Complaint Review: Werner Enterprises - Omaha Nebraska

I was once to a former employee of Werner Enterprise. During orientation they tell you before you leave out they want you to enter into the qual-comm macro for your hometime request. Well when I done that the dispacther send me back a message and she stated and I quote, "I will get you home when I am ready to get you home". I was told that I would have to be out 5.5 days and be home for 1.5. Well I was fine with that. I have been out on the road for six days and I was ready to go home. I asked them politely to get me load going towards the house, so that way I can go and visit my son who was hospitalized for problems he was experiencing. They said deliver your load first then you can go home. Well I ran out of hours before I got to my second stop on a three stop drop. The company ended up splitting the load out with a new driver just got out of orientation. They told me that if I unauthorized dead head home that they would report the truck stolen. I did not realize they could report the truck stolen if the truck was assigned to you by the company. Keep in mind this company wanted me to train new drivers, because I was able to get the load their on time or to be early, and I was never late on picking up a load. There was one night dispatcher there that did not like me. He put a bad mark against me for being late on the load. That caused me not to train new drivers, and all I did was ask him questions about when was the load is suppose to be picked up and delivered, because it did not mention that on the qual-comm. Keep in mind this was a holiday weekend. I was scheduled to go home for the holidays to spend time with family set up two weeks in advance before I left the house. The company's policy is 4 to 7 days in advance for hometime. I cleaned out my truck thorougly. It looked a lot better than it did when I picked up the truck. I picked up the truck at a towing/ recovery place in Memphis, Tennessee. The driver was arrested in the truck. There was junk everywhere in that truck. The truck was a brand new 05 KW W900. It looked like a pig pin inside the truck. (Sorry , I got off track here back to my story) I cleaned the truck out and proceeded to take truck back to the terminal in Indianapolis, Indiana. I did in fact fueled the truck up before I got to the terminal. The next morning I turned in the keys to the truck. And later they ordered my bus ticket back home. On top of that you are bonded with this compnay right. Well they were giving me the run around about my bond money. I wanted to charge interest for their delays in sending me my bond money, and this was like 6 months after I left the company. I realize if the situation had been turned around if I owed them money they would charge me interest. So they ended up sending the money to the State as unclaimed property. Keep in mind, I had been in constant communication with this company about my bond money. What I have learned is when you got a company that advertise all the time about needing drivers is the ones you should give you a red flag from the start, and for you not to go, and work for this company. The companies out there that do not have big turnover rate is the company you need to go, and work for they are the ones that treats their driver(s) right. I hope this helps you to understand these big companies. I do not know who came up with the idea to go with DAC services to begin with. Honestly, it is extremely hard to cut through the red tape you know what I mean. Builders transport did this to me as well, and they went out of business, and they were bought out by SNC, becuase they lost their biggest account at Logan Aluminum. And this put Cannon Express out of business. You know something I have come to realize that is the big companies only care about the load and not their drivers. The drivers are the backbone of a company.(Keep in mind here I am just stating my opinion on this matter in a tactful way). The Federal Government needs to consider some kind of reform on the large trucking companies to live their end of the bargain in promises being broken. Another thing you might want to consider is to ask the company to put it into writing what they say they will do for their new driver. This is a way a company views you as an experienced driver.(The nonsense acts will not be tolerated). By doing this you are covering yourself in case there is a dispute. If the company does not want to put it in writing that should be a warning to you right there. It is easier to walk away before you go to orientation than it is afterwards. They cannot put anything on your DAC, because you do not like what they have to offer you in a driving position. Just say politely, "I will get back with you", or try this,"I have another phone call can you please hold", and then hang up. If they call back do not answer. How do they know if you have phone trouble at your house? If you say anything negative to them over the phone they could try to put something on your DAC. These are some preventive measures. You could even just say,"I think I am going to look around some more".And you could even say,"thank you very much of your time". And always record your conversation. Do not let them know what you are doing.If you have them on speaker phone you could say that you are the only one in the home and you have to get the dishes wash before the wife gets home or something of that nature. That way you have rebuttal for your DAC report if they try to put anything negative on there. I hope this helps you. Best of luck to you.