local driver

truck driver

dock worker

operations supervisor

mechanic

Central Transport

Worst company I have worked for in my history of employment. 

I was asked to break DOT laws by the company by driving trucks with expired registrations. Promised to have my fines paid if stopped. Really? Trailers have been over-loaded on more than one occasion. Management always asked if the scales were open cause its gonna be too heavy. 

I was made to drive some of the worst trucks imaginable. Trucks falling apart and in excess of a million miles or more. Was rare to find one with a working air conditioner on a 90 degree day. Its fun to drive sweating in the evening sun. 

The terminals have such large potholes in the ground that you could call them fishing holes. If you hit one in the dark, you will total the truck. 

The forklifts at the terminals billow white smoke. The place is so dirty you blow your nose and black comes out. Bathroom at one terminal had 1 working toilet for a crew of 20 workers. The sinks were flooded due to a downpour and the excess water poured out of the urinals onto the floor. 

The freight is damaged so bad due to over stuffing the trailers that I couldn't imagine delivering that stuff to the customer. Trainees are trained on forklifts in the middle of a busy terminal. Barely any skills at all and are forced to work in a fast environment with people flying all over the place. Way to be safe Central.. 

As far as safety, there is none. Once on a forklift leaving a trailer, I reached the dock in time to see the trailer pulled almost out from under me. 

The pay scales are different between terminals based on their need for employees. New hires were starting out at other terminals and making more than experienced workers. How is that fair? 

Trailers are in such poor condition you have to find the right pothole to close the back doors. Experienced truckers know what I mean by that. Some have holes in the roof where rain water pours in on the freight destroying the cardboard containers. Hazmat stuff is loaded poorly. Other trailers have holes so big in the floor the forklift wheels fall through and u have to get pulled out. Tires are bald. Had two flat tires within a week and both times you end up sitting for 2.5 hours and only receive 10$ compensation for your delay. 

The company will hire pretty much anyone that can breathe and drive so if you have a bad record or have no idea what your doing, then this is the place for you. For the experienced, don't waste your time.

The hardest part of trucking is never really knowing your schedule from one day to the next, but at Central Transport you start at the same time every day and get done around the same time every day. Even amongst the other LTL companies most of them will start you out being basically on call. It’s nice knowing I can go to bed at the same time every day and go to work at the same time every day. At my terminal city drivers start at 8:30AM and go home around 6:30PM. Seniority means nothing here. You’re rewarded for your hard work even if you’re new. The pay range is about $24-$30 an hour. No Union BS or politics here. The city routes are pretty tight, no driving 3 hours to a route to do 15 stops, more like an hour to your route and 10 stops a day here. The catch is you are required to not only unload your trailer at the end of the day but also unload other drivers trailers. You will likely return from your route around 5:00PM and drop your trailer in a door, do paperwork, then get on a forklift and start dock work. You’ll have about an hour and a half assigned to you. Then you log out and go home around 6:30PM. M-F with a required Saturday every 3 months or so, more if you want the $. No cameras on the trucks at all. The dock is open (no doors) and the forklifts are in bad shape but if they spent $20 million to replace them all we wouldn’t be getting paid as much so that’s the give and take. As far as trucks, most are 10 speeds not automatics. If there’s an issue you literally take it to the on site mechanic and he typically fixes it while you wait. City drivers can make up to $85,000, at top pay, working 55 hours a week, and every other Saturday, if you absolutely wanted to work that much. It won’t be easy, it is work. Linehaul drivers can make up to about $95,000 if they’re put on good routes and work 3-4 hours a day on the docks. You’ll work about 65 hours a week for that big money though and be dead tired all weekend. Regarding benefits I can say for $60/wk I have about $900,000 worth of different insurance plans for myself and kids. Free basic life, I pay for term life, whole life, accidental death and dismemberment, critical illness, and another supplemental like Aflac or something. If I die on the job my family will never have to work again basically. I can’t speak on the medical as I get it through my spouses employer. Great terminal manager and awesome dispatcher. I don’t see myself going anywhere else anytime soon. 

