The way you say it "the negative guys & the honest ones" makes it like if ya don't say great things are you're not honest. I started out as a positive guy. I even came on this site & said good things about the place.
When the fuel shot up I didn't expect the company to eat the whole thing. I was fine w/ taking some of the hit. I came to work in blizzards, I helped cover other people's routes if they were late. One time I ran over something & got 2 flat tires. I changed 1 & with the other just kept filling it w/ air at gas stations. I finished the route though & was only a little late.
Once they start taking advantage of people though, the positive attitude goes south. It would seem that if a stop is added to the route, the driver would get more money. That's just common sense. The company makes more. My route was 15 stops originally. At 16 & 17 I kept it. At 18 I said not without more pay. They said they'd get someone else to do it then. That's when I quit/got fired.
I actually think that's a business plan of some of these companies. They'll get a route set up. Add to it, know drivers are going to quit & hire someone else who starts out not knowing what went on before. The person who replaced me had 18 stops on the route & was fine. Who knows? Maybe if I was the 2nd one on it I would have thought 18 stops was ok too. I kept in touch w/ some of the people I used to work for & last I had heard my former route now had 21 stops & the guy who replaced me left.
On the route I was on, there were 5 similar routes, so 6 total. In less than a year those 6 routes went through 17 drivers.
We do agree with the part of find some drivers who already work there & see what they say. I just think if drivers tell you specific things that happened, that's not being negative. That's simply telling ya what happened.
In the 90's I started driving for a courier company, then became a dispatcher and finally ops mgr. We had about 60 drivers all independents of course. Some guys made 300 a week some guys made 700. It was a lot like expediting in the respect of having good and bad weeks. We only had a few routes mostly on demand. We also dabbled in expedite but really more of a hotshot, run one way and deadhead home. We paid a percentage depending if it was car, pickup or van and actually showed on the drivers settlement the exact charge to the customer. Just like expediting find some drivers working for the company and talk with them. You will get the negative guys and the honest ones so listen with a grain of salt.
