Got my foot in the door!!!!

Any updates? Are you working yet and with who?

 

I have to agree with Driver5. Everything he said (in my experience) is correct. The main thing you will find in the G/O field is, today it may be up and the next day its down. On paper a company may be able to show you that you can make 100k a year. But by years end, those days you had off because things got slow, you'll show 60k.

Welcome to the patch brother. Hope its a great experience. Just a word of advice, bank some that money. Truly never know when those slow weeks are coming in this business.

 

Then I guess my W2 lied when it showed 87K. That was for 11 months at one company the last month was 10K at another company. That was driving a water truck.

Oilfield companies are not OTR companies.

Right now north dakota is drilling 2000 wells a year and not letting up. Texas drills twice that and oklahoma isn't far behind. Colorado and Wyoming is rocking, Northeast Utah is next up and comer. Southern California was expected to jump next but the environmental movement is to strong. Eastern Ohio is jumping because Pennsylvania and New York are running out the oilfield. Just look at the rig count and rig locations with the baker hughes iPhone app. I've been watching it for 3 years and notice the patterns.

There are 10,000 plus oil and gas related companies in texas. No way you can tell me there isn't a lot of money to be made in the patch.

Do the math. At $20 an hour starting wage , 80 hour work weeks are the norm.

 

Having heard the same regarding training with a new CDL, I'm on that path as well. However have heard that ladies, even older ladies, are hired for this type of driving. Looking forward to hearing all feedback.

 

I hope they are hiring us ladies TruckGal13! My husband and I plan on starting in the Midland/Odessa sometime after October, depending on where we can get hired on at. We both have OTR experience, 4 years, and 2 years of local driving along with our hazmat and tanker. Keeping my fingers crossed!

 

You are a shoe in... start researching the companies now. You can pretty much pick your job.

 

Just an fyi: North Dakota pays way more than Texas.... If you can handle the cold.

 

Thanks Arky! I certainly hope so. The only thing we don't have is experience actually pulling a tanker. All of our experience is with dry van and reefers. We have pulled a lot of hazmat in large totes, so we are familiar with what the surge feels like, but I am sure it is more pronounced in a tanker. We know how to drive though so I am hoping they will take that into consideration.

wadamc, we have looked at jobs up north. The cold really doesn't bother us as we usually ended up spending our winters driving in the Northwest. However, my mom is retired and lives with us here in Texas, so we have to take that into consideration. We are looking at Midland/Odessa because it is less than two hours from where we currently live so we can do our work week down there and then come home on our days off. We will either try to find a place that provides housing or buy a travel trailer and put it in an RV park to use as "home" during the work week.

 

Depends.... and for many driving jobs, the difference in pay is pretty neglible, especially considering Texas has a generally cheaper cost of living differential, zero state taxes, and driving in Texas winters is child's play compared to driving on NoDak's snow and ice in -20.

Both have their pros and cons but unless the pay difference becomes massive, Texas is still the right place for me and many others.

 

So how did it go? Any offers?