truck driver

tanker driver

outside sales representative

local driver

inside sales representative

Matheson

This company has got to be the worst in the cryogenic industry as far as distribution goes. If you are thinking about applying for a Bulk Driver position, save yourself the headache, apply for a competitor instead, you will be treated much better as driver elsewhere.

Pros: competitive pay, compared to what other competitors in the industry pay as long as you work at a Matheson plant. If you work at one of the acquired Air Liquide facilities, your pay structure will be different.

Good health benefits, not the best but very good nonetheless. Vacation time, floating holidays, sick time, etc.

Plenty of work, a driver should have no issues making over $80k a year while sleeping in their own bed most nights.

Hourly, mileage, over time plus holiday pay. Drivers don’t do any work for free in this field.

Cons: A LOT

Bad communication
Too many chiefs, not enough indians, every other airhead is a boss
A reverse morale structure in which the worst drivers, somehow are the ones who get rewarded and get unlimited chances to keep being the worse, while the safest and most professional drivers get snubbed. I have never seen that before.
Planning has no idea what they are doing. Tanks are always low and even with full staff they cannot plan routes right, even if their lives depended on it.
Repetitive, counter-productive practices with no will to ever improve, for example, every trip requires a massive, ridiculous amount of paperwork, a COA would have the exact same sheet printed 3 times with 3 different names, instead of just being 1 sheet. Big waste of time and paper. You are required to write down your delivery information MULTIPLE times. First on the billing ticket, then on your trip report, then on your manifest, then input that in the tablet, then at the end of the day...yes that’s right, a fifth time in the computer, but wait theres more. Now that you have wrote/typed the exact same information 5 times, you have to print it and fax it, because apparently it takes half a dozen times for them to understand that you have done what you are supposed to do. Just in hours spent doing paperwork, You will lose about 7 to 8 hours a week, time that would allow you to service another customer, lets not mention the cost of paper, which will not only reduce overheads if they were smarter, but it will help the environment. After all we are a gas company.

Trucks are the heaviest clunkers and least fit for the kind of work we perform. While competitors focus on reducing equipment weight to increase product weight, this company wants drivers to increase the weight when they load but refuse to reduce weight in the equipment, i.e. removing heavy bumper guards and replacing heavy trailer fenders with plastic ones.

Equipment maintenance is the worst, you almost have to beg to get things fixed when you need repairs.

If you have an issue and have to call the remote operations center, arm yourself with thick skin and patience, because those people think very little of drivers and they will belittle you and make you feel like you are worthless and don’t even think about treating them the same way, because you will get reprimanded no questions asked and you better don't ask questions either.

They will drill SAFETY, SAFETY, SAFETY into you from day one, however when it comes to getting the product somewhere, they will push your buttons to the max, regardless of what DOT rules are. You constantly have to stand your ground on that aspect.

They will work the health out of you and as if 5 days of “giddy up n go” work in which you have several hundred miles and 4 stops weren’t enough, they are constantly pestering drivers to work a 6th day. Because you know, us drivers don’t have lives, we just move a truck. 

They hire anyone, I mean anyone. You come down for an interview and as long as you can start that truck and drive it around the block, you have a job. Which creates problems because theres a lot of bad apples always hitting stuff, bad attitudes, I mean you will see drivers here that another company in this field wouldn’t even look at, because they are just not cut for this type of work and their lack of professionalism and ethics show it.

If you are new to this field, you will have a rough start here for a while, learning this job and being able to solve problems on your own when out on the road. But if you come here with several years of experience, this will be a cake walk and you are going to make really good money while cruising along and not depending on anyone for help, since most likely you won’t receive a lot of help anyway. 

In all, if its the highest paying job in your area, go for it. Just be prepared for a very bumpy ride. Distribution here is like Swift.

