When I first got out of CDL school my second company was USA Truck. A huge company, their main business is east of the Mississippi, but they said it wouldn’t be a problem getting me home which at the time was Wichita, KS. They formed my belief that large trucking companies suck. From being on hold for 30 mins every time you called in, to being treated like a number. They always asked what your truck number was, they couldn’t care less what your name was. Plus waiting forever to get your truck screwed up worked on then have to get it fixed again and generally being treated like crap.

This was way before GPS. I think I had a city map of almost every city on the east coast. Directions were given over the Qualcomm and were from one direction and you had to figure out which one. They were updated by drivers and you were supposed to let them know when the directions were wrong. Myself and everyone else probably gave up on that waste of time.

I forget the details, but you were out three or four weeks and got to be home two or three days, it wasn’t much for all of the time you were out. One time I was 500 miles from home and told to go home empty (company truck, I didn’t care), except my home time started right then. 500 miles in a 62 mph governed truck, that was my time off.

What brought this up was I got a load from a broker that just called themselves USA. Could have been any one of a hundred places with USA in their name. When I saw the confirmation it was USA Logistics, a division of USA Truck. Of course the load was screwed up. I get to the pickup and the shipper already loaded it on a trailer. I wasn’t going to pull a different trailer unless I’m paid to go back empty or bobtail back to my trailer. They didn’t like that idea and the load was canceled. And of course they didn’t give me the normal “Truck not Used” fee. I almost told the guy to f-off and never call me again. I know I would have felt better getting all of that pent up frustration from 10 years ago out in only seven words. I missed a great opportunity trying to be a nice guy and I wanted their $100 which was better than nothing but I wanted to tell them where to stick that too.