I work for a small Denver, Co. based container hauler, Denver Cartage Co.. Will be 12 yrs in Nov., I'm on my 5th truck, 2nd brand new truck in that time.

Started with them in '97, 6 mo out of driving school. They technically required 3 yrs exp. but took a chance with me. Started me off in a beater of an old Int'l (hell most of the fleet were beater Int'l's) day cab. I got lucky after about 5 weeks, one of the guys who was driving a few yrs old Mack CH sleeper got stuck on work release, couldn't do OTR, late or early work. Got lucky and day cab blew a power divider at just the right moment, they gave me the day off, told me to come in on Sat. and moved me into the sleeper. Been driving one ever since. When that truck developed too many issues they moved me into one of the two '95 CH models they had, then in '00 they bought me a brand new '00 Mack CH, 56" condo, nicely loaded considering I'm a local/regional container hauler. Drove her for 978,600 miles til the bought me a '09 CXU model in Sept. '09 (gave me the keys Oct. 1st, '09). Primarily run Co, Wyo., NM, KS, NE, MT.

It's a small company, family owned and operated, the mother and father bought it from a guy in the late 70's, the father passed in '95 and the mother, two sons and daughter have run it since. The mother recently retired in '08 so now it's the kids running it. I'm the senior driver (by continuous time) of 9 company drivers and 2 Independent Operators. I've been very lucky with them, couple of times they could have fired my ###, have had two serious accidents, one was not my fault, one was. After the at fault accident they suspended me without pay for two weeks. Since then, it's been all good, and I'll probably stick around for a long time, I feel like I'm treated by name and like family and not a number making money for the company.

When the economy doesn't suck and we have frieght to haul I make a comfortable living, $800 to $1,000 per week take home. Truely love being a container hauler, out of driving school I worked for a beverage distributor for like 3 months, then a McD's distributor, then got lucky with this. True 99.9% drop and hook, generally if I help load or unload it's because I know the customer and am doing them a favor. Any other time, they cover a lumper or we drop it. Policy is two hours free for load/unload then it's detention of $75.00 per hr (locally I get none of it, but OTR I get 29% of the detention charge), but if the customer demands I help, then I call it in and they stop the free time and begin charging standby time.

Sounds like a good gig!

Get me in there, i'll move to CO! >.<

That sound good

Mom and Pops are the foundation of this country. Sounds like a great job man.