Unfortunately the pay will never be enough to put up with the issues and extensive hours required.  As a manager of any kind you are basically on call 24/7, which can be normal, but you probably won't expect hundreds of calls in a week due to the lack of a working chain of command with authority given to those who need to be able to make decisions.  Lack of training and poor hiring practices, from HR, increase and perpetuate these problems.  HR will want you to follow a very complex hiring regimen which is highly unproductive from a time perspective or use temp services, which if you don't realize or haven't experienced, tend to lead to high turnover low quality employee environment.  Of course not all people working for temp agencies are bad people, but in a very physically intense manual labor environment you don't tend to get to keep the good ones, they move on or hire out direct, even after coming in for a while if it was a necessity.  You basically get the people the other companies didn't want to hire or willing to take anything they can get.  The pay for the work of the entry level hourlies is only worth it to a very small percentage of people, the work is too intense for probably 99% of the population, meaning it does not matter what you pay them, they won't stay.  

If you want to have one of the worst experiences of your working career feel free to ignore my advice and take on the challenge of changing the company from the bottom up, because even at the top level of a plant you are still viewed as a bottom feeder to the corporate geniuses.  Don't worry they know everything, except one single thing about running their own plants.  Which is to be expected on some level from a company that believes everyone and everything should revolve around sales.  A customer walks in, you better hope they like you, because if they don't it won't be good, even though you're in operations and wouldn't normally have much interaction with customers.  They don't have a normal sales force so they expect management to pick up all the customer service aspects of sales.  Thus, if you don't want to be in sales, don't hire in to operations at this company.  

I have never had my authority as a manager so thoroughly undermined as with this company.  Everything has to be dictated by corporate, so don't tell an employee they are doing something wrong, unless you want to face discipline yourself.  The employees will push back, accuse you of things, because they know it works and in some cases there is not enough knowledge base in the plants to replace certain people due to the aforementioned poor hiring and turnover.  If you are a strong personality, this is an especially poor fit for you.  They really want weak individuals they can get to say yes to basically any idea they are trying to cram down your throat that day.  Everything is extremely, extremely, extremely, micromanaged.  Conference calls about redundant and wasteful information abound.  I really think it must be the corporate management's goal to ensure that managers either work 100 plus hours a week or fail, because they will waste pretty much every minute of your normal work week.  Including reporting on things like labor, raw materials and production schedule, which would normally be good, but done in such a highly inefficient and time intensive way that they usually mean nothing and have to be repeated several times a week, if not several times a day.

If you press the company officials or Regional Management on innovating and improving things, they talk a very good game, unfortunately that is all it is, talk.  They do nothing to innovate, they are unwilling to put money into improvements except where forced.  They have been called to the carpet so many times by OSHA they are extremely paranoid about making it appear, I repeat "appear", safety is above all else.  Once again this is talk and money does not go where their mouth is when substantial.  


While the company does have a few good people, many of them are forced into "yes-man" roles in order to survive.  Once you experience success that way, it gets to be hard to turn back.  Most are hoping for change as the company was sold this year to a larger company, but the direction so far looked more counterproductive than improving due to the lack of understanding of sound operations practices throughout the upper levels of the company.

As far as pay and benefits, the company its ok...Other than that, working here is unpleasant.
No structure, very disorganized, nobody ever has an answer for anything. Very poor driver training and even worse truck maintenance. I mean, these folks would rather run a truck to the ground rather than fixing something, because all they care about is sending a driver with some liquid to fill a tank. “Safety” here is just a gimmick to cover themselves in case something happens. They hire anyone that can drive a truck and they end up with a lot of folks that are always costing them money by doing the wrong things, resulting in downtime and repairs.
Some plants make it known that minorities aren’t very welcomed, with very biased and prejudiced attitudes, the Warner Robins yard is a segregation camp for Chattanooga and the managers never know anything when you have an issue, or they just dont care period. Policies are “enforced” with the same mentality, a man driving distracted through a construction zone almost took out stopped traffic, field of vision blocked and everything caught on camera, along with over a year history of violent outbursts at work and numerous incidents which according to their own policies, was sufficient grounds for termination...Gets only 3 days off and their excuse is that they can’t afford to lose drivers, but a few minorities who have no history of work incidents/accidents made 1 small mistake (in unrelated/separate incidents) and automatically received 5 days off and those were part of the very few safe and true professional drivers that the company is lucky to have. And if thats not inequality, they need to re-check their “policies” because they are either focusing on the wrong thing or they “enforce” them using the good ol’boy system.
A lot of “out of sight, out of mind” going on. It’s sad that theres a few superstar employees that do care and go above and beyond, but they just get dirt thrown at them for doing what they are expected to do according to company procedures. This is a place for supertruckers, no room for safe and professionals. Things like these need to be known, because not only is it not fair, but its wrong. Save yourself the trouble and go drive elsewhere.