If you ever want to work your butt off every day only for you to not be appreciated this is the place for you.
Long days with no breaks,broken promises, constantly changing, unsanitary, horrible benefits.

Have you ever heard “not all money is good money” well here you will leave every day stressed out and arrive stressed out. Only to be stressed out by corporate. 
Ever worked somewhere you had to bring your own water?
Ever worked somewhere where you literally hear people’s butt when in the bathroom because your desk is 20 feet from the toilet with no door?
Ever get written up for something they told you was ok upon recruitment? 
Ever been given a day off for a holiday and NOT be paid for it when you’re salary?
Ever had a mouse run up your leg while sitting at your desk?

Imagine being told upon recruitment you get a 1 hour lunch only to be told 3 months in that now it’s half hour and oh btw you need to work an hour later and no you won’t be compensated.  Oh and btw we don’t take breaks around here

Imagine your chair that you have to sit in for at least 9.5 hours a day was broken, lopsided, and they didn’t care.

Imagine being a supervisor and talking to a driver only to have the driver almost wanna fight you only to have the manager sit there like he’s waiting to see a fight.

Never reached a single bonus. 
Never had a single review.
Never offered a single raise (15 months)

And when I resigned my check was short for my last week. 

And I still haven’t received my PTO after 2 weeks. 

Worst company in the history of companies DO NOT WORK HERE 

Unless you like being treated like you’re worthless. 
Smile in your face stab you in the back. 

And yes I asked if I was going to have to find a new job due to what I mentioned only to be told “are you?!?”
They basically don’t care so why should I.

Yeah and don’t worry I won’t mention the actual breaking of the law that they basically have us do daily. 
Place is a walking osha violation 
Fire marshal would shut the place down immediately.

You start by unloading trucks from out of town that are trashed with broken pallets and pallets that can't use pallet jacks with and then take those and put them into your outgoing trailers without seeing if you could even unload them. Coworkers won't help you make sure that you can actually unload the pallets that are in the nose of the truck which doesn't help very well especially when you get to a stop and the pallet weighs 2000 lb and you can't move it with a pallet jack. There is nothing to learn there besides staying till 7:00 and going to places that are closed just to say that they're closed on your handheld device quote on quote "attempted delivery". Management doesn't really care about you all they care about is the volume of freight they need to ship out. Yeah they approved days off. They don't care if you're late as long as you show up and stay till 7:00 8:00 at night everyday and then drive a 53 ft van in the city where you can't even get it  around to park or dock or anything. Half the places you go to aren't even big enough for a 53 ft van but they send you in it anyway. Everybody that works there is out for themselves they don't care about helping the next man they don't care about making it easier for the next person they won't help you check pallets to see if you can move them they leave your truck unhooked if they use it they'll leave it empty if they have used it they won't fill it up for you there is no culture.  Nobody even talks to each other the culture is aweful. There's nothing hard about the job it's just what they expect out of you for the pay they give. Only thing good about that job is going home that is absolutely it whenever the heck that happens because you never know when you're going to be able to come in. There a lot of favoritism and lot of retaliation. The place is a dump. This Place is no good.. do not work here. They make you use your own cell phone for GPS and they will not pay for your cell phone bill and if your phone breaks that's on you

I'm was part of the 30-40 sales people let go with the onset of Covid..  and I can live with that but as we were all laid off we were given ever changing return dates and strung along before finally being let go.  So a 3 month delay in finding a new job isn't an ideal situation for anyone.

I wouldn't trust senior management vision or integrity at this point.     

