P&D

Some decisions in life are irreversible. This isn't one of them. If P&D isn't for you, you'll learn from the experience and move on to something new. A driver with a track record of productivity, safety and reliability will always have options. Why not give it a shot? I'm not seeing a downside.

 

Road construction jobs are a dime a dozen. Every major road builder is looking for work. When they tore up our street, I noticed the guy was going from the dump truck to the excavator, to the skid steer, I couldn't help myself, I said, "are you a 1 man show"? He said, he had an ad all summer, and NOBODY applied. He said I could be working that afternoon, but he wouldn't pay me cash. See, that's the thing here, and I'm not chewing you out, but you came here to ask us what to do, practically unanimous to take the P&D job, and yet you just don't know. Take this site as gospel, my friend, you won't find a better place for these questions.

 

Also look long term..the old dominion job could easily put you in position to retire comfortably when it’s time…

 

I'm a younger guy with some budding health problems and horrible genetics/family history of dying very young and living in bad From from about 35 to their demise at 60 years old. From what I know OD has amazing insurance at insanely cheap rates.

The construction/grading jobs I've worked has the health insurance plan of:

"Well if you can't hack it, you're not a man. Real men don't go to the doctor and you should spend your paycheck on beer and pick up truck parts."

Not to mention every one of those construction and road work jobs have paid crap and cheated me on hours/OT.

You'd be absolutely insane to turn down a job offer with Old Dominion. Nice new equipment, everything is ran legally and by the books, great insurance, amazing retirement plan, great pay. Etc.

 

P&d = day shift. You’ll be off weekends. Also most LTL’s get the holidays off paid. 3-4 day weekends paid for. Easy money compared to Foodservice. Also if you need extra money I heard they allow p&d guys to work Linehaul on the weekends if they’re busy. Also there isn’t mad OT at OD depending on the area.

 

Make the jump to p&d, it's a good job. Like others have said, this is a company you could comfortably retire from.

First few weeks or so will have you questioning the decision, but once you have settled in you will not remember when you used to do something else.

You are likely to be just as happy here as the othe jobs.

Don't like it...well pavi g jobs co.e up often as do grain hauling etc. That you have experience with and contacts, probably not hard to switch back.

 

From what I have heard from a local OD driver they allow about 45 hours a week on P&D or as a P&D/Dock worker but allow those guys to do linehaul runs at cpm on the weekend for more money.

The terminal he works says linehaul runs hard as #### due to the location of other terminals. Most are 600 mile runs through the mountains and snow in the winter. But P&D is more laid back due to having pickups 200 miles away some days.

I know another guy who works the IIRC Dallas/FW terminal and he says it is a great job but he hated P&D there.

 

P&D just depends on the terminal. Some serve large industrial areas, and the routes are really easy because it’s all places meant for trucks with docks and forklifts. Some terminals serve downtown areas, and those routes can be rough. Some routes are a lot of residential, so you may not even drive a tractor-trailer everyday (they have 26’ box trucks too). While linehaul is all bid by seniority, P&D doesn’t necessarily work that way. At my terminal, they shuffle the P&D guys now and then, and especially if there are certain expectations or concerns with certain customers. We have guys who run routes, and we have guys who shuttle trailers between a customer’s dock and ours all day. We also have at least one combo driver who covers one of our two linehaul drivers (I’m one of them) whenever we have vacations days approved. He says P&D is way easier, but I think he just doesn’t like driving nights.
Overall you can’t go wrong. It’s definitely a long term kind of company. Also, not surprising at all that you got a call when maybe you thought you wouldn’t be considered. The prevailing practice recently has been to look at applicants with a couple year’s experience who may be more adaptable compared to ones with 10 years or more and stuck in their ways.
OD definitely wants you to do things their way, but their way isn’t difficult.

 

^^^ This!!!

 

I'd imagine a lot too is to bring in younger manpower as well. I only ever see grey haired older guys driving for OD. That's usually most truckers that aren't running for a mega these days it seems but OD seems to be more 55+.

That's the land of sudden unexpected medical card revocations or dying age for life long truckers. My last company lost 3 guys in a 6 month window due to medical cards being revoked. 1 guy was able to get his back after 2 months of doctor shopping. The others retired. We only operated with 10 or so drivers. We lost 1/3 of the workforce in a very small timeframe. And when you factor in the slackers vs the hard workers we really lost about 40-50% productivity.

It's a shame 1 75 year old driver supported as much work as the two 40-somethings slackers plus the fat #### route manager who needed to be fired the day after he was hired.

Trucking jobs that have more manual labor involved than pulling a fifth wheel or slamming the stall door at a love's toilet really weed out a lot of the terminally lazy, unless you have management that is too scared to fire people or place reasonable demands on drivers.