I'm a newbie as well, just out of school and have not turned a wheel yet, so take my comments in that light, please. But I must say I'm with Peabody, here on this one. Let me give you some background so you understand where I'm coming from.
I was actually pre-hired by Roehl, the very first week of my schooling. For obvious reasons, I did some serious investigation into the place via the web. I must say, that the driver who commented about not getting home on time is the first negative, and I've heard about the place. Everything else I've heard has been positive.
I keep hearing Roehl is a great place to work for, a family business and so on. THey were high on my list, but, I eventually opted myself to go with HO Wolding, for several reasons.
First, because Roehl wanted to put me in their national flatbed fleet. That's a deal I would've snapped up without hesitation twenty years ago. At age 52, I have to be realistic enough to say that tossing 75lb. tarps around in winter weather probably is not going to lengthen my life any. And my wife and two kids would probably be appreciate a bit more home time than any kind of national fleet would have provided.
Wolding, I hear, is picking up something on the order of 50 new drivers for a large increase in business here in the northeast. I gather that they run a lot of bottled water out of Maine to New York and Pennsylvania and new England states, though I have not had that confirmed. Since I know most of those roads, and since the job is being described as mostly "no touch", and of that, mostly "drop and hook", and since at least in this region they are projecting a home time of 2 for 5 it seemed a lot better fit, despite the (slightly) lower pay estimates.
Yes, I've seen some of the naysayers about Wolding... but I wonder how much salt I have to apply to such statements. First of all the majority of them are couple to five years old from what I can see, and secondly a search of the names of at least two of the louder complainers on some of these forums shows no subsequent posting activity at all. I wonder if those people are even driving, anymore.
Every job has its up's and down's; every job has its naysayers. Every job I've ever had, (and I've worked in IT and in Broadcasting, and advertising sales, and a number of other things over the years) has had people who would bitch loudly under the best of conditions.
Let's assume, however, just for the sake of argument, that the charges of running older (borderline) equipment, and the home time situation, are true. Let's also add to the mix that the estimate of home time is going to be a bit optimistic. So what do you do?
Take a look around, people. The economy at the moment is in the toilet and showing no signs of recovery anytime soon. My own personal projection is that this nonsense isn't going to turn around until after November 2012. Given that, I have to be a bit more open minded about where my first ride comes from.
Now, once I get that ride, the question is ; can I ride it out for a year? In my case, I think I can.... and it also appears to me the chances are high that I may even like the place enough to stay on for longer than the first year. If they are providing be a reasonable way to keep my financial head above water for the next year while earning my initial year of driving, it's all good. That would be particularly true, if the recruiters description to me of what the job entails is anything like accurate.
Now, again, this is the inexperienced speaking. But as I say, if I trusted at face value all the complaints about the various compnaies that are hiring, in ANY field... I'd never take a job anywhere. Right?
imp:
