truck driver

local driver

tanker driver

operations supervisor

driver

Cardinal Logistics Management

Worked out of the Simmons mattress acct 6 yrs. I was their top driver on the seniority list. Think about that a minute...6 yrs and i was top of the seniority list...thats not good. Localized freight out of the DFW tailgating mattresses. Fairly physical work but nothing crazy. The summer is the worst because inside the trl it can be 120°-130° and your expected to stay in it tailgating each and every mattress. Hourly pay and OT included past 40. I only made 20.75/hr even after 6 yrs :( . Work 10-14 hrs a day. In the past when business was busy it would be easy to make alot of OT. They havent been busy like that in a couple yrs so everyones pay is way way down. Being called and asked by management to take mondays off due to being extremely slow. The place is a fraction of what it used to be. Hard to make money. When you go out of 90 mile radius they pay you mileage which really sucks because the day cab mileage rate is much lower than the sleeper cab rate and your forced to take the run. Querky system but thats how they roll. They will say "comprehensive benefits package" but its mediocre at best. Family health coverage costs $210/wk so thats $840/month before you even use it. Still have copays and deductibles to satisfy. Thats like paying a 2nd mortgage every month! Then you have vision and dental for an extra cost as well. So as you can see the benefits are extremely expensive. You get 2wks of vaca just walking in the door which sounds good but its accrued not just given to you. No sick days. No personal. Just the vaca days which you will use to spot fill the days your asked to take off due to being slow season. The trucks are assigned no slip seating. Your forced to park with the plant employees which have no regard for your personal vehicles. Not uncommon to come out and find dings and dents in your personal or stuff stolen alltogether. The plant has cameras but tell u they dont work when you have a claim. All in all Cardinal is firmly stuck in mediocrity. They are not competitive and have no desire to be. They provide a job and thats it. That is unless the contract cancels then your out of a job regardless. They dont sign long term contracts with their customer. 1 yr is normal so every yr your wondering if youll be back. No job security. If retirement and building seniority is your thing(and it should be every ones main priority) look for a stronger company. This will be a waste of time.

I can honestly say that I enjoyed my time at Cardinal.  It is a solid company that delivers without ambiguities;  compensation is clearly defined and never a problem, expectations are clear, and cost center supervisors ( in my experience) are approachable and sincere.  I worked on the Simonton Windows account, which can be physically demanding, but I enjoyed that aspect.  Window loads can get quite dangerous, and Simonton has complete disregard for the quality of the loads leaving their plants.  Not a Cardinal issue, but one which Cardinal would never bring up to their 'golden goose' account - leaving drivers to deal with the unsafe and incorrectly loaded trailers.  

Cardinals largest failure, in my opinion, was their handling of COVID and the headaches that came along with it.  Cardinal, in a year's time, did nothing other than send out three emails to drivers regarding COVID.  The first stated the obvious: we're an essential business serving other essential businesses, so keep working, and commiting to provide us with sanitizer, masks and guidelines for daily cleaning of our assigned truck - great, but nothing other than three re- usable masks was ever provided - NOTHING.  The next email outlined what we were expected to do should we test positive for COVID - Cardinal's instruction:  stay home and burn PTO if you have it available, and maybe you were bright enough to elect to take the OPTIONAL short term disability insurance, if not, you're not getting paid while you recover.  While every company on the face of the earth was taking care of and providing assurances to their valued employees, Cardinal was busy giving their drivers the middle finger.  The third was one merely patting themselves on the back for 'enduring' the COVID issue.  While office personnel worked from home, drivers dealt daily with the ever changing environment and expectations of multiple customers every day - the time delays caused by screenings at receivers, being locked out of all facilities that we were delivering to, unavailability of services on the road, the list could go on.  Drivers delivered without so much as a kind word of appreciation or heaven forbid, maybe a gift card for a meal - Cardinal's regard for their drivers was demonstrated by their handling of COVID, and it was not comforting.

