Too soon to change?

Screw Flatbed

Trained with a mega to do it but never finished the over the road training with them .
ended up going tanker hauling milk, Frikin Love It

All my guys I went to school with quit working for the mega before 2 months. Too much work strapping and chaining for the little bit of extra pay and tarping Sucked.

If you have a clean driving record and you are halfway competent at driving you are Golden right now.

No worries about short term job hopping.

Only way I would do flat bedding is with my own truck I own, way too much work for the additional substandard pay over doing dry van or reefer.

Be careful though if you go into tanker. It will ruin you for everything else.

 

Not everyone is good enough for flatbed. Its okay.

 

It's not that.

It's just way too much work for the money, and I know what flatbed is getting a mile to move freight these days.
My best bud been a freight broker for 35 years with 5 employees and it's a full time job to try to find trucks to move it these days.

 

You tell your best buddy to call us, we'll haul whatever freight he's got. Flat, step or rgn we can handle it.

 

So find a flatbed company that pays you for what you actually do. There’s more to life than working for a mega.

 

Plan is to do 9 more months with the company I am with so I have my year in to qualify to sign on with Landstar and run flatbed.

But thinking more towards trying to haul bulk or tanker with them.

 

There is two answers. One is what you should do the other is real world what most do finally do. What you should do is stick it out and finish that year. However if all the physical aspects of running flatbeds is not working out, do what most others do. Just leave! However understand with less then 6 months you are going in almost every case to be put with a trainer. Also try to make good choices because having a lot of jobs in a short space of time looks bad.

 

If you aren't immune to hard work, but your only beef with your current situation is that you aren't compensated enough for that work, then the question becomes:

What is your long term plan?

In five years do you want to become an owner/operator? If so, what kind of truck and trailer will make the most money? What steps in your career will help enhance your future success?

Sometimes chasing an immediate increase in income won't help your long term goal. Be honest with yourself. If you are okay with being a company driver for the foreseeable future, then figure out which company is best for you and make career choices that put you in position to work for them.

 

Absolutely Love my job working for a little 100 truck milk and cheese hauling company.
Got a 2 year old Western Star glider with a Honey of a running little Detroit and even with the 10 speed it pulls the hills fully loaded well.

The maintenance is top notch . Complained about my seat not reclining, they slapped in a brand new Legacy seat for me and took out the passenger seat at the same time .

I installed my backwards facing BarcaLounger so I could watch Seinfeld reruns on my 40 inch TV hanging On the back wall while they pay me 60 bucks to get loaded for 2 hours.

Said the truck was pulling little bit. Garage put new tires on all around and aligned it.

Office staff is awesomely nice and helpful.

My dispatch is some of the nicest most easy going people you could ever meet.

I've been self employed for 30 years, I was scared to Death of going to work for someone again and dealing with their poor attitudes .

But I lucked out with this outfit and I thank the head of the company monthly for hiring my dum rookie ###.

Hate to leave them next year, I actually had plans to leave them in the fall and try to hire on with a mega company that would allow me to move back to my home is S.W. Florida, but their to nice and I can't give up my Western Star.
Too much money being left on the table with rates up right now

 

Stick with it. There is always time to quit later. It's still probably new enough to you that it's harder than it will become. If this job was as hard as it seemed to me the first few weeks or months I was doing it nobody would want to do it. If you can switch types of trucking without leaving your company then maybe. If you have to change companies to change trailers, I wouldn't do it. What if the 2nd company isn't what you expected you could be looking for a 3rd job in no-time. You don't want to be that guy choosing between Western Express and what ever company is worse than WE.