Covenant Transport poor communications, dispatchers, no miles, rooms are gone thru, bad logging Chattanooga Tennessee

I had the greatest pleasure of choosing Covenant to work for. I went down there for orientation 2 weeks ago, and orientation is for 3 days. During that time the normal things go on (drug test, physical, etc). When I had the drug test, they test your sugar in your urine, and I asked what mine was as I'm diabetic. The girl who did it said she forgot to, and asked me how it had been running. I told her normal (as it had been) but to me it struck me odd that they didn't want to redo it as all companies out there aren't taking a diabetic's word on that. No biggy.

The 2nd day of staying in their hotel they own, the rooms were gone through. We were sitting outside in their smoking area, and saw them going room to room. I was appalled that they would go into the rooms, and go thru personal items. They check for drugs, alcohol, or smoking in the rooms. When you first check into the place, you sign a paper saying that they are not responsible for personal items on the property and that they have permission to go into your room at any time for any reason. They lived up to that rule.

While in orientation, you have new students, experienced, togethor. But while going over how to log, they tell you to flag 7 minutes in the morning for pretrips. I said that's asking DOT to give you a fine and the girl telling us how they want you to log said that's how they want you to do it. I flat out refuse to flag a 7 minute pretrip as it should be a bracketed 15-30 minute one. They push per diem but don't tell you they charge 2 cents per mile to take it. Their insurance is also sky high but that's up to individuals to take what they want.

After 3 days of orientation, they take you over to the "white house"--the main terminal. From there its mass confusion. You know you're going into personell, but they don't tell you anything after that. After I was done with personell, I asked them what I was supposed to do. They sent me to outbound, who then sent me into a room at 3:30 to find a team person.

At 3:30 a bunch of people go into this room and you TRY to find someone to team with. It's pretty much a match.com or eharmony room. You go here every day at this time until you find someone. Once you find someone, you get a dispatcher and a truck. The truck ended up in the shop for 3 days as they are slow, and when asking to meet the dispatcher--that was a nightmare in itself. This guy walks into the outbound office, snaps his fingers, points his finger to the door and says "who's here to meet Mike Everitt" then walks out. We looked at each other and followed him out. Total disrespect on this guys part. He was rude, arrogant, and looks down on drivers. I requested a new dispatcher and that took a day to do.

Anyways, the whole two weeks I was there I was sent a total of 33 miles into Dalton GA. We were told to get there asap, then sat until the next day. We drove the truck back to the terminal, and I said I was quitting. I was talked into not quitting, then was sent another load. 117 miles into Atlanta and had an hour to do it. How nice. I put in a message what time I could do it by, but also went into outbound asking what the heck was going on. I said that I might as well quit as I wasn't making any money at this rate and walked out to the truck. I wasn't even in it when my co driver got a message to go to the team room to find another partner. 2nd message within a minute was the load being taken off us. The woman in outbound didn't take long getting on the phone reporting I had quit, and she also didn't hear the WHOLE comment I made.

I did go back in at that point and did quit and got my ticket back home. I didn't get a dispatch so didn't get the $200 sign on bonus, not getting layover pay as I didn't get a dispatch, and basically spent 2 weeks there wasting my time.

If you want to work for a company that has major bad lack of communication this is the one to go to. They will go through your room while you are in orientation, not tell you what to do afterwards when they take you to personell, (you find out on your own), not pay you anything and know how to get around that, plus they charge you for prepass, chains (if you need them in a required state and don't have them), and its very confusing as to whats going on as orientation tells you one thing, then the main terminal tells you another thing. They have an open door policy yet you have to ask to see someone then sit and wait forever for them to come out from behind locked doors. If you don't want to make money and want to be treated rudely this is the place to go.

Hindsight2020
Germantown, Wisconsin
U.S.A.