In my experience the biggest problems at Matheson include extremely poor job culture and communications, inconsistent policy application, and lack of transparency on many levels.

It didn't matter that I left no stone unturned during the multi-tiered interview process and had a meeting of minds on hire terms - Matheson still reneged or attempted to renege on most of it. Asking questions was viewed as push back, and multitude issues were never resolved.

Company policy appears to exist for Matheson convenience. I saw many examples of inconsistency in application. This includes its massive "safety protocol" efforts (you will have drilled into your head), which are quickly dismissed for the sake of certain account handling. I received grief for doing the job Matheson trained me for.

The hardest part of the job didn't have anything to do with daily duties. The work itself is good work...and the single best thing about the job, but that can be found elsewhere. The hardest part was trying to negotiate a path through all of the negativity, double talk, and smoke & mirrors when it came to multitude unanswered questions pertaining to hire terms....as well as trying to accomplish anything through management (all levels) be it every day questions, policy, resolution/clarity, glitched electronic behavior. Bottom line - it's very difficult to get things done...and in some instances impossible. 

Be prepared for a protracted hiring and onboarding process. Mine took more than 60 days.

Matheson embodies the definition of micromanagement in all operational facets...from in house surveillance to rear facing drive cams, etc., the list goes on. Bottom line - there is no trust. Matheson often used the antiquated military phrase "trust but verify." In my case, I have an immaculate DVR, spotless CSA, zero criminal records history, and present with letters of reference. None of it mattered with regard to how I was treated.

Work-life balance would be better if management would refrain from contacting you at home as early as 4:30am and as late as 10:30pm on matters that could easily be covered during the normal work day.

What is the best part of working at the company?
No weekends for work and the pay was good

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Everything was extremely stressful. From lack of employees working there to learning all the different types of gasses need for delivery 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Very s tricky environment working there. Seems to be “clicks” meaning group of people having their own friends in the group. Almost like being in high school again

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
I would start at 6am unload the truck, put old cylinder's back in stock. Pick new material for deliveries , organize the work pallets to load on the truck . Then do paperwork manifest logs. From start to loading usually took 3-4 hrs then you leave the yard around 9:30-10:00 am and have between 6-11 stops . There’s no time to take lunch or breaks and even if you don’t take it the company still takes your half hour lunch out your pay. Majority of companies you deliver to close around 4:30pm and because of that you dont have time to take a break. You usually back at the yard by 5-6pm unload some of the truck and try to reload new pallets of product for the next day. They are beyond strict on driving. And being  a new driver you can’t drive for at least 60 days and then two weeks of being supervised while driving then two weeks of someone following all day to your stops while being evaluated. Then another week of properly securing load training even though you’re doing it before the training as you ride along with another driver before your training. Be forewarned they have cameras watching you in the truck and ones watching you drive along with sensors in the truck that go off while driving. For example if you get to close the the white or yellow lines in the road or if your to close to another vehicle, meaning you need to be at least six to ten seconds of distance between another vehicle  at all times and if you aren’t then you get recorded and corporate makes the managers talk to you and watch the video of your issues and have “coaching” talks and possible write ups for discipline actions.

The starting pay isn’t bad and you may or may not get a yearly raise, which isn’t much if you do. The benefits are pretty good as a plus. Upper management is a complete joke and have no idea what they are doing along with delaying decisions to fill promotion spots as long as they want (a supervisor was held in “temporary supervisor” for over 2 years before finally getting the actual promotion) even when the spots are completely necessary. The quality of most new hires is a joke as some of the maintenance associates just knew someone and know nothing about fixing anything at all. There is no climate control due to the building having to be ventilated for C02 build up from the dry ice so be prepared to work in whatever temperature the weather is outside. A few good people in middle management positions hold the entire place together by a thread while the others have no idea what they are doing and just wing it. You realistically have to hope you end up with some decent people on your shift that are competent enough to help you out as a lot of people coming through are lazy and just there for the money so if you are a hard worker you may end up in a very bad spot. High turnover rate due to the aforementioned temperature issues, poor management, constantly changing policies that half the time go against things you’ve been told in the past, and people getting fed up with working harder to make up for a lack of effort from anyone else and zero acknowledgment for it especially in the way of promotions. 