First, I must say that management did their best to make the job tolerable. Second, the pay for many OTR routes isn't where it should be. Other routes are local and on an hourly pay scale, and can pay quite well. Third, don't leave anything in your truck, as your coworkers don't care, and some will take tools or items out of your truck if it benefits them. There's zero accountability here. On slow days the load could be strapped down fairly quickly, but on heavy load days, strapping could easily take over an hour. Unstrapping is the same deal. When you're on a pay per mile route, strapping and unstrapping is done by you, for free! That's right, you are not compensated for strapping (sometimes 2+ hours per day!). I was not told this during my interview, and later finding out that most of my coworkers were hourly, made this issue even more annoying. Out of the Salt Lake City warehouse, most trucks pulled conestoga trailers, which was a plus. Overall (depending on what route you're hired for), the job can be a total rip-off, or it could be a good gig. Just make sure to get everything in writing before you start. Also, Ryder has bought out Cardinal Logistics, so 2024 will see many changes. And as for SLC, they're slowly switching out their beat up trucks with brand new ones this year. Management is good at getting repairs taken care of in a timely manner, but the current fleet should have been swapped out over a year ago. One last bit of info, the trucks do have inward and outward facing cameras, but everyone covers the inward facing camera (not sure how the executives would feel about that, once an accident occurs). Anyway, proceed at your own risk.

If you like having to constantly stroke someone’s ego, then this is the place for you. If you are an educated, competent professional capable of doing the job you are considering, you will be penalized for being good at your job because the customer service team lead is insecure. I worked there 8 months and dreaded everyday. Customer service team lead always has to find someone to blame and write-up for little mistakes . Overall if you like to brown-nose, this place is for you. Customer service is something I love to do but when you work around people you are not comfortable with and nothing is done about it even when you talk about it in meetings, and hr , don’t waste your time. This is not a stable place to work. The pay is not enough for the daily headaches. The managers are also jokes. A majority hate their jobs and take it out on you.The customer service team won't train you and they dont even know what they are doing, the managers ask employees for help and leave you alone majority of the work day. No structure, company needs to be shut down. Customer service team lead showing favoritism and laughing at you is right. Customer service team lead sit and gossip. If you tell the two woman that are in customer service either of them anything the entire floor will know so keep your mouth shut. Problems are not solved, issues are not resolved and employees leave in greater and greater numbers, creating an even larger workload for those who are left. The president really needs to take a look at some of these serious issues and take some common sense action, do away with the corrupt customer service team lead if he wants to keep a successful business.

Where do I start.......🤔 orientation make its seem like it's going be really good company 🥳 but that's the bait.This company like all other  mega carriers the same.The hours of dispatch  is horrible,but they stress safety is number one priority but mess up sleeping pattern.You can make plenty of money maybe but they'll run you down ,so expect not to have a life outside of work.
ALSO they have cameras in their truck ,with audio 🤯 so basically they expect you to be a robot driving their truck(is that the reason the trucking industry want self driving trucks🤔),the camera drive the truck for you,because it tell you how far back you need to be before the safety department is notified,if you get to many following distance,you'll go back to training after that your fired keep that in mind.Its very easy to get fired for anything at this company to summarize it all up.Also you get paid only by the mileage pay and measly 18.50 per stop 😮 wow that's  alot of money.
I would say the good thing about this company, you can be home everyday even doe you work six days a week so it's really like you have no off day so if you make  1200 a week you'll be rich in no time wright 🤔.
My ending summary is,please read all the comments on any trucking carrier and  really think over if these the things you want to deal with a company you plan on staying at long term .I think personal working for a company that have their own trucks is better than working for a carrier.The difference is the carrier etc cardinal have to please two different people versus company only have to please one person and that works out better.

My experience came from an opportunity through my university. The Leadership at Cardinal, in particular the Senior Director and Senior Sales Manager at my branch were the ones that heavily influenced my decision to Intern here. They have built their culture around transparency, in that you will know what expectations are and how your performance stacks up to those goals. If you are not meeting your goals, they work with you to see what can be improved. There is also flexibility in the schedule and if you need to come in an hour early and leave an hour early as long as that is communicated in advance, you're typically free to do so. There is also a healthy balance on the sales team of being competitive with one another (typically in call count and freight moved), while assisting one another when faced with a challenge. I will say that the willingness to help goes beyond just the sales team, in that everyone on the floor, whether that's account managers, Drayage or Procurement team, my experience was that everyone was willing to help in any way that they could. Overall, I would 100% recommend working for Cardinal Logistics to anyone looking to get started in the logistics industry or already in the industry and looking for a change of scenery. 

