Pros
Polite (home base) dispatchers. 99% easy holes. You can choose WHICH days of the week for home time. Excellent quality customer stops.(refer fleet mostly food means nicer facilities) Tractor at home if reasonably secure location. Excellent pay. (based on conversations with many random drivers) Excellent equipment and maintenance. (compared to other companies) Road Service (emergency repairs) is EXCELLENT but you need to be calm and polite and it helps to remember their names and to thank them.
Cons
New hires will replace you on runs you enjoy so your job deteriorates. (this is probably because the large sign-on bonuses are like an investment) Overnight dispatch is clueless, less than helpful somewhat rude. You WILL receive impossible dispatches AFTER your dispatch has gone home. Unspoken need to violate Hours Of Service (HOS) to complete on-time deliveries which is a HUGE financial risk for a humble Truck Driver. After 11.5 months of faithful service my 4 days on, 3 days off was switched to 5/2, that 4/3 is why I signed on in the first place. (but I was allowed to choose the 2 week days my wife of 42 years is home also) As you slowly prove you can do increasingly difficult tasks you are assigned mostly difficult tasks including: 1 to 4 AM pickups and deliveries, impossible dispatches where the customer punishes the driver (you) for being late, absolutely no way to get to home time off without going into violation. Are these bad things because the industry is in a bad place ? I talk to drivers from random companies and our own drivers every day, and the consensus is that, yes things have deteriorated for the average driver. For my first few months with Marten I thought I had a happy job, but it's gone to heck.
