I should have known better than to go back to work for a company after already having had one lousy experience with them, so just call me stupid. After all, when I worked for Knight Transportation back in 2008 the truck I was driving had an air conditioner that didn't work, but it was in the fall so I lived with the hot days knowing it would cool off enough to be able to sleep at night.
Nope, the air conditioning issue isn't why I quit the first time... It was because they wouldn't put new batteries in the truck. Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound like a very good reason, right? Let's investigate.
To begin with, instead of the usual four batteries found in 99.99% of over-the-road trucks, the bean counters in Phoenix have decided to run the trucks with only three batteries. Then we have the fact that the trucks are set up to shut off after 5 minutes of idling if the temperature isn't above 70 degrees.
To top it off, I didn't even have a TV in the truck because Knight's bottom-of-the-barrel Volvos barely have enough room in them to store 2 or 3 weeks worth of clothes.
Is it starting to sound kind of dismal yet? Keep reading.
At the end of the day there is always paperwork to be done, but with only 3 batteries after about 20 minutes an alarm goes off and a light on the sleeper berth controls starts flashing. Then all the lights go off! They will come back on if you push a switch on the controls, but after another 5 minutes the alarm sounds again and the lights flash. If I had a lot of route figuring to do or any phone calls to make or directions to write down I had to do it by flashlight.
After a couple months of this dismal existence I called the shop to see if they would replace the batteries. The reply from the shop manager was along the lines of "if the batteries get so low that the APU heater doesn't work we will get you a motel room". Sure.in other words, since the truck was still starting every morning and the freight was still being delivered on time, everything was fine.
About 10 days before I quit it got worse yet. I had no lights in the truck unless the engine was running, and for the first 15 or 20 minutes of driving a very loud and obnoxious "low battery alarm" would beep every second until the batteries got charged enough to shut off the alarm. This beeping alarm got worse every day until the last 5 days consisted of a constant beeping whenever the engine was running. After getting out of the truck my ears would be ringing. It was like a Chinese Water Torture—or worse.
Yet I was still stupid enough to go back to work for them at the beginning of July. This time the truck they put me in had a bad air conditioner that actually blew enough cool air to fool me until I got out on the highway. I already had a load that delivered in Carlisle Pa. After the 4th. Of July holiday, so they told me the shop in Carlisle would fix it. Well, once again it blew cool air while sitting on the yard (after being in the shop for 4 hours) but quit as soon as I hit I-81. I went ahead and delivered the load to Virginia because dispatch told me they would get me right back to Carlisle. Then they dispatched me on a load going to Chicago instead and told me the shop in Joliet was better equipped to fix the a/c. Once again, I went along with it.
I got to Joliet on a Thursday around 1700 and they didn't even get the truck in the shop until Monday morning. They ordered an air compressor for the truck that arrived on Tuesday morning, but then corporate headquarters in Phoenix told them not to put it in because "that wasn't the problem".instead, they would send me to Indianapolis where a crack team of air conditioning wizards would have the truck repaired in no time. I got a load going to Columbus and then reloaded to north of Indy. Dispatch told me to go ahead and deadhead to the Indianapolis terminal after I was empty.
But wait a minute! It was my lucky day, because before I got to the delivery north of Indy they sent me a preplan to Pacific Mo. I could go home, take a few days off, and then they would get me a load to Kansas City where they would REALLY be able to easily fix the problem.
Does anybody reading this really think Knight Transportation had any intention of fixing the air conditioner on this truck?
I did take their truck back to Kansas City, but only to turn it in and say goodbye to Knight for good. For the record, the people who work in the Kansas City office are pretty good people, but the company is ruined by a few bean counters in Phoenix. And then they charged me $200 out of my last paycheck because I quit before 90 days.
If this sounds like a familiar story, maybe you drove for Link America out of Tulsa Oklahoma. Before I went to work for Knight they did the same thing to me!!! I wrote their truck up 3 times for not having a working air conditioner; they also refused to fix it. Hey, at least I could idle their truck!
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