Reality Check

Hey everyone, first off I hope you are all doing well. About 6 months ago I was tossing around the idea of heading to the patch, which ultimately never ended up occurring. Well, my previous employer finally sold his small fleet of 6 trucks last week so I'm looking for work. Now, I've done some pretty extensive searching in regards to finding information about driving in the oil field and about the only thing I can get any real bites on is hauling frac sand.

After getting some insight from other drivers and forums, I tried to get on with a smaller company to drive for an O/O in an attempt to get a higher paycheck each week. Sadly, since I'm a few months shy of 2 years, I haven't been able to find an O/O's that will budge on the experience requirements, due to insurance at the moment. I do have a clean MVR, clean CSA, no criminal record, brand new med card, and all of my endorsements, as well as a total drive time of 7 years (I drove under the table for a local farmer from 18-24 part time while I ran a business with my father) But of course that's not "on paper" so disregard that. Now that my little bio is out of the way I'll get to the point.

I've seen various companies advertising various wages each week and obviously I want to make as much as I can if I'm going to leave my wife and 18 month old for 3 weeks at a time, which of course, I'm not real excited about doing. But around here, you're lucky to find a job bringing in more than 1000 gross a week local, without multiple years of experience. So after speaking to several companies out in the patch I found one that seems to be in the ball park of what I'm looking for.

They are advertising an average of 1500 per wk, ( I know, most wouldn't roll out of bed for that) and they pay your health insurance. Now they're orientation letter stated you can run as much as you want, so if you're able to maximize your hours and run hard, then maybe you could make more, I don't know. (They're on the keep trucking logs, which from my knowledge you can manipulate in your favor like paper logs, at least that's what I saw when my previous boss was thinking of implementing them before selling his trucks)

I'd be running a pneumatic (although I see a lot of folks are moving to sand boxes) which seems quicker and like a lot less headache. But that aside, they have 2 terminals, one in Carlsbad, and one in Midland which would allow me to avoid having to do my laundry at the truck stop, as well as not having to pay and wait for a shower at said truck stop. I wanted to make around 2k a week but with my current VERIFIABLE experience, this is what I currently have on the table.

There are others, but their dragging their feet with the hiring process, whereas the company I detailed, already cleared everything, and wants me there for orientation on Monday. The 4 days of orientation are only paid 50 bucks each day, (sucks) but on your 5th day you get your truck and follow a veteran driver to learn how to run the trailer etc, at your regular percentage rate. I'm not too worried about learning like that as I've done some extensive research about running a pneumatic so I've at least got an idea, and I've been thrown to the wolves before. Anyway, in MY position, what's this offer looking like to those of you in the know? Worth it? Pointless? Decent? Any helpful insight would be greatly appreciated as I don't have a lot of time to sit around with the bills going unpaid.

Thanks in advance,
Dave

 

You certainly are correct about that China, and I wholeheartedly agree. That's exactly what I'm trying to do, just not wanting to end up in a bad spot. I guess it's a gamble regardless where you go anymore.

Dave

 

BUMP! for additional opinions from anyone with some opinions or insight?

 

Central, Tx

 

That's funny you say that. I just had a company call and try to persuade me to run intrastate for them here in Tx. You're home for your 34 on the weekend and MAYBE for a few hours here and there during the week if a load gets you by the house. All the trucks are in nice condition and all are ELD exempt, but the catch is, you've got to run HOT to get the loads where they need to go.

Mainly hauling lumber. They said I should have no problem making a grand a week, but for the risk involved of running hot pretty much EVERY day as the owner told me, I don't know that a grand a week is worth it. For some reason, the way he described everything almost sounded as if it'd be a bigger headache than just going to Midland and running sand for 3 weeks at a time.

The trucks were nice though lol all pete 379's with the big stacks, chicken lights, etc. As we all know, most places that put you in those nice older trucks, USUALLY expect you to run like a scalded dog. I figured that out real quick when about 30 seconds in the guy asked, "how do you feel about having to run up to 18 hours a day at times" lol I had to pause on that one. Don't get me wrong, I've pushed it hard before but if that is a norm at this place, I'm not sure it's worth it, not for an average of only a grand a week. Not to mention the first time you did it, then you've opened yourself up to doing it again, and again, and again in my opinion. You're dancing with the devil running like that everyday, or even every other day if you ask me, but I guess on the bright side, I'd be home on the weekends, unless I were to fall asleep at the wheel and kill myself at some point during the week. That was just a little dark humor although it's absolutely a possibility.

Dave

 

From my understanding it'd be like picking up a load of lumber north of Whitney, running it down to Beaumont, waiting a few hours to unload, hopping over to Houston to swap your flatbed for a 57 ft dry van, then run 20 miles up the road to a warehouse, wait to get loaded, then head to DFW, unload then head back to the North side of Whitney, where you'll swap the dry van with another driver, and get his flat bed. Rinse, repeat. The run itself is around 11-12 hours minus any traffic, load and unload time, and tarping/un tarping anything flatbed related. So you can see how the time adds up real quick, even IF you don't hit bad traffic, but we all know that's rare. That's an example of one of the runs available, and it's the same thing every day, and you HAVE to be back on the North side of Whitney everyday becasue that's how they schedule the runs. Not a lot of room for anything to go wrong, or for you to get caught up anywhere. It's not a situation where you grab your trailer, run to the shipper, get loaded, then run 500 miles, drop and come back.

Dave