I was optimistic when hired that the Central of old was the Central of old, and that there was new direction and vision - there isn't.   Covid aside, management's plan to deal with the changing environment was for YRC to go out of business first.  YRC got their bail out and Central chopped hundreds of employees the following week.   Be very careful before making life changes and joining Central.   Companies that rely on large national customer's and 3rd parties with a minimal sales presence are usually the ones that go out of business

The job -  lots of forms/processes for every step.  I can't stress that enough..  LOTS of forms and processes for mundane functions.   The benefits are terrible but they do compensate with salary.    Daily expectations and goals are reasonable - I actually liked the job (aside from the ridiculous level of forms/processes) but understand that the bad service "is what it is" and sell accordingly.   

As a sales person, it wasn't a bad product to sell - just know that you can't expect high levels of service but you will save customer's money.    There will be areas of the country that you just can't sell into and terminals that are always disasters - don't sell there.    

Bottom line - make sure you're paid well, expect that you could be termed with any hiccups in the economy and understand that Central will probably go out of business before YRC will .

The pay is pretty good and one of the highest for LTL and off weekends and holidays pretty much keeps everyone here. Right off the bat, the insurance sucks, it’s almost not worth having unless you end up in a hospital, then you would be glad you had something. So if you need good insurance for your family you will not get that here. The Fort Worth terminal is as ghetto and broken down and as dirty as can be, Giant potholes everywhere that will never be fixed, it’s like driving on the moon. The trucks are mostly decent but never washed, they are slowly trading in the old trucks for new trucks, governed at 65 a few special trucks at 68. We do not pull double trailers but a good majority of the trailers are horrible, only the City P & D have the best trailers mainly for appearances for the customer then after their freight is picked up it is moved to one of the worst possible trailers for line haul to take. The dock is unorganized and lacks serious leadership, freight is not where it’s supposed to be or missing its mostly a Cluster-F. Everyone does the bare minimum of their job title because because there really is no sense in going above and beyond because there are no pats on the back, not even a “Your doing a great job” ever, you’ll only hear negative feedback when something went wrong. They offer a good sign on bonus. For Hourly pay, No overtime until 55 hours. Payday is every Friday. Heads up, they hold back three weeks. Just started Direct Deposit this year, that how behind the times they are.  The hours are long, but that’s Trucking! CTI is mostly stressful. This is a great place to work if you just want a decent paycheck and not geared up to come in and make a difference. That’s  all I have to say about that (Forest Gump voice)

Work-life balance
Be prepared to prioritize your route if you choose to work here. I’m used to doing Shuttle Routes and LTL, but the organized chaos that goes on in their yards makes it irritating as a driver to come home at a decent time. The worst part for me is how their hotline for driver-related issues is inconsistent and a waste of your time. If you can handle yourself and know that this company doesn’t care if you’re stuck at a tollbooth or trying to retrieve a buried trailer 3-4 stacks in deep with several OTR drivers parking more of them in your way, then get behind the wheel and grind.

Pay & benefits
Pay is not hourly, it’s by the shuttle. Based on distance you are paid a rate for the set trip. Example: TOL to CHI would be $130 one-way, so double for a full run. But you might have a $60 route one way, a $40 route because it’s nearby, and a $130 on the way back running from Toledo to South Bend, IN and then to Chicago.

Job security and advancement
Bust your a**. You are your best friend, do your best to make your runs safely on the linehaul side. LTL isn’t so bad but linehaul is a lot of BS they don’t disclose during your first week

Management
Management is no more useful then a bag of rocks. An independent minded person will do fine if you can handle yourself

Overall
I have never been more disappointed in a Logistics company than my experience at Central. I was sold a lie and made my first ever HOS violation driving for them. Their tractors are in decent shape but the mechanics are unreliable at being timely and the trailers are a wildcard. As a Driver you have to use CYA aggressively but if you can handle yourself and expect little to no proper management to handle the equipment defects, then good luck to you.