After one year working at a miserable schedule and being ordered around like a puppet on strings , i am overly done with this company , i have never dealt with such level of bs and micromanagement in my life , they put their drivers through so much stress and aggravation that i am appaled how anyone stays for more than a year there , dealing with their safety protocols and their meetings every week where they change the rules to suit what they want is far more than anyone can ask for , and nevermind the work/life balance , ( i am speaking for myself , so not everyone will agree with my views ) , they expect you to be up at all kinds of hours of the night and do the job and memorize everything like you are coming in at 7 am in the morning , i am talking here , 1am , 2 am , horrible schedule , you come in to work tired and exhausted all the time to run a route that can be anywhere from 150 to almost 300 miles a day , you're constantly being questioned and being monitored about every single thing that happens , so will leave it at that for now because this could go on for a while , so my recommendation,  find another driving job that lets you work more than 35 hours a week and actually lets you do overtime when needed .....

What is the best part of working at the company?
To be real honest quitting, most of the day there was absolutely nothing to do very little walk in store traffic they definitely didn’t need three inside guys just so they could have a relief driver when someone needed time off! Very long safety and company policy training and that’s fine but on the very day I completed this five day training they has me drive a non placard vehicle with tanks on the back I didn’t know they were even on there and I didn’t even have hazmat in my license yet! Why did the manager have me drive his pick up down to get it when he could have just drove it home!! Same laws being broken !! And the boots they made you wear were absolutely horrible!! Everyone has something to say about them!! So yea quitting.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Trying to find something to do!

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Horrible onboard training, it was like they just expected you to know how there software system worked and got aggravated when you ask for help!!

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Absolutely boring little to do I mean you can only mop the floor or clean the shelves so many times!

Continental Carbonic management is horrible. They act like they care about their employees, in reality all they care about is the block rate. They take advantage of their good employees and let the bad ones do whatever they want. I currently have to get my hands operated on because continental did not respect my restrictions. They know that if your are on the production line you will have to lift and do repetitive work my boss even said it himself when I notified him my restrictions that I was not block line eligible. They do not make sure people switch out while stacking and are aware that people do stack more than 6 hours a day. We have been short staffed on my shift and have had me working against my restrictions because all they care about is the block rate. I have a 8 month old son at home that I won’t be able to hold for 6 weeks because they didn’t follow my restrictions. They know that I had a possibility of being operated on and did not care because they just want to get ice out. There are other employees they could have placed on the production line to take my place but did not because they know these employees will slack off and do not enforce them to work. There are very slim chances of advancing here.

This place is lacking communication, they don’t care about the team members, and safety is lie. They talk a big game but it’s all garbage. Over the years there was only 1 good plant manager out of countless who actually was making great changes and everyone was starting to like the job. Maybe 3 good managers who honestly helped on the floor and was willing to help teach us. They all seem to be on a power trip and 1 good safety specialist that took the time to get to know us and change the dangerous conditions. She even took the time to train us the right way and honestly did her job unlike the joke in the spot now. All of them cared about the company and us but the company didn’t care about them and they sure as heck don’t care for us.  If this company was smart they would bring back the people that actually worked and was doing good and stopped running them away.  Actually listen to the people you hired to do a job . My advice is to stay away from this place. It's nothing but a watering hole. Oh and if you do get a job here watch your back because they will target you. I currently work here but I'm not dumb enough to put down when I started so they can pick me out. Not many of us have been here for years like others and the plant isn’t that old.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Truck driver 53 salaries reported	$28.35 per hour
Tanker driver 5 salaries reported	$93,500 per year
Outside sales representative 3 salaries reported	$78,333 per year
Local driver 8 salaries reported	$29.04 per hour
Inside sales representative 2 salaries reported	$24.25 per hour

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