Pay.
Work/life balance.
Management.
Benefits.
All they tell you is that they are the contract carrier for Coca-Cola. In fact, they are a wholly owned subsidiary. That being said, you can get more pay and better treatment somewhere else. Don't let name recognition of your employer have more value to you than personal and professional recognition and growth.
For drivers:
It is important to understand that you making money is secondary to the company making money. Yes, they have day runs. Yes, you are home every night (company driver). No, you will not work less than 14 hours. As the night time lead says, "Once you come in the door we've got you for 14 hours." YOU WILL work 14 hours a day and get paid mileage. Unfortunately you are not driving you full DOT drive time every day. You MIGHT get 250-300 miles, you will have 4-5 runs that are impossible to make (not because the load planners are incompetent; but because they have too many loads, not enough drivers, and not enough trailers...and upper management tells them to clear all loads from the load board where it is practical or not).
If you have to make a stop you don't get paid for each stop and at each stop you give the company 30 minutes for free. Meaning, if you have 5 stops and stop 30 minutes each time you get paid $0 for waiting, $0 per stop, and gave the company 2 1/2 hours free because you only get paid mileage. Otherwise wait time is paid at $21/hour but it doesn't benefit you unless the wait is 4 hours or more (which happens sometimes) because you are not moving.
As a driver your pay will be jacked up. It is on you to make sure that your runs are closed out properly in their electronic log (Rand McNally in trucks; TMW in the office). You get paid off the miles for the completed runs that show in TMW. However, if you have to go 30 miles out of your way to get a trailer you won't get the 60 miles round trip unless someone in the dispatch office adds the legs...which often times they don't because the folks in the dispatch office are the lowest paid members in the company. Many have no trucking/transportation/logistics experience so you will have people tell you to "bobcat home" because they are clueless about basic terminology. Additionally, if you are unable to close out your run in Rand McNally and you call dispatch and they "forget" to do it in TMW then you don't get paid for the entire run. Your pay is in the hands of those that are either good on the phone with transportation and logistics experience but cannot type or use a computer to adequately update information in a timely manner; or left up to those that tell you to "bobcat" home and sleep in the office while watching Sportscenter on ESPN.
For non-drivers:
For non-drivers the career opportunity is limited. If you check out the work profiles of most in management or senior management on LinkedIn they came from somewhere other than Coca-Cola/Red Classic.
The career path for non-management is as follows...
contractor/logistics administrator/paper pusher > assistant dispatcher > dispatcher > planner
That's it. Unless you come from outside with trucking experience and management experience you won't be going anywhere. Good luck with an internal transfer anywhere meaningful. You are the lowest paid members of the company with the highest liability.
