After Moore got merged with E.W.Wylie, and Wylie couldn’t handle my no B.S. attitude when saying what I mean to management… hence their insistance that I said I had resigned when I hadn’t…I broke my personal rule and returned to a company I had quit years ago. A little over 7 years ago, I left the Acklie family company, Crete. Mostly because I hate micromanaging but also because of the Maxxfarce powered equipment and their ‘asset manager’ system was still being fine tuned and the combination of the latter 2 made miles hard to come by. I’ve been trucking going on 28 yrs, and really don’t need anything but a truck, a fuel card and dispatcher that knows how to do their job w/o excessive chatting or constant reminders about how to do my job. I don’t even need an ELD, I am fine with paper logs, but the government says I need one, so I have to use the company’s.
I came back to Acklie and started with Shaffer 2 weeks ago. Mostly because of a couple different reasons. 1, their insurance is much cheaper than what I have been paying since the whole Obamacare stuff got passed, and with a lower deductible than Wylie/Moore/Daseke’s (they are both BCBS). Plus, I only had a 30 day waiting period to get coverage. 2, they’re a stable company. Yes, they’re a Mega, but that is a plus when the economy tanks, which it will again eventually, regardless of who is in the Whitehouse, it’s just a well known fact, the economy cycles. I survived the Great Recession of ’08 while at Crete, and feel confident that Shaffer would get me thru just as well when the next big downturn hits. 3, it took them all of 2.5-3 hrs to go from application to scheduling orientation. They rented me a car to get to orientation (no bus travel here). They put me up in an acceptable motel while in orientation, then rented me a car (and paid me more than I was making at Crete before I left to drive it) back to where my assigned truck was located in Deland. The truck is no truck show winner, it’s an older International with some dings and scratches, and a little side fairing damage from previous drivers…but, I requested a manual transmission if available, and I got it. It runs good, pulls better than the Mack I had at Wy-Moore, and has a big enough inverter to use whatever appliances I need, plus it has a Truckfridge installed as well.
Yes, they still have the OnGuard nanny(although they’re not as annoying as the older system they use to have) and they are still good at micromanaging us, but given the fact I left 7+ years ago, I got a 9 cpm raise from what I was making back then to come back…I really need to just do what the wife says to do…”shut up and deal with it”…so, I am chillin doin reefer (freight)…with a Puffin on my back door (yes, it is not a penguin, it’s a puffin)
