Is it worth it to do teams?

I teamed with my wife for four months.

She said to me, "This job SUCKS! I can't believe you've been doing it for as long as you have! When we get back to the terminal, I'M QUITTING!" And she did.

There's no one else I would want to team with.....

 

I team with my girlfriend and its OK lol we get along very well and run hard the only thing that bothers me is i make LESS money vs me being solo....

 

Depends on which company you team with. Florida Beauty Express in Ventura make big money because they run hard to New York & Miami.
TWT Refrigerated Service pays teams .60 cpm split. Nice trucks with Tripac APU and refrigerator.

 

It all depends on company. i feel if you aren't making 50-60k as a new driver teaming and 75+ as a experienced driver teaming it honestly isn't worth it. teaming is rough and i couldn't imagine doing It with a stranger.

 

Totally.

We were a husband wife team for FFE in 2001. They kept us in fuel which was being filled every 30 hours or so. Or 1600 miles give or take in that time period. Fuel fuel fuel, 221,000 miles in 9 months or so something like 7500 hours on a Detriot and 85,000 dollars in fuel bills to FFE. They paid it. We were company drivers.

For that we got 306 service days with another company plus FFE running contract for McKesson in total that year, grossed 65K and taxes were eliminated with the Per Diem claiming. In addition the 4 digit refunding (We paid 100 to federal and 75 to state, if there was any tax to pay Arkansas is the expensive one... so we bypassed that problem by building a refund via payroll Arkansas wanted several thousand in taxes each year. Ugh.)

And we treated the USA as a place to be ready at a moment's notice to go get a single driver who is running late and grab his load and go deliver it quick before the account to who that load belongs to Fires FFE for non delivery. The lazy single usually got fired and that would be that. One was actually a trainer and his student. I think FFE fired both for laying around in the Sky City Casino one time. Load of Flowers from Phoenix/Mexico to Chicago. They were 19 to 24 hours LATE with that load. If those flowers were NOT in Chicago by midnight FFE would have lost a big time account. For us being in Voss MO to grab this thing and GO was a high point. Not so much for the trainer and his poor student who knew nothing. (And potentially was ruined by bad trainer)

Then there is the coast to coast LA to Avenel to LA again in 5 days flat. Maybe part of a 6th day if traffic was intense. Teams essentially meant the logbooks were not a liability.

In those days there was no 11 hour driving, 34 hour resets nothing. We rolled. Food and drinks? Once a month in the Larime Walmart super center for 6 weeks worth for two people. No truckstops except fuel and showers and the occasional date night when a better eating place is not around.

We pretty much spent two winters running the Rockies in the dead of winter. Chains? Hah. We rolled around the storms so fast and thru and out before the states threw up the chain laws. That was one advantage. Spouse spent so much time on straight ice as a rookie it damaged her a little bit. No one should drive on that ice and split ice so much in the first 3 months of trucking.

Teams can do it. But they have to be a tight team and totally focused on that truck. Why do we not do it anymore? Spouse was getting overweight from the bad food and stress. Literally saw the pre-cancer changes in her. So home she went. I went home later when DOT medical related items started really showing up in my worn out body. Surgeries took care of several such as cataracts and blindness and other removals of body problems from wear and tear. But the rest of it is quality of life for me. In my time truckers lived to be 56 at most. Im past 50 and my last contact with a big truck was in 2009 as a crew boss teaching newbies how to manual CDL or automatic CDL depending on what they knew or did not know at the auction house.

To be a team means you cannot fight. If you two have a dispute and you will... that curtain is closed until you both can be civil again and speak like adults in a few hours or tomorrow about the issue, but you do not fight in that cab. That truck is first. Load second. Your problems are dead last unless you two cannot continue being a team. Then one or both will be sent home and that is that. be very careful here.

 

Sadly as a new person you don't have much of a choice but if you do i wouldn't do teams.