truck driver

diesel technician

yard driver

local driver

leasing agent

U.S. Xpress

So I was trying to find a local job. I saw an ad and the recruiter told me that it was a drop and hook, off 2 days(didn’t specificy which days), and you would average $800-$900 a week.

I get there...and find out that you are working 6 days a week, not five.  The pay is .37 cents per mile(you will not be driving 600 miles on an interstate)

You will be going to Walmart stores and sams clubs, most of the time you will be using backroads and driving in city limits.  Again, you’re burning your clock and not getting miles.

You will typically visit 2 to 5 stores(many times a backhaul will be included) and each Walmart store requires you to be alert and attentive.  You will have to have pretty good backing skills as well as very good trip planning skills to find out the entrances and exists to each Walmart/sams clubs store.

You will then have to ring a bell and pray that an employee will respond and answer the door to let you inside of the receiving end(sometimes you will stand outside for 30 minutes to an hour in the cold/rain before you get a response).

Remember that since you have 2 to 5 stores  to deliver to, your trailer pallets are mixed up.  You will have to confirm which  pallet belongs to the correct store. You will do so by pealing stickers.  Sometimes you have to remove certain pallets to get to the other pallets...again, for someone who was told this was suppose to be a drop and hook, no touch freight...my nerves was already running thin.  

They do not pay you for the first drop.  Only after the first drop...youre getting a whopping $17.50 per store.  Think of it like this...it takes time to find the Walmart store, the correct entrance, to back in the dock(they have a gm side and a grocery side and you have to find which side is correct), to ring the bell, to unlock your trailer, to wait on the Walmart employees to be ready to unload you, to peal the stickers, and most times, you have to separate the pallets to get the ones you need.  Would you rather do that or find a job that keeps you on the interstate and gives you miles!

By the way, if you are new...you will be working nightshift.  Your day off will most likely be a Tuesday or a Wednesday.  The guys that work day shift have been working there for 10+ years and they aren’t letting go of it. That’s besides the point.

PAY: you will drive around 100 to 450 Miles a day.  You will work six days because they say it’s mandatory.  Your pay will average around $500 to $750 after taxes.  

Hours: most people live in the Raleigh-Durham area which is about 45minutes or more to drive to Henderson.  This is how a typical day works.  You are asleep. Your DM will call you in the middle of your sleep and say: “hey, your load is ready at 4pm”. You get up at 2pm to get ready(shower, eat, etc.) You then drive from 3pm to get there 15 minutes early.  You then have to collect your paper work and keys.  The trucks are slip seat(meaning you do not have your own personal truck. Everyday you will drive a different day-cab truck).  You have to find out where the truck is located by driving around the yard. You have to park your car.  You then transfer all of your items that you need from car to truck(coffee, drinks, paper work, gloves, etc.). Then you have to do a pre-trip and these trucks are pretty dirty and banged up because they are slip seat.  Do you think the last person checked the oil or antifreeze or added any washer fluids? Many times, it’s low on fuel...guess what you have to do now?

Now you have to use their system(it’s not a Qualcomm system. It is a “driver tech” system which is just a cheaper downgrade.  It’s Samsung or Apple vs droid.  Now you have to find your trailer, inspect it,  put a padlock, send a few messages on your system and finally you can drive to the gate and hand your paper work.  All of this before you even started driving your first mile!

Then you will drive to a place like Norfolk, Va or Wilmington, or Mrytle Beach, Sc and deliver to all the Walmart’s and sams club in the area.

Many times you will pick up a backhaul in some remote area that even google maps has a hard time figuring out. 

You will get back to the distribution at 6am(remember, you started at 4pm). You now have to refuel, park your trailer and uncouple, park your truck, transfer items from truck to car, and then go back to the office to complete your paper work to get paid.

It is now 6:45am, you now have to drive back home...only to find out that while you’re dead tired, your phone rings with your fleet manager asking you to come in at 5pm to do it all over again.  You sleep. No social life. No time personal hobbies. And you are sacrificing all this for low pay!

You do the numbers and find out that you made a whopping $120 for all that hard work, after taxes, after food, after fuel, wear and tear on your personal vehicle, how much do you get to keep?  Is it worth it?  

I wanted to quit on my first day on the job because I saw too many red flags.  Again, part it was my fault for not doing enough research and thinking that a local job meant working a 9 to 5 with weekends off. Never again.

