Don’t work for SAIA out of Denver.
They give you a single screw and your first bid is Grand Junction. Your second run will be Wamsutter, WY over I-80. Their single screws also don’t have a power diverter lock or diff lock.
The single screws are rolling death traps in the mountains. It’s downright DANGEROUS going up Loveland Pass, Eisenhower and Vail during winter in a single screw. Equally just as dangerous in Wyoming when the wind and black ice kick up.
Along with that, no accountability, no standards for their drivers, driver facing cameras that they weaponize against their drivers and just about every holiday is blacked out from taking vacation.
Trucks are commonly 6-8 QUARTS LOW on oil, no washer fluid and low on coolant because many drivers don’t pre-trip, top fluids off or post-trip their trucks and write them up for service. 9 million bugs on the windshield because drivers can’t be bothered to clean their windshields off for the next driver and the interiors are all trashed with dirty napkins, empty food wrappers, empty beverage bottles and trash on the floor, grease everywhere and mud and dirt on the floors.
I know a couple people over there been written up just for picking their phone up off the floor after it fell due to a bumpy road and the camera went off and they have been put on final warning. They weren’t texting or anything, just returning it to the cradle or phone holder.
Management doesn’t care and has no standards of discipline on the conditions of the trucks. The “safety lady” is about a power hungry little tyrant nazi. She has zero trucking experience behind the wheel, but criticizes every driver on what they should and shouldn’t do and yells at you.
Also the TM position has been like a revolving door there. I think they’re on TM # 7 since 2019. No joke. They all leave for better jobs.
I walked out after 2 1/2 years. I had enough of all their games. I had a dispatcher screwing with my freight at the last minute on a regular basis. I’d get all hooked up and as I’m going to dispatch she would change my trailers at the last second and I’d have to drop the set, break it and build another set. It wasn’t random or occasional, it was a regular occurrence at least one to two times a week, some times more. Stupid ##### had 13 hours to figure out what I’m running and puts a trailer that just started loading on me 25 mins before my gate time knowing #### well that trailer wouldn’t be loaded by then. Kristy is about the worst pos dispatcher in Central. Her dumb #### ### should have been fired.
Also for having 44 linehaul runs, their terminal is WAAAAAAY too tiny. Almost every pup trailer is double stacked in that yard. You constantly have to dig trailers out and then good luck finding a spot to hook them up.
They also don’t put sand/salt down where the dollies are parked and getting dollies out when it snows is a real bear with a single axle.
Crappy company. Crappy terminal. Worthless management. Not worth the headache. No weight scale in the yard and no ice scraper to clean the tops of your trailers off. They expect you to get on a ladder and clean it off with a broom. Nope, not my job to get on a ladder. That’s the mechanics job.
I will say two good things.
The paychecks were always good.
The docks know how to load trailers. I had 26K front pups loaded perfectly and never got an overweight ticket.
about all the positive that could be found at Saia. The rest was all negative. Walking out was the best thing I ever did.
