It was a miserable experience right from the start. I finished driving school and went to orientation in December of '04. Went through the process, physiical and all, then got a trainer. Problem is, no one told me this toothless idiot was nuts. I was driving in Pennsylvania, and it had just started to snow. Thisguy makes me pull over with less than half an innch of snow on the ground. Turned out that he was from Florida, and afraid to drive in the snow. We lost our UPS load as a result. The next morning we drove about five miles, and saw that it had not snowed at all a little further down the road. So I missed a paid load because my trainer was a coward.
This kind if tghing continued until I'd had enough. I told him one night that I no longer wanted him as a trainer, and to drop me off at a motel. I'd call Covenant and get a new trainer. Well, he proceeded to basically kidnap me. He wasn't going top let me off the truck, and was acting completely insane. He hit the brakes very hard and threw me into the windshield. At that point I went into the sleeper, where I called the police on my cellphone. When he heard me on the phone to the police, he took me to a motel. From there I filed a kidnapping report with the police, and waited three days for a new trainer.
My new trainer was okay, and we got along well. At least he wasn't afraid to drive in the snow. But he didn't teach me any backing skills, which will become important later. But we covered a lot of miles and made good money, and all in all I enjoyed having that trainer. He wasn't perfect... Often I couldn't wake him, and I had to keep driving. But I laterlearned that truck driving is like that.
After training I was to go out with another student, who was black, for twenty-one days. We were under a high security load, on our way to pick up a load of Dell computers, when this guy starts threatening me. I told Covenant when I really wanted to educate hhim via my Marine Corps training. But Covenant had strict rules against fighting, and I wasn't going to throw my job away because thhis gguy was too stupid to know that he shouldn't be saying those things to me. I did most of the driving in self preservation. Thhis idiot nearly took out an awning at a convenience store when he whipped it in like he was driving his personal vehicle. It took forever to get out of that parking lot. I got that load delivered to New Jersey, then dumped him. Convenant sent us both back to Chattanooga on a bus. I got a new partner. I have no idea what happened to the other guy, but I was glad top be rid of him.
I went out with another driver, and that experience was pretty much uneventful. He did, however, have a nasty habit of getting lost when we went through a big city, so I had to do most of the driving there as well. But we got along okay, since he slept most of the time.
Soon I was out on my own, and it was a bit scary at first. But I adjusted. I delivered my sercond load to a JCPenneyu store under construction. There wasn't a bit of pavement anywhere, just packed dirt with ruts and stubs for water and gas turnoffs sticking up everywhere. I took the guys word that I could get into the loading dock, and proceeded around the building. There was construiction equipment in use everywhere, and I had to negotiate it all. Some genius had left his plumbing truck on the loading dock, and I bumped it asI backed in. He called the police, who proceeded to tell him thast he should not have been parked there. But Covenant still fined me five hundred dollars anyway.
I was on a dedicated deal, which meant that I couldn't refuse a load unless I was out of hours. My sneaky dispathcher would load me beforre I'd finished a load, then leave for the day. My attempts to inform him that I was out of hours were never heard, as he would always blame me and say that he'd been home at the time. To a road weary driver working on a sixteen hour day of griving, this bit about his being home was like salt in a wound. And he knew it. As a result I was often forced to work beyond the point of exhaustion. I had two other "accidents" as a result, one where I hit a steel pole leaving a Pilot Truck stop in OPhio. Another driver was coming in at the same time, so I moved over to avoid him, just a little too far. Covenant fined me five hundred dollars because I bent one trailer wheel and had to have it fixed. The other involved backing a trailer into a spot at the Chattanooga terminal to have the brakes fixed.in the dark. I hit an improperly park trailer with my tractor and cracked the fiberglass. I was fined five hundreed dollars for that as well.
Fast forward, I quit Covenant, and went to work for US Xpress. I know thye two companys are run by a sister, US Xpress and adopted brother, Covenant. But there was a world of difference in the manner in which they operaed. USX actually knew what they were doing. IO worked there, and never had any problems from them. No accidents, no grief, nothing. But I was driving dedicated for Nissan out of Decherd TN to Canton MS. After a sixteen hour driving day I had to take crap from a kid at the Decherd terminal. I was tired, and disgusted. So I quit.
Here some two and a half years later, I receive a nasty letter from a collection agency, which appears to be owned by Covenant Transport. They inform me that I have to pay the nine hundred dollar remainder of those fines. I sent them two certified letters, one informing them that they cannot "bill" me for a company-lecied fine, and if they'd wanted this money they shoul;d have worked to keep me a happy employee instead of abusing me at every turn. I also informed them never to contact me again on this or any other matter by written or spoken word, and that if they reported me to the credit bureau as they threatened to do that I would sue them for slander and defamation of character.
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