Do you really want me to explain the equipment. It’s a slip seat.

MANAGEMENT: I actually liked the managers there.  They were just trying to do their jobs by sending me loads.  My problem wasn’t with the managers, it was with the structure that was setup by US Xpress.

A typical day consists of going in, getting a work order that some one probably messed up more trying to fix it prior to you getting it or it is something that they are not allowed to do anymore.  (Yes, if you mess up something enough, their answer is you just don't have to do it anymore).  But at the same time you're being questioned before the first break if you're going to be done soon, if you're one of the ones that are allowed to do the job, when essentially you are doing two people's jobs.  

Can't put decals on straight? You won't have to do it ever again.   

Can't show up on time? Great you can make more than people that show up on time and are competent in their work.

 If you decide to work here, use all your time and plan out your resignation after your time is all used up because you will not get that paid to you. 

 Do not expect to go in and work the hardest you can and have that reflect when it comes time to get raises (if and when they decide to give them). You can go in and get one of the best review scores in the shop and get one of the lowest raises (sounds right doesn't it).  In fact if you do stay busy and keep your SRT times higher than 100% for more than a few weeks, you get called in the office and told that your times are too high.  

 If you need off just pick up the phone and call off because it is easier to call off then get a vacation day approved. 

 Bring a notebook and pen with you to work and keep notes on what the SOP's are because they will change constantly (day to day/hour to hour).  There is a moto in the shop "if you don't like it, give it 5 minutes it will change" and it is 100% accurate.  

The company is a freight hauling company but they strive on making a profit out of the shop.  That means claiming parts for warranty that shouldn't be warranty because of accident damage.  I guess it's the manufacturers fault that cab extenders get broken due to accident damage.   Or it's the manufacturers fault the rotor cracks when brakes were not caught when they were low and got down to metal to metal.  

Some of the drivers here are some of the nicest people you meet, some are not.  But, when they get messages from their dispatchers that state "get comfortable, it will be a while and keep track of your down time, I'll let you know when we get a load".  Can't blame them.  Also can't blame them for getting upset when their truck goes in the shop and then 2 days later it's back in for the same complaint.  

Get used to the term "cost savings mode" you will hear it almost every day.  Do a DOT or reseat inspection with company supplied checklist/paperwork and get told you are nit-picking it when you find a list of repairs.  So do not do your job with their paperwork, also don't miss anything because you will hear about it if they catch it.  Don't test those batteries either because it's a waste of time- "if that truck starts, ship it" (words of management),  because batteries are expensive.  They also trade tractors constantly and cut every corner possible to get them through inspection.  Then they complain when the company that comes in and inspects them says that they fail.  They get upset with other companies when they try to hold US Xpress to the standards they agreed to.  

Overall if you can go to work and just not care about anything and your content dealing with ALLOT of half hearted work by your peers, then this is the place for you 

As a solo OTR driver, your experience of this company is completely dictated by your fleet manager, either they get you plenty of miles, and forget that your human and need to stop and shower/eat once in a while, Or they run you so poorly that you paychecks are less than $400 for the week. You are frequently looking for empty trailers, half of the locations they send you to do not have trailers, the other half are so beat up they are not road worthy, which usually requires at least 2 or 3 stops to find a trailer. Often they try to send you out of route, the complete opposite direction, and still pay you for the same miles for the load.

There is absolutely no communication between departments, breakdown hold times are at least 30 minutes, often 1 hour, appointment times are frequently incorrect, detention pay is rarely, if ever, paid, and your paychecks are almost always missing some form of pay your entitled to. 

Running as a team or for some dedicated accounts, is the only way to make any kind of money. I drove teams for a good 5 months, we ran an average of 5,000 miles a week. Our paychecks were typically $1,000 a week, on a slow week we still made the same as running 2,500 miles solo. The majority of our loads were FedEx (Los Angeles to Memphis), and Amazon, great miles, great pay, Dispatch actually cares about you. However loads for Shaw and P&G, are often non-existent. They frequently sent 2-3 teams at the same time to Shaw, to pick up a load that doesn't exist. Sent teams to P&G without pick up numbers, and assured us that they would get us one, and wound up sitting for 2-3 days until they got us a different load, which was also not real. The best pay you can make at US Xpress.

