and make it a cooperative atmosphere with them so they respect you and work harder. Smaller locations aren't like that though. Perfect place to work if you're single, motivated and able to move around, they promote from within so the sky's the limit if you're that person. 

Starting out you'll have a horrible shift, nights and weekends, you won't see a  Monday through Friday day shift for atleast 10 to 15 years. If you're coming here to drive, good luck, thats also 10 to 15 years. Benefits are the best you can get, single or family it doesn't matter absolutely zero cost out of your weekly paycheck just co-pays  and meeting the super low deductible. Management for the most part is hired directly out of college and from what I see if you know the right people you're promoted quickly. Complete lack of experience and maturity for the postition of upper management. In recent years ABF has changed direction and instead of hiring the most qualified and/ or experienced for upper managment postitions, they are hiring people completely focused on what a computer tells them versus real life experience.  They are extremely picky on break times, you have to take break at the exact time, if you are late on it you are issued a corrective letter. There are many examples of the poor leadership but I would writing a book versus a review. Most of the direct managers such as dock supervisors and line haul supervisors are good to work with and actually understand how the operation runs. The dock workers/drivers are the best in the business (most of them). They make working in this place tolerable. I've never had a situtation come up where I needed help and couldn't get someone to lend a hand. The benefits and co-workers are why I stay. 

ABF Freight Systems is the best semi driving opportunity in the industry. They always treated me with respect and honor and spoke to me as sir. There trucks were always well maintained for safety and would fix them right away if I found any thing that needed repair before taking there equipment out on the road. The hotels that we stayed in were most of the time very good. The management through out the system were great to work with most of the time. Especially the ones I worked with In Dayton Ohio which was my home terminal, of course there is always that one that is difficult but I have learned how to be patient and try to work with them. The hardest part of the job is the starting times change all the time and on call 24/7 and it was very difficult to plan much of your own life. The most enjoyable part of the job was that you were on the open road and saw much of the country and kinda your own boss. They always hired high quality drivers who were great and decent people. They had to have 10 years of no moving violations and spent 6000 dollars on checking the back ground of each new employee. Most of the employees were fun to work with. Any one looking for a line haul semi driving career, I would highly recommend ABF.

What is the best part of working at the company?
There is no best part of working for ABF. Their management team are lackluster. Their equipment maintenance and replacement is non existent. The fleet is too old and insufficient. Their care for veterans is a myth. Just marketing and nothing more. They don’t care about the working man, and injuries. They only care about the money! 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Management has no ability to lead. There is No communication between management and labor when it comes to customer services. The trailers are regularly filthy as are the tractors. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Management is aloof about leadership and accountability. Not enough time to do it right the first time, but plenty of time to do it three times 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day involves waiting for the dispatcher to arrive at his leisure after seven drivers Have already arrived and are waiting. The dispatcher then takes about another twenty five minutes to get a handy on what the workload looks like to then start dispatching angrily because everyone is now forty eight minutes late for any guaranteed on time deliveries

Free family health care as long as you punch in 3 days in a week. Free pension plan. Incredibly frustrating place to work. You get written up for everything as if they want to dump you right after they hired you. Working hard is rewarded as much as the people who sleep on the clock. Zero consideration to you or your home life. Numbers, numbers!! Kids with no experience in the business telling you how to do things. Consistently swapping out young kid terminal managers with ones just looking to boost their own careers and get a promotion while you’re stuck there being dragged through the mud to please them and then they leave to a new terminal and you’re left for dead only to have to do it again when the new one comes in. I recommend a strong home life without kids and not living paycheck to paycheck to succeed here, at least until you have about 10 years in. Those on the top half of the seniority board have it the best. 

I thought ABF was a great company to work for.  The wages were great, they had great, company paid benefits.  I loved working there.  I had a wonderful supervisor, who treated everyone like an individual person and not just an ABF data entry specialist.  She held the same position before promotions, so she was more understanding than your typical supervisor.  I had wonderful co-workers.
The only things I didn't like about the job was the 42 miles I had to drive one way to get to work, and the hours I worked.  Even though I started work at 6p for my shift, I had to arrive at work by 5:15 in order to park close to the building, so I had to leave my home for work at 4:30p.  They had a very large, long parking lot and I didn't like walking a very long distance in the middle of the night to get to my car.  I also didn't like the fact that 2 hours mandatory overtime was required almost nightly, but you're not told until 1a whether you're leaving at 2:30a or 4:30a in regard to the shift I worked. Most of your Saturday was spent sleeping, so you didn't have much of a weekend.

On the dock if you are not part of the inner circle of Friends or those people do not like you, you will be soloed out. You will constantly have problems with gossip. If somebody knows you or knows of you outside of work they will spread all of your personal business with everyone and you will always hear about it later from somebody else. The concept of seniority is ruining the chance of new hires to grow which means you are not an equal to anyone who has been there even one day longer than you have and everyone self entitlement is getting in the way of daily work. With that 40% of the work you will see in an 8 hour shift is dock workers standing around talking. You will be hearing about how "bad" someone else is at their job and most likely it will be one dock door away where they know you can hear them on purpose.
Five stars for management they are all awesome and treated everyone the same with respect and kindness.
Great benefits, great pay, awesome Union to have pride in being a member of.
If it was not for the drama I could see staying with the company for 25 years but mental health is number one priority and it ruined my experience here. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Operations supervisor 3 salaries reported	$70,000 per year
Dock worker 14 salaries reported	$18.51 per hour
Driver/dock coordinator 10 salaries reported	$24.39 per hour
Driver 6 salaries reported	$24.98 per hour
Truck driver 1 salary reported	$4,750 per week

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