These days, there is an epidemic of fake news spewing from the mouths of trucking recruiters: “The Most Miles!!!” “Endless Hometime!!!” “The Biggest Sleepers!!!” “The Nicest Dispatchers!!!”
One trucking company has decided to f*@#ing do something about it.
In a brand new video, Kansas City, Kansas-based trucking company Riverside Transport Inc. (RTI) puts other companies on blast for making promises to their drivers that they simply can’t keep.
Fake News Vs. The Real Deal
Taking a cheeky and surprisingly profanity-heavy tone, the RTI video features bikini-clad girls doing oil changes, sleeper berths big enough to house a baby elephant, and one particularly memorable trucker parading around the office in a crown and royal robes — all clearly meant to mimic the too-good-to-be-true pledges that many trucking companies will make in order to lure in new drivers.
After laying on the cheese during the “Fake News” segments, RTI cuts through the recruiting crap and offers an honest look at what drivers can actually expect from their day-to-day experience. The video showcases a workplace that looks like, well, an actual functioning trucking terminal — rather than something out of a rap video fever dream. The RTI staff sadly doesn’t come to work dressed for a skeezy pool party — but it is clear from the video that they do come to work fully prepared to take care of the needs of their drivers.
“Make Trucking Great Again” — By Telling Drivers The Truth
Most experienced drivers know that the only way to “win” at trucking is to be able to separate the facts from the fake news. By calling other companies out for the exaggerations, tall tales, and outright lies that they tell their would-be drivers, RTI clearly hopes to bring a level of honesty back into trucking and to “Make Trucking Great Again.”
RTI’s Director of Recruiting Sadie Clement explains how the video came into being:
“Part of the inspiration for the video came from (well, obviously all this Real News, Fake News business) but the premise behind it came from a day spent at a recruiting fair. I was across from a booth where the recruiters asked every single driver the same two questions, ‘How much money do you want to make?’ and ‘How many miles do you need to get each week?’ — literally every single driver! And no matter what the driver said, ‘$80,000 a year,’ ‘4,000 miles a week,’ the recruiters said, ‘We can do that,’ and I knew the company and knew that was bullsh*t. No company can make those promises or guarantees to every single driver — this is trucking; you’re going to have good weeks and bad weeks. We don’t try to paint a pretty picture for our drivers; we’ll tell you the good, bad and ugly, and if you have something going for you now that’s better than what we can offer, we’ll tell you; we want you to come work with us because it’s a good move for you, and we feel that’s part of the reason why our turnover rate is so low — that and our culture. We truly do have an open-door policy. We have good equipment and we have a good program. We’re proud of what we can offer at RTI, but we’ll never promise sunshine and rainbows.”
So if you’re fed up with recruiters who lie to you, dispatchers who mislead you, and a trucking terminal staff that ignores you, you effing owe it to yourself to click here give RTI a try.
NOT FAKE NEWS: RTI Has Been Trucking For 20 Years
RTI was founded in 1993 and has grown from 10 owner-operators and 20 trailers into a company that employs over 500 people and operates more than 1500 pieces of equipment. With terminals in Kansas City, Kansas, Owensboro, Kentucky, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, RTI offers a variety of bullsh*t-free options for their drivers, including Over the Road Long Haul, Short Haul Regional, Local, and Dedicated routes.