Central Refrigerated Service Employee Review

I worked at Central Refrigerated Service

Pros – Central is a great place to start a driving career. In as little as 1.5 months, you can be driving your own truck and making decent money. Dispatch is usually professional and efficient. They do their best to keep you rolling, but they seem over-worked and don't like to be called over-the-phone unless a serious issue exists (though I don't blame them, as some drivers talk far too much).

Miles and pay is pretty straightforward. I consistently got about 2500 miles per week + at Central, and I took my 4 days of hometime every month. Pay per mile increases with experience, and detention and (maintenance, lack-of-freight) layover pay are available. Better companies with longer average runs (or more home time, whatever you're looking for) are out there, but Central is a great place to earn your CDL and experience.

Cons – The biggest downside is the idle limit. During winter, it's unnecessary to idle your truck because there is a electric space heater type device installed. No bonus is given for the low engine idle time in winter, but during summer engine idle time is limited to 30%. It's very necessary to idle the truck for the air conditioning in summer, so you may exceed 30% and get charged for it. The idle % is totally unaccountable and unpredictable, the driver doesn't have access to the figures used in the calculation. If you don't mind getting hit with a random, unpredictable charge in the summer months, CRS is the company for you! Though overall, a ~$50-80 over-idle charge per month (vs. a $2,000+ paycheck) won't kill you.

Advice to Senior Management – I know fuel is costly, but either make the idle % figures more accountable so that drivers can adjust their behavior/anticipate their penalty charges OR install APUs or other anti-idling equipment OR actually pay out the idle bonus that is advertised during the winter to make up for the summer idle charges.

This would go a long way towards driver retention.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend