newbies going into trucking with blindfolds

Yeah too many people lack work ethic, dedication, and goals. Try starting at 10cpm. It isn't how you start but how you progress.

 

No need to run all those miles. Get in the back and stack that meat!! What is this world come 2. People get themselves in debt and then expect every job to get them out of it. You got to learn how to work kid. Or Learn how to keep that dollar in that pocket.

Also I think Rocor was bought out by prime in 2007 or so.

 

Buddy of mine left local Sterling and/or Freightliner biz class bobtail work that paid $10.35 per hour plus benefits - and home every night - for the dream job trucking company that reminds one of the Queen of...and in all their splendor and glory, with their bright, shiny rigs and "classy" logo...so, when I told him, "no, do not do that, this in and out of the boxy, little single axle all day is a lot of effort but you will regret it", well, he said "no, baby, I was born to run!" And "I need to get on the road and be a big time trucker now. I'm proven and groovin'." Seems a recruiter got the best of him at a jobs fair. The poor boy only had to run from Fontana to Riverside, then on out to Blythe every day with six or seven stops, and, once in a blue moon while, to Chowchilla or Tulare nonstop, where they put him up in a motel if it got late! And gave him $12 bucks to eat! A long day was 12 hours, most were 9 or 10.

The big boys promised him the world, of course, and he quit his 5 year's in job and went up "North" to be schooled. A fate would have it, another local bob tailer from Socal this guy knew was washed out by his trainer in the first week out for "log book violations", namely just not doing them right - his earliest of days and all - the fact he was Gay having no bearing on the old Salty lake redneck I am sure. That right put a scare into my friend but he hung with it and got er' done and got out there in the shiny aluminum with a "trainer" who, less than a year before had been doing home health care in Victorville. They ran some sort of dedicated account, I believe, right back in Cali, where my friend was paid 12 cents per mile to run the 445 miles up to Sacramento and then drag another box up Donner the same day, no rest. He figures he was making about $4.45 cents per hour, or less than half the California minimum wage. He had been making a clean $80 per day take home. Not great, but good pay for a GED grad with a Misdemeanor when he was 20, and no inclination for college. When they got to Reno the "trainer" yelled at him for being to slow on the down grade into the Silver State and told him to "get a move on because they were going to "push on" to Boise! They stopped at a Burger King to get some food and my buddy literally asked the kid behind the counter what he was making and he told him what it was. My exhausted buddy walked out to the truck, got his bag and little brief case he carried around, and told the trainer to beat feet. He caught a cab to a motel, called me the next day, and my wife wired him some Southwest Airlines airfare and he was home that night. He now works as an assistant manager at an In and Out Burger and pulls nearly $40 grand and benefits, meets girls every day, and has fun, plus he comes home every night to his own small, but well appointed condo in Palm Springs. Drives a new Kia. Nice kid. Good for him. And they give him room to take community college classes now that he sees the merits of book learnin'.

Why anybody would do this trucking thing for the "big boys" is beyond me. It is a crap job and they are all being manipulated to the point of sweat shop, near third world abuse, yet they keep coming, lured by that bright, shiny rig and the false-notion this is a noble profession.

I have too may years in to quit, but at least I drive for the government now and I can honestly say I would take the burger job if I didn't have this. Trucking is not for everyone, especially those who value not being exploited, doing serious and dangerous (potentially) work for, in many cases, less than minimum wage.

OTR Trucking, as a career, as far as I am concerned, is dead. I ran for the old PST in 1990 and gave them three trips from Stockton to SLC and told them to take a hike. Gov driving ever since. Sad, this so-called, profession. Do not sugar coat it. It is third-world exploitation and your politicians, both corrupt parties, are responsible. Burgers and babes and home very night for two times more than driving a pretty Freightliner from Fontana to Boise with a fat, stinky, screamer with bad gas? Easy choice.

 

Im calling BS on alot of what Count is saying above. I know im still a student, but the money is there assuming one actually does their homework and searches for the decent starting companies. My current career field is where I have been for 7 years, 5 with the current company. My job started at 33500 a year in 2009 when I hired on. May 15 I will be here 5 years and in that time, in an industry where my company makes 300-400mil a year just in my state, not counting the other 9 states where they have similar contracts, with operating costs of 200mil a year here and far less in other states, my pay hasnt even reached 34000. And I am one of the top performing field personnel. Im no slouch, I bust my ### for this company but when we had to wait for 3 years just to get a raise that amounted to 30cents and was only given to get us to not go union, im done here. Ill take my dad's recommendation and get my CDL from a private school using my GI Bill and go work for one of the better paying starter companies for a year or two or longer. I come from a family of truckers, I know what its gonna take to succeed, and I know it aint gonna be easy. There will be time away from my wife and kids, and dogs. Im ok with it, and so are they. Ill be getting into the industry about the same time my dad did, his mid 30's. I know its changed over the years with ELogs, and EORB, I can and will work around it as my current company vehicle already has both. In the end its like this, it is a lifestyle, one that I have lived through with my father, and several other close members. If I can come out making even 100 more a week then what I am making now, then I am perfectly happy with it.

 

Sorry Gunner, that is no BS. I was a bit fanciful in relating the story for a laugh, but it is very true. My buddy was told he would get .12 per mi until he was approved by his trainer. Unless he is lying to me and this is a good kid. I doubt it very much. His pay warrant, the one and only he received, reflects about what he said $4.45 or so per hour if you add up all the time he was On Duty that day. That VERY long day.

Some companies pay great, some companies pay peanuts. Some treat you pretty well, some treat you like a Nike Air Jordan assembly liner. I am surprised some of the big OTRs have not held employee's against their will. Many have come close. It is that bad in places.

Good luck on your driving career. I will not submit to OTR exploitation. To each their own.

 

Put my wife through College, bought 2 houses, now putting my Son through college. Yeah, it sucks to be this exploited when all you own is a 3 bed 2 bath 1800sq ft home and a convertible BMW. Pardon me while I head off to Whataburger for my career change.

 

CNN says the Count is no BS 'er.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/19/news/economy/port-truck-drivers-wages/

I know that CNN is optimistic.

 

Right but when you have the mega that pay absolute ####, when they have more drivers than the rest of the industry combined they are going to have an average pay that's less then everyone else. I'm not going that route as a new driver I'm doing/done my homework, listened to the advise of my peers, and staying away from them. I don't want to be beholden to a company of low pay and low standards. I want to hit the ground running making more then I am now, and it's possible by doing exactly as I am doing. So yes by my standards is bs, if your not practicing common sense, then no-one else is to blame but yourself