They pay you line haul .33 cents a mile and you have to work a 14hr day. So you drive 400-450 miles round trip (no problem). Once you get to the STL terminal you wait at least 15mins for a dock door. Then you have to unload your door, while driving on a pot hole filled warehouse floor. Warehouse is nothing more then a oversize car port. Never saw a warehouse floor so dirty in my life, half the lights was or about to burn out. Driver/dock workers crushing customers freight, while loading are unloading. The P&D driver get better pay and they dont have to work the dock after their shift. How is this possible? Line haul gets .33 a mile, they get $60 bonus a week (up to 5 weeks) and a $2000 sign on bonus that takes a year to collect. I see why this company has a huge turnover rate, because drivers are getting tired of taking up the shoot. This company is where drivers to go died, like a elephant graveyard. Posted Dead End. Oh one last thing. A driver walked into CT dispatch, with he CT hand held and gas card. I was talking to the dispatch operator (i guess), he was talking me i needed to work the dock for 2hrs. I told him when i was hired CT corporate told me i olny have to work 12hr, because i needed to get home to my working wife to watch our baby. The line haul driver who walked into the dispatch office said, "Are you in charge on this shift?" Dispatch said, "yes". Driver, "Alright well cool man, here is my hand held and my gas card i quit". I was shock, dispatch didnt ask why for about 3mins he didnt even looked worried. The driver told him, "i been working her for 3weeks and i am getting tired of taking home $500". Dispatch didn't care at all. Priceless. Quitting soon.

Equipment is completely unsafe and worn out. Some of the trailers don't even have brakes. When you inform someone they just tell you "Yeah we have a few like that" Tractors are literally taped together, trailers are full of holes and should not even be on the road. You literally have to push on the doors with a forklift to get them shut, which is completely unsafe in itself. More than once I had to tie the doors shut because they wouldn't latch, hoping the over loaded thing wouldn't bust open and cause a fatal 200 car pile up. 
  God help you if they throw you on the dock. There is no heat and water freezes on the floor. Watch out if you don't want to slide through a dock door which has long been broken and will not shut. If you have no experience operating a forklift expect to be belittled and harassed instead of trained. 
  A typical day includes driving a truck that probably will never make it over 50mph, sliding through a stop light or two because probably only one brake works on the whole rig, getting a ticket because the headlights flash on and off like a Christmas decoration, fighting the doors and landing gear for an hour or two, calling dispatch and being talked to like a 5 year old then finally getting back only to be written up for wearing the wrong color of pants.
  I couldn't even recommend this job to a newbie because a newbie wouldn't necessarily realize how dangerous of a situation he is in and end up ruining his whole career if not his life. The pay sounds good but it is set up so you're not getting paid between duties so expect about 75% of what they tell you. Hope this helps. Thank you for reading.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Nothing, it was always stressful plus the managers and supervisors of the dock will always take advantage of you, your work and your time. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Everything, from the work to the people was stressful. Managers would run employees so hard into the ground that they’d have no drive to take pride in their work, help others or make anybodys (even beginners) workload easier. Managers were most stressful because they provided no support yet expected the best of the best out of you and almost always pushed extra hours on everybody, even heard stories that managers wouldn’t stay true to their word and pay or the hours put into paychecks wouldn’t be as discussed. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Absolutely terrible. This company sees every employee as a number or a tool to make them money unless you were blooded and were promoted by relatives higher up. Environment was so bad, potholes deeper than the ones on the roads all throughout the dock floors and facility overall, like mentioned…they’d rather bank every buck they make as opposed to making working conditions better for the employees (not mangers or supervisors), just the people that endure the worst that facility has to offer

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Every day always left me wondering how a place so crooked, untruthful and unsafe could do what they do, get a away with it and screw every other employee that’s comes through there. New faces almost every day.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Local driver 1347 salaries reported	$1,729 per week
Truck driver 741 salaries reported	$1,741 per week
Dock worker 245 salaries reported	$22.51 per hour
Operations supervisor 112 salaries reported	$71,232 per year
Mechanic 102 salaries reported	$22.48 per hour

Working at Central Transport: Company Overview and Reviews

Central Transport

Central Transport Ratings

Popular jobs at Central Transport

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected