PLEASE BEWARE of Gordon Trucking Inc (GTI) if you are a new CDL driver or seasoned trucker.
Like most trucking firms the recruiter will start with outlining the new equipment, competitive pay, huge safety record, and high weekly miles run (2800-3300), then eagerly conclude with how right you are for their company, and promise you all the amenities that the company can provide, i.E. New truck, APU, Electronic Logs, big bucks, national travel, and the respect of a great company! He will fail to mention why GTI needs drivers like you... They lose them faster than they can train them!
Your first BIG red flag will FLY when you sit through four ten hour days of orientation, stuffed each day with Domino's pizza and redundant rhetoric about what it takes to be "the best and safest, " led by young men and women in their twenties and early thirties fresh out of college, each who cannot answer an intelligent question about trucking, the current DOT regulations, the day to day logistics of a company driver, but will instead respond with, "You'll have to discuss that with your driver manager when you are assigned one!" These trained "parrot children" have never seen the inside of a tractor or trailer, nor have they suffered labor, work, or any hardship that will compare to what you as a GTI driver will endure within minutes of your first assignment!
I am a mature, sharp and experienced man with years of experience in trucking, automotive, and business management. I have a PERFECT Driver's License, a strong work ethic, morals, principles, and a desire for fairness in a world wrought with injustice. I decided to work for GTI not only for the recruiter's promises, but because I believed that trucking with a company "owned by a trucker" (long dead and replaced by his children and grandchildren), I would get a fair shake. I was wrong!
I am near retirement, writing a novel, and I wanted to DRIVE a RIG and travel the US while making $50,000 yearly, as promised, in a sharp 1-2 year old, low mileage aquamarine blue FreighLiner towing a white shiny GTI trailer. Seconds out of Orientation I was assigned an 800,000 mile, filthy roach coach with bad tires, a suspension that hadn't seen a grease gun in a year, inoperable power mirrors, a frozen fifth wheel, a cracked windshield, with so much filth and grease on the seats, mattress, headliner, steering wheel, and shelves (where I was supposed to store my food and clothes), that it required 64 ounces of 409, a quart of Pine-Sol, and three bath towels to make it a place where I didn't feel the compulsion to vomit!
That truck did not make it out of the Pacific WA yard for two days while I sat in a motel and watched my dream to drive for GTI vaporize into less savings than I had before I started! It didn't end there, as after I finally did get on the road I was broken down two times in Wyoming where I sat again waiting for promised earnings and watching my savings diminish. Finally, even the "driver manager, " a nearly functioning, hugely depressed and overweight man informed me that they were returning me to the West Coast for another truck!
Once arrived I was greeted with a three year newer unit that had been crashed and smacked up on both sides with the windshield frame actually bent and twisted to a point the the glass nearly fit the seal. This truck also had not seen professional maintenance for "gawsh knows how long, " and it too was detained at the yard for two days while again I watched my dreams dissipate along with my savings account. The truck's Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) was inoperable with an engine that would not idle, so when the truck was stopped the driver could neither have cab heating or cooling. This of course with me driving between the the 11,000 freezing peaks of Colorado to the blaze of Las Vegas and having to sleep in the acrylic coffin at night in both environments.
Because I then complained so aggressively, I was again routed back to West Coast and the truck was again put into a shop but with unsuccessful results until I got in a donnybrook with middle management and took it on my own to get the problems handled with an outside vendor. For this decision I was labeled as an insubordinate and my employment record was duly noted, but I got the "bad dog" fixed!
Finally, I get myself back on the road, mind you, a month since Orientation, and I have taken home about 1800 dollars, but I conclude that "the equipment is under control, so let's go make those 2800-3300 miles weekly for that 31 cents per, " but alas, I was given routes running primarily back and forth between Northern and Southern California metro areas about 400 miles apart where I spent most of my time in traffic, and made about 1100 dollars for two more 100 hour weeks.
I again began questioning the management and was quickly determined to be a troublemaker, and in my seventh week with the firm, the "Safety Manager, " a body-builder in his mid thirties wearing a black T-Shirt with some reference to the DEVIL on the front of it decided to set me up for the final ultimate failure. He adjusted my Electronic Log internally in a way that was contrary to what I had asked him to do, and when I edited and corrected it according to the computer program available to me, he charged me with "falsifying the log" and fired me with a serious Federal blemish on my otherwise spotless driving history.
As said, I am a mature man, college background, former business owner, and professional who only had a desire to be a trucker in my years before retirement...
Let me say it again, friends and fellow drivers: "BEWARE of Gordon Trucking." they are completely dishonest, poorly managed by egocentric children and "yes-men" who work under a 3rd generation family owned private corporation that shares nothing with its hard working people including a decent wage. They exploit poor people, and although I am not "poor, " i certainly saw the broken souls who drive for them.in fact, the greed of Gordon Trucking is insurmountable, as the Gordon Family of Washington State live like kings and own pieces of Seattle and surrounding lands.
Please beware
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