I also worked for two different Wal-Mart accounts, one out of DC#7030 near Pottsville, Pa the other out of DC#6055 in Gas City, IN.
At Pottsville, pay was $960 a week ($160 per day before taxes) just to show up with hours and be available for a load (typically less than 300 mi. round trip), paid even if they don't have a load for you that day. Wal-Mart dispatched us, usually within an hour of showing up to the window, all we had to do was make the deliveries before 2200, send the stops to USX to create a load so we could send our macros. Wal-Mart's end of it was run lawlessly, USX always dropped the ball, I was left to my own devices when I joined the account, to figure out for myself what my job duties were, wasn't even told what macros to send. Typically we were always behind 3 or 4 loads, because the people running the account, were regular dispatchers on a rotation, it was impossible to get a hold of the right person to create the loads for us to process them. Worst part was Philly deliveries, otherwise it was easy.
At Gas City, pay was supposed to be the same, but I worked temporarily for a week and was only paid 4 days, because they pay by the load, and if there isn't one, you get $50 layover. The difference? This DC has a USX office on site. Wal-Mart sent their loads to USX, for them to dispatch to us. We were supposed to call in, when we were available, also set availability before we shut down. Typically you sit between 3-6 hours for a load, that takes about 12 hours to run. usually 300 miles and 3-4 unload stops in the Chicago area, sometime backhaul. So in a week, including the time to run the load and sitting and waiting for one, I only was able to run four loads. Safety was not a concern, they're only concerned about not starting your 14 hr clock, anything else including repairs, was irrelevant. Worst experience with this company so far.

I also worked a Dollar General account for a week, it was basically slave labor. Avoid at all costs.

Typical day involves load assignment, pre-trip and clean out different truck everyday, drive to load assignments 1-4 deliveries per trailer. Dock and call customer to come to receiving and open doors to let you in the building up to 30 minutes wait time, start unload process, technically you do not have to touch freight, but the average load is never secured or loaded properly at the DC, the refrigerated freight falls over causing you to have to assist or extended your dock time to wait for them to restack or downloaded fallen freight to another pallet, and sometimes it's not even their freight it belongs to the next customer, the current customer is moving it out the way to get to their pallets and then they must put it back in the trailer after they've fixed it. You must remove all stickers from each pallet as proof of delivery and verification it was delivered to the correct customer. I have not learned anything, management is a joke, they are nice enough to get you in and during pre and post orientation, and then the nightmare grows. You do not have a set start time, it varies from day to day, the worst being they push you back up to 12 hours, messing up your driver sleep time and rest, because it's very difficult to wake up for a shift after a 10 hour reset and for them to tell you that your next assignment has been pushed back. Also, there is a MANDATORY 6th day every other week, they do not tell you this in orientation. With the mandatory 6th day, it never fails, either you run out of hours on your 70 going into the next week and they run you on recap without a proper 34 hour reset, or they push you back on your 6th day causing your only day off not to be a full day and they still want you to work. You have to drive the truck into the ground to make any decent money. I've worked local jobs with multiple loads before and made excellent money, I averaged 2 to 2.5 more per week at my last job before I moved to this state and without the excessive aggravation, this job is not it. Most of the drivers here, including myself are local to the area and it is the only local driving job that is no-touch in a give or take 50 mile radius and they have admitted that is the only reason they are still here, or they have gotten in tight with dispatch and get the better loads that include multiple short runs or long runs with multiple stops everyday without fail. Newbies get the leftovers.

Although this company has flaws there is an upside to the company. Us Xpress offers company drivers college for themselves and their family which can help move up the corporate ladder. The companies day to day operations can be messy and frustrating for new company drivers. I myself have work more than 14 hours a day which included on duty driving and on duty physical unloading. When the math was added up for the hours of training it averages to 4-5 dollars an hour. That did not make me a happy camper. 

They did have me off  weekly and placed in a hotel with complimentary breakfast but at first they misplaced me in a rundown motel which made me feel very unsafe and a bad impression of the company. The door seemed to had been kicked in at some point and didn’t close properly, their was no free complimentary breakfast so I had to eat out and was upsetting. One call to the fleet manager and they were able to fix me up at a nicer stay with complimentary breakfast in just a few minutes. On the upside they are responsive  managers. 