Typical day: Prospect and cold call companies. For an intern the goal was to hit between 40-55 dials a day and full time can range closer to 65-80 calls a day. 

The manager was really good at being personable and likable and listened to you. Learning of something you didn't want he would promptly assign you to it.  I was there to have a 5 day or less work week. I also wanted to avoid the NYC and Boston areas. Of the five weeks I drove there, 4 we're in snow storms. One of those was with a driver trainer. Of the other four weeks two included NYC suburbs, and two weeks of 6 day trips. 
I clipped a concrete construction barrier resulting in a flat tire and bent rim on the trailer. I required a tow truck to move the trailer off the barrier to keep from damaging the trailer 
I was terminated for the accident. They have four possible out comes listed in the employee manual. Termination being the last option. All other comments were positive about me.

While applying I had been asked to sign a false statement, I didn't. Then post accident was asked to come in under false pretenses. I also had to rescue my personal belongings from the truck before the truck was reassigned. I was given no notice of the reassignment.
I loved the work, but felt the management was not trust worthy, and an argument could be made they intentionally provoke drivers.
One could maybe assume the manager just didn't remember, but he said he intentionally sent me on that assignment.

Applied for one position, shanghaied into another. Orientation of four hours became nine. Paid rate for orientation as well as cpm rate to travel there and back (372 miles) were paid lower than quoted. One week of training became three weeks of training and still no permanent route. Reaching out to the supervisor of the job I applied for is the day I discovered I was shanghaied..and that job was filled. Did a ridealong on that job (to receive another training rate), but the training rate I was paid was for the job I was shanghaied into, and not the training rate I should have received. Further, the job I was put into had a start time three hours earlier than the one I applied for; my body shut down and I was in recovery of exhaustion for two full days..losing more time and money on the 'job'. At the end of the day, more drivers than trucks on routes that were not available, with no additional trucks coming nor additional routes to be assigned, and no sign of what would be reasonable wages for the jobs we were supposed to be hired in to do, that we couldn't...because they didn't exist. Sign on bonus increments due within the first paycheck never arrived after several weeks of employment. Management was clear in one thing: the best interest of the company only, with no incentives and extremely deceptive toward the driver.

ONLY APPLIES TO MY YARD IN PEARL RIVER LOUISIANA WORKING AN AWG (GROCERY) ACCOUNT❗

Great company in my experience I made almost 75k last year (2018), I believe the average is around 60-65k(Im a trainer so I made a little more). but if you are willing to actually run, you can make more... Home daily, mostly dood dispatchers (there's always one clueless idiot) .. but its not to the point of maliciousness or making your job hard.. There have the money and THEY ARE NOT AFRAID TO SPEND IT!... From your equipment (90% 2018 automatics 10% 2016 automatics), they will throw money at you if they want you to do something extra or layover overnight somewhere (never forced).. 
Just like any driving jobs horrible hours (family wise) between 1-5 am start time (average is about 2:30) and between 9-2 end time (average is about noon) 6 days a week!!!! ONLY 2 PAID HOLIDAYS .. CHRISTMAS DAY! AND THANKSGIVING DAY (which is not really a holiday bc you have to sleep during those days to get ready for work the next day... easy work.. barely ever touch anything, delivering groceries.foward facing cameras with sound

What is the best part of working at the company?
Weekends off from this mismanaged mess of a company. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Wondering how many points you will get on your drive cam for not slamming on your brakes when other vehicles insert themselves in your space cushion. You can avoid multiple accidents a day by being vigilant, not one word from safety about doing a good job. But, God forbid that you don't slow down quickly enough after being cut off. Congrats, you get points! SMH 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Easy work environment, managers are easy going but clueless about trucks. Equipment looks shabby because it's never washed and Cardinal apparently could care less about the image that dirty equipment projects. 
Trailers are old and usually in need of some sort of repair. Management tells you to take it to Ryder for repair. Ryder is a whole other useless ball of wax. Things take forever to get repaired. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
10 to 12 hours is normal, that's the only way to get a decant check with the hourly wage they are paying.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Truck driver 5 salaries reported	$4,275 per week
Local driver 104 salaries reported	$74,644 per year
Tanker driver 47 salaries reported	$93,851 per year
Operations supervisor 15 salaries reported	$53,433 per year
Driver 9 salaries reported	$21.50 per hour

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