Here's my deal, I am "supposed" to talk with a CR England recruiter tommorow to get the ball rolling. I am an unemployed plumber that has sucumbed, like quite a few people, to the bad economy. I have no other skills other than plumbing and dispatching.
I have read complaint after complaint about CRE. But here is a common thread I have found: Most of the writing I have seen has been barely readable. It makes me think that most of the people who went to CRE are not intelligent and therefore got a bad shake because they were too stupid begin with. I would never jump into a lease program especially into an industry I do not know anything about. I would like to be a Company Driver until I can get the hang of it and even decide if I want to get the hang of it.
I am assuming this industry is full of idiots, save for a few here and there, but hence the revolving door. I am sure CRE has had their fair share of complaints but I would think they would be totally out of business if things were as bad as most of you guys are saying on here. What is their BBB rating? If they get enough complaints, they won't be BBB accredited, so if they still are accredited, then either people are too lazy to file formal complaints or these complaints are baseless. If you are too lazy to file labor board complaints etc, then don't come here and do nothing else. You are not helping anyone.
I think most of the complaints are based on poor choices by the people complaining. Not all, but quite a few. Why would you ever want to lease when you don't even know the ropes of the business?
Another common thread is, everyone is "Boo Boo Hiss Hiss" about CRE, but not one of you guys are recommending where to go to work for a reputable company. I don't get it, if you're a truck driver, a well respected one, earning good and have worked at CRE in the past and have nothing good to say about it, well then, DAMN IT, tell us where we can go. What's wrong, don't want the competition so you keep it a secret?
When talking with the CRE recruiter on the phone today, she was upfront in telling me the costs and that I wont see my first check for close to a month and to have enough money to get by until then. So why do I keep reading all these complaints about not getting paid for a month? Pay attention to what they are telling you. Read the final print. Read their website
I was told by seasoned drivers to get trained by whoever, work for whoever for about 6 months or a year, then get the hell out and go work for a real good company. When I started plumbing, my first year was nothing but shit work. Digging, digging and more digging. I had to pay my dues.
I figure trucking is the same. Keep your mouth shut, do the runs they tell you to do and then after a year if it still sucks for you, leave and go someplace else. I figure this job is probably better suited for single people, that are not married, no kids, maybe even gay, really and those who have no car payments or house paments and don't want the typical 9 to 5 in an office and don't care about going home. If you have small kids, why even take this job? After reading all these complaints, it would seem to me that you could work at McDonalds and make more money and be home every night to boot, so do that instead.
I believe some people come into this industry thinking, see the world, visit new places, see America.in reality, it should be, I am a loner, I don't want a family and want to live on the road.
Maybe trucking was different in the 70's and 80's and maybe even 90's, but like all industries these days, it's no longer about trying to keep and nurture an employee, companies like Wal-Mart and Home Depot have killed that, it's now all about the bottom line. For every comopany. So I figure you have to go into trucking with your tail between your legs for the first year and say "Yes Sir" and "No Sir" and brown-nose and kiss the ass of your DM until you can prove your mettle and after that year, if your company does not recgonize you are an asset, then go somewhere else.
I read here several times that there are companies that will dismiss CRE's DAC reports, so what do you have to lose? Just go in thinking you gotta pay your dues, prove your worth and starve for a year and then when you get the nuances of the business down, or the basics, go to a reputable company, but PLEASE, for God's sake, don't leave us hanging, tell us which are the best companies. Don't just leave some (mostly) unintelligent writing on ROR to tell us where not to go, tell us where to go.
I haven't made up my mind about CRE, but the only ones posting on Craigs List right now are CRE and CRST, especially for people that have no experience and I don't really want to go to CRST because they are strictly teams and I will admit, I prefer to be alone than to get stuck with some unintelligent yo-yo sitting next to me talking about only getting laid and strippers and all that silly stuff that myself, at 47 now, is way past. So I would prefer to be a solo company man. Again, I believe it can be done. Just shut your mouth, take every run, even if it's only 3 miles long. As a dispatcher for many years for a local delivery service, this is how I would test new employees. If they bitched about the small runs, then when the big ones came, I gave it to the guy that complained the least and let the complainer sit on his ass until he either "got it" or quit.
I am not dismissing every complaint here, nor am I calling everyone a dummy. But clearly, if you cannot spell correctly or form an intelligent thought etc, then maybe you should go back to school first before you take on a job that obviously requires more than just sitting behind a wheel and punching in some info on a mapquest and putting your rig on auto pilot. It's hard work.
The last thing I want to say, is most trucking companies, if not all, have drive cams in the cabs. These cameras are on the windshield and not only do they point out, in case there is an accident it can go back in time and see how the accident happened to show liability, but they also point inside so they can to see how you reacted to an accident and what you were doing I think up to 10 seconds before the accident. So in other words, if you had an accident, this would trip the drive cam to go back in time 10 seconds and see if the fault lay with the rig driver or the automobile etc. This Drive Cam is also a voice recorder so it can also hear what was happening in the cab before the incident.
Now here is the kicker about Drive Cam, you don't have to have a major incident for the camera to go off. At corporate, they can "tweek" the sensitivity of the cam to go off if you even go over a speed bump. After the driver has proved to be safe for awhile, they re-tweek it to not be so sensitive, they can trust you. But the biggest thing about these cams is that corporate can dial in to you and see and hear everything that you are doing in the cab of their trucks, and you won't even know it. Sure this is Big Brother watching, but for liabilty pruposes, they have the right if you are a Company Driver and even a leasee that hasn't finished paying for their trucks. So, if I was corporate and wanted to really see how my new employee was doing, I would simply check him out on cam, and if he is sipping beer while driving or riding a whore in his truck or doing anything wrong or saying anything wrong, I am going to try and get rid of that employee, however I can, either by squeezing him and letting him sit or however. Most every state is employment at will which means any employer can get rid of you for no reason at all.
So, if you are new, shut up, don't say or do stupid things because not only the cam, but that trainer who seems really cool, his job is to rat you out if you do anything unsafe. And he will try to get your confidence and for you to be at ease because this company REALLY wants to know if, when you are alone with their equipment, with the lives of many around you, if you are going to be able to handle it or if you are going to bring a huge lawsuit to their company. So think about all this stuff before you jump into something of this magnitude.
I wish EVERYONE well!
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