Challenger? Bison? Better opportunities from Calgary?

Holy crap. I did not think it was possible to make less than $1K a week on the highway.

 

Neither did I, but when you're new you gotta take what you can get. I'm 21 and nobody wanted to hire me due to higher insurance premiums.

 

Just how it is these days, for the first year. The good thing about Challenger and Versa Cold, is you can start with them, do 7-800 a wk paid out after benefits (which a lot of guys don't include in their net numbers) for 6-12 months. Then go full rate, and do $1000-$1400 paid out a week; without changing companies.

Bison/TransX etc etc. It's poverty day one, until the day you leave. Or you suck a planner/fleet manager off and get on pikes or dedicated.

At the end of the day tho, you can be at the best company, and not make #### if your planner/dispatcher/fleet manager sucks. I was able to survive at Bison, because they switched my fleet manager after 4 months, and all of a sudden I was on a roll until the last 2 months. Cut my #### legs off, to the point I was gonna go bankrupt if I didn't quit.

My first dispatcher at my current company sucked, so I gave him 3 months to get it together (talking to the Ops Manager the whole time) and got switched to a different guy in month 4. Literally doubled my income, without really doing anything different on my part. Just gotta find the right people to work with, and understand how to maximize the pay package, during your 70. I've also found that if you have a planner that plans you to run 10-11 days on recaps VS. racing like an idiot for 5 days, 36hrs reset on the road, then race home for 5 days to go on time off. I always make more money with option one.

 

..BigH ,.. another big thank you ! Im sorry brother that you had to "take it for the team " at Bison . I would rather be in a field dressed in wolf,s costume in the middle of a herd of actual bison , than work for Bison ..( 400 a week ?? , thats basically what im collecting on E.I ,) sheesh what an incentive .

 

LOL, I had a good laugh over that one.

Yea, it was a weird time, there was a surplus of truck drivers due to layoffs, and they were the only non-shady place hiring in Calgary. The money wasn't even the worst part, I've pretty much written a novel on here about my time at Bison. The number on thing that just makes them in-tolerable, is the slip seating. I was given trucks full of everything from goat hair to literally human crap. Utter filth, mechanical junkers, that Bison refused to clean in any way shape or form.

One of my better rants.
"As a former Bison driver, who did DFP (and bailed), I would avoid Bison at all costs; unless its comes down to Bison, Arnold Brothers or TransX. Being in Ontario, you have tons of options, that will be way better than Bison. Hyndman Transport for example, I had a bad experience with one of their recruiters, so I went to Bison back in the day instead. The friends who went to Hyndman made more money, drove better non-slip seated trucks, and had better runs. Hyndman advertises a base rate of 0.36cpm to Bison's 0.39. But the lane premiums and such, your average at Hyndman is closer to 0.47 while Bison is 0.43.

The DFP program, has to be one of the biggest scams going. If you went to a decent school, you will MAYBE do 6 weeks of training, then go slip seat for 8 MONTHS!!!! (they say 6, but add 2 more months, since you did well in Training, go figure eh?) at 0.33cpm. The trucks are junk, and filthy, Bison has no cleaning or detail program what so ever (or even a washbay at the terminals). In Training you get paid net $640/week salary, once you go slip seat, expect 5/3 schedule making roughly 5-700net a week for that 8 months. Some weeks will be worse, since they will burn off your 70 in 4.5 days, so you have a bunch of extra days off during the pay period.

Once you get an assigned unit and a raise, its not much better. Since the truck doesn't have to be back for someone else to drive; they can dick you around endlessly. expect 500-800/wk net, maybe 1000 if you get a solid 5 day plan at the start of the pay period. Just be aware they are going to share your assigned truck with everyone and their dog, sometimes people will be waiting for your "assigned truck" with all your stuff in it; as you roll into the terminal. You will also be run ragged, the travel times are never doable, so most guys are taping a bottle to their dick and eating while driving from a cooler beside the seat.

If you survive the 2 years, they will try and not pay you your pay hold back escrow. This happened to every single DFP I know, and its just downright shady. They gamble too see if you know what the payout is supposed to be, half it, and claim it was an "account error" if you #####.

They will literally say anything to get you in the seat, and keep you there. They told me I could go turnpike early, get dedicated runs to Cali, AZ, NV, that I could get on a Pacific NW short haul fleet and make 1500/wk net, etc etc etc. All Lies, not one driver, DFP or not with less than 5 years of taking their dick, would ever get anything but open board OTR or OTR Reefer. Reefer fleet is a disaster, which claims to pay more, but trust me; its not worth the headache with how they run things.

Also if you bail, expect to get sued and have collections sent after you, for whatever amount of money they decide you somehow owe them.

Quite the introduction to trucking I tell ya.

If I had to do it all over again, I would not have done Heyl or Bison.

I would have gone to the same amazing school, and I would have gone to either Hyndman, Schneider or ERB." EDIT *Or Challenger*

 

One more, just cause my Bison PTSD is flaring up lol.

"What the deal with them? Simple, they are the epitome of the evil ####ing corporation. No BS, they spend TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS on marketing and acquiring awards, while paying nothing to their employees. Software, Management Talent, Endless Red Tape and Continuous Improvement, Lean Sigma 6, 4DX ########. Professional Liars, every last one of them. (105% turnover rate also)

The "Safest Fleet" this is also BS, as they self insure, thus hiding most of their incidents. Or they throw the drivers/ownerops/leaseops under the bus with the RCMP/OPP/CVSE so it doesn't affect their carrier profile. Just remember, before they started winning this award, SWIFT won it every year for 10 years; so how much do you think It really means?

Trust me dude, you're in the trucking mecca of Ontario, you have unlimited choices, DO NOT #### YOURSELF OVER WITH BISON!!!!!"

 

BigHoss, tell us how you really feel about Bison.....lol.

 

You should take the info to W5. That would be a great program , outing these companies as to the real reason they cannot fill drivers positions

 

move to grande prairie
sign on with a frac company
theyll pay for your class 1
youll make more $$ than OTR, even during training

 

Very True.

However, as someone who spent 9 years in the field up there; its a hard life. OTR is like being on vacation, compared to Drilling/Frac/Cement. But, you can get your class 1 and 2 years experience, and buy an OTR truck cash when you've had enough. The threat of layoffs is always there tho, which sucks to always have to think about.