O. K. color me stupid..or maybe it was one of “them” senior moments. I pulled Watkins Shepard up on Google and found answers to most of my questions.
Still would like to hear from
anyone who knows anything about them.
I tried to purge most of what I remembered about WS, but I'll see what I can recall about my short six month time with them:
The company is based out of Missoula, MT with full service terminals in Missoula, Helena, MT, Santa Fe Springs, CA, and Dalton, GA, and other warehouse terminals and yards in various locations across the country.
The main commodities that are hauled are furniture and carpet. Each terminal has warehouse facilities to accommodate these goods with a staff that handles the manual loading and unloading from the docks to the trailers. The biggest terminal that ships furniture is the North Carolina terminal. Drivers who are based on the east coast haul mostly furniture which requires the drivers to manually unload their trailer across many stops per trip. The money is decent for the furniture runs. Drivers have been known to pull in somewhere around a grand a week by just hauling those multiple stop furniture runs.
The other commodities that drivers haul are paper, talc, beer, wine, water/soft drinks, general grocery, and many other commodities.
The company is kinda small, but here is where I struggle with the details about the company's size: over 500 power units consisting of Volvo and Freightliner tractors, 53 foot vans and reefer units, smaller sized trailers (pups, etc; unsure of the proper names), and flatbed trailers. There are owner/operators that haul for WS, but they work in the flatbed division.
A couple of the drivers lounges have kitchens with fully functioning stoves, refrigerators, sinks, cabinets, cable TV, furniture, and sleeper rooms if your truck has to stay in the shop. Just keep the place clean!
The trucks are used, high-mileage vehicles and are usually purchased from other companies such as Crete. Equipment malfunction due to general wear and tear and driver abuse are common, so expect to spend unwanted time at a shop.
The staff from what I remembered is quite nice. Dispatchers are assigned certain geographical locations across the U.S., and are tasked with making sure that the drivers in their areas have no issues such as punctuality with the customers, and making sure that the drivers have loads once they're empty. What's really impressive is the weekend lady: A one-woman army multitasking powerhouse who covers the entire U.S. by herself on the weekend (A nice woman whom I miss working with/for), and handles the numerous phone calls from the drivers and makes sure that they are moving if they haven't been assigned a load. The company has an open door policy, and drivers can walk straight in the office to talk face-to-face with any of the operations or human resources staff.
The mechanics are quite nice and are usually eager to speak with you about any issues that you may have with your equipment.
Randomly jumping around as my memories come back to me, the company holds a ten day orientation for drivers that have graduated from a trucking school. Experienced drivers would only have to sit in orientation for three days. From what I remembered, orientation was the usual: paperwork, drug test, fitness test, driving skills test, JJ Keller videos, etc.
Drivers pay is in the low 30's range with weekly and daily pay offered. I'm unsure of the daily pay part though.
You mentioned something about an interview. Unless WS changed their hiring practices, I am unaware of any interviews that are given.
I only worked at WS for six months. Just like any other job, there will be good days and frustrating days. The reasons for my frustrations included constant equipment breakdowns. I was at the point where I was sick of hauling vans, so I applied for a flatbed company that was willing to hire someone as green as I am. Two years at my current company and I'll probably jump ship again for better opportunities (22 long months remaining...).
Feel free to read the thread that I created in the driver's 20 section which mostly highlights most of my time at WS (amongst whining and whatnot).
WS is a decent company. They're not the best, but they're better than most of the other companies out there.
Hopefully this was sort of helpful.