 Training was approximately 175 hour long and it was stressful at times. Barely getting to shower, eat or really do anything. Unloading was the most strenuous pet of the job but could be the most rewarding. You get to interact with employees and get a bit of physical exercise.  

70$ a day is not enough to live off a truck and to pay bills at home for a month. If you plan on joining this company be prepared. Great thing about Us Xpress is that it is a family which keeps on growing.  College benefits is great and only offered to company drivers and I look forward on taking advantage of what they are offering for free. I plan on getting my degree and fixing everything that is wrong with this company or leaving after I’ve completed my studies. 

In conclusion they need a lot of development with in the company and need to focus more on their employees and training programs. The employees health and benefits is what drives the company and without satisfied employees you have a unsatisfactory productivity. As a new company driver I’ve do not want goes on behind the cooperate veil but can speak in behalf of new drivers coming into training. You should come prepared and is not an easy training. Hopefully the pay is worth the training. Today is my last day of training and I am so glad to be through with it. Good Luck and God speed.

First things first, if you are just starting out, go for it! Them or Schneider will do just fine and you can work for a year to get some experience. However, once you have been through 3 days of orientation, you will notice that nothing that you saw on their website promised you, truly applies TO you. Those things apply to the drivers that have experience - those that do, do not come to US Xpress...so ha HA ha?
 
   You can expect to be paired up and stuck with a random "team mate", which translates into someone that has no idea what etiquette is in a small and confined space! I mean, if you got a buddy that you know and can handle for weeks at a time - go for it! Otherwise, you are in for a real ride... We all were new once, which is fine, but the company's matching ability is this - close eyes, stick a finger up the nose and pick a name...taadaa = you've got a match! So, get used to smelling cigarettes if you don't smoke and small inconsequential things like that. Spoken or written, email or paper - it is like Christmas! You will find out once you are on the road woohoo! Bring air freshener and a sleeping bag.

   The 175+ hours is for the new drivers. However, if you have not driven for a little while, do not be goaded into signing up for a "little refresher"!! Driving a truck is like riding a bike, you learned to do it once, you won't forget it. And 175 hours to "refresh" yourself is...odd... Although, not odd for the company once you know this! You will be running TEAM for your trainer and be paid...wait for it! 350$ minus tax. It is not the trainer's fault...because you would do the same = run anyone for 175 hours making the $$$ for yourself.

   Home time? Yes, there is such a thing... Just do not plan to have it while you are here. The manager will do everything they can to keep you out and about. Literally, 4-5 weeks should be enough for any adult to figure out that 2 males in a small confined space need to be sent home to have some personal space apart. However, it requires a magician to get that point across. 

   The most enjoyable part of the job is driving... the trucks are maintained well and if something happens the company takes care of it. There is plenty of miles to take advantage of and capitalize on...if your team mate thinks the same way that you do that is (good luck, buddy!)

Service coordinators shift starts from 5am-5pm split amongst four coordinators covering a 24/7 schedule. The 12 hours are non-stop requiring your constant attention. Strong organizational skills are a must. Drivers will come in to write up issues with their trucks. I will have to create work orders to assign to the appropriate technicians. Constant flow of work requiring quick action and attention to details are a must. Management is constantly over ran with corporate reports & projects which the technicians take advantage of by taking their time on repairs. This creates unneeded stress for the coordinators. Corporate is constantly issuing out new standard operating procedures or reports that are both unneeded and a waste of time. They do nothing but hinder the workflow of getting units accomplished. Everytime these new procedures are issued they are followed for a week or two then are forgotten about. The schedule is the worst part of the job. It sounds nice working three and half days then having three and half days off, but don't let it fool you. Long 12 hours days full of stress takes a toll on your body and health. I am exhausted by the time I get out of work and can not find motivation to do anything. Saturdays are cut short because you have to get up so early Sunday morning to be alert and ready perform. Very difficult to schedule time with family & friends when they are all off on the weekends and Holidays. No potential for advancement, and advancement within the company comes with more unneed corporate stress. Technicians are stressed because they strive for more and do not get that here. The most enjoyable part of the job is quitting time.

As a driver.
Everyone needs to start somewhere when getting a CDL, they aren't by any means a great company but they also isn't terrible. It safely got me the year of experience I needed to work for a real company. Now with that being said if you have a good driving record and at least a year experience you shouldn't be working for the mega carriers.

They are flexible on home time, no driver facing cameras, low pay but that's to be expected with mega carriers. Miles vary, if you're team you can actually make some decent money, around 700-1200/week. Driving solo you will be stuck in the north east making very few miles, definitely don't recommend driving solo here, you will not make money. Brand new trucks, Freightliner Cascadia's for the teams and International LTs for the solos. Dispatchers are hit or miss, I've had great dispatchers and terrible dispatchers. All your basic services like breakdown/fuel/safety/payroll etc... seemed pretty good and will help when you need it. I think one of the worst things is the orientation is a week and they send you on a greyhound bus rather than a plane of car. They will never fly you anywhere. Also home time is often flexible and you can stretch it past your limit however they will more often than not get you home late. Their trailers are hit or miss, there are rust buckets and there are shiny brand new ones, with that being said you just gotta know where to look and pick up the good trailers. Sometimes you will spend all day or more hunting for an empty trailer. Last I remember the trucks were governed at 62 on pedal and 66 on cruise which I felt was ridiculous, this was a big reason why I left as it used to be 68 on pedal, cruise is unsafe. The inconsistency of the miles was my primary reason why I left.

To summarize... Work here for a year if you have no experience then move on.

If you do have experience, there are better places.

You will be working 18 To 20 hours a day. You will be falsifying your logs if you want to make decent money. You are encouraged to (forcibly) sleep at Dollar General stores. When you wake up and start working you are told not to sign on to duty until you are done unloading at the store you slept at. Your next stop may be as much as 4 hours away. The 3rd stop the same. 2 hours unloading at each stop.  Then you have to drive back to Marion for your next load. Drive new trailer to store ( could be 4 to 6 hours away. Sleep at that store and repeat the above. You will never really get a 10 hour break. This is how USX schedules their deliveries. I have 2 years worth of trans flos which will absolutely prove this. My next stop is the Motor Carrier Safety Unit  with the State Police. This company unjustifiably destroyed my DAC. There are accidents (5 within a 2 month period) that I know nothing about. I would have been suspended on the 2nd one. Fired on the 3rd. Meanwhile my license is clean as a whistle. Tried to point this out to both safety and legal departments and was stonewalled. Wrote to CEO 3 Times and never answered. It’s like dealing with a government agency. Takes days to get a live person on the phone. Then they cop an attitude. Drivers are as a default always wrong. This has caused obtaining future employment next to impossible. A company called 10street handles exchanges of information. They use this to get around FRCA regulations and blacklist you out of finding a commercial driving job if you quit. I have all necessary paperwork to have the state police stop the 20 hour days in six states. The recruiters will lie and omit  anything necessary to get you in the door.

Specifically dollar tree loads- management has their favorites. They give owner operators the money loads. You get loads that are days behind. They promise you layover pay when a store refuses to unload you that day because your running late because the stores before you didn't get you unloaded in their scheduled time. Then management doesn't pay you. Had to do 34 reset out of town when you tell them you don't have enough hours to run the load. If you have to take time off, they want you to turn your truck in, then when you come back you have to wait til a truck comes available. When you leave, even if you turn the truck in spotless, you won't get your pet deposit back. They say they are family oriented, but let your family members get sick and they say you need to come in and work anyway. Trailers are loaded badly. Lot of damages, yard dogs pulling trailers off docks with no load bars so you get trailers with rows of product falling over and you have to walk in glass and slippery spills. You open the doors to the trailer and products fall out onto the ground, that you have to pick up. You have to clean out trailers when you return and remove all the product that was damaged during loading. The warehouse will load product in trailer no matter how nasty a trailer is. So you get your hands cut picking up cases with glass stuck in them. Trucks will not idle under 75 degrees outside, so hope you can sleep when it's warm in the truck. The duncan shop may take two days to even look at your truck and a week or more to do a service. And you won't get paid for that down time. The dollar tree division as a extreme turn over rate. Worked target for a while. But had trouble getting loads. And when you did it was only one load a day. So don't believe the recruiters. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Truck driver 1287 salaries reported	$1,529 per week
Diesel technician 2 salaries reported	$29.74 per hour
Yard driver 5 salaries reported	$23.60 per hour
Local driver 1 salary reported	$1,200 per week
Leasing agent 123 salaries reported	$2,600 per week

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