So ya wanna drive a day cab. (The beginners company guide to ltl)

Ok... I'm gonna give away some personal info. I figure it's worth it to inform potential day cab job seekers of what to expect.
I work for XPO Logistics. Although I work out of a smaller service center and not a large hub, I believe I know enough about how the company operates to be informative.
XPO will hire inexperienced or non CDL drivers and put them through an on the job training and probation program. During this time they will be paid a flat weekly rate equal to 40 hours at the starting rate of around $23 hr. I don't have the exact numbers, and the wages vary slightly depending on the region and location, i.e. larger cities and service centers may have a bit higher starting wage and/or payscale.
There are some unionized locations, but they are mostly in the south and east coast. The non-union facilities try to operate very close to union rules to keep the unions out and the hiring benefits competitive with other similar big name LTL carriers.
That being said, new hires will be at the bottom of the extra board(available work). My facility doesn't require "on call" as it were, but if you want to work, you had better be available when needed. My management is courteous enough to try to be reasonable as far as asking extras to interchange shifts mid-week, but there's times when they will ask you to work days and change it up to nights mid-week. That's trucking for ya!
JOB BIDS:
Each new calendar year all non-salary employees are required to bid on the available positions respectively. This is entirely based on seniority, therefore those with the longest service record will get first choice on the most ideal shift or run to suit their needs. The lowest senior employees will get whatever is left. This is a turn off for many new hires who aren't willing to put in their time and work their way up to the better shifts/runs.
Vacation time requests are also turned in at the beginning of the year and are seniority based, therefore if a particular day or days have been booked up by the senior drivers, you may be denied those days. After the initial requests have been given, anyone may put in for vacation at anytime on a first come first serve basis.
Currently at XPO new drivers will be given a substantial raise each consecutive year of service up to the completion of three years in which they will reach top pay scale. At my location the hourly is a little over $28 hr. and around $.68 CPM for linehaul. Hourly drivers also receive time and 1/2 after the 8th hour each day. There is a 401k retirement plan with stock options, and decent family medical, dental, vision benefits with several plan choices depending on individual needs. This is mostly a Monday thru Friday job with paid holidays.
Hourly start time bids are for local pick up & delivery runs, which usually start in the A.M. hours and will consist of a delivery route around a local area and pick-ups before returning to the service center. This may involve multiple tandem trailers being pulled to another nearby town for delivery, liftgate deliveries, or a longbox full of freight. Depending on the day a driver may have 10-25 stops including pickups. Long hours are not uncommon. The biggest challenge of P&D is getting the entire route done before the customers close up for the day, so it really helps to get to know the regular stops and try to work around their various hours, lunches etc.
The linehaul runs are some day and some night, again, this depends on the location. My service center currently has 2 meet & turn day runs consisting of 2 drivers on each run. These particular runs are doubles or triples, and are in excess of 500 miles for a round trip where they meet halfway with drivers from another service location and do a power slide(swapping trailers).
We also have a couple of night runs where the drivers make a round trip to a FAC(freight assembly center), which is another dock or service center where freight is transferred to its respective destinations.
Here are some cons that will probably turn potentials away...
At XPO drivers are trained to work the dock, loading and unloading trailers. Not all bids require dock work, but it comes with the job. The drivers who are on the dock are paid hourly, just as if they were driving. The linehaul drivers who travel to another dock each night for the FAC are commonly expected to report to the dock upon arrival to assist in unloading and loading their own trailers for the return trip. This usually consists of 2-3 hours of dock work each night. They are paid the mileage rate and then hourly for dock time. Most XPO docks are non climate controlled, so it can be a little tough in extreme weather conditions. I live in the mountain states, it can get cold so you have to bundle up and be prepared for it.
The other biggest turn-off for anyone looking to hire on are the cameras, yes they are forward and driver facing, so if the EOBR triggers an event the camera will record and cache 11 seconds of video, some before and after footage of the incident. This is the part where many of you drivers reading this will say "I'm not ever driving for one of those companies."
I get it, but I'm just being as informative
as I can.
Oh BTW most of the trucks are Cascadias,
some new, some old, some automatic, some 10 speed. There are still a few older Ford Sterling tractors too, but these usually are reserved for city runs, so line drivers get the newer equipment. Trucks are loosely assigned to senior drivers but slip-seating is what it is and nothing is set in stone.
I think I'm done with my novel, I hope it helps to inform people about XPO Logistics, and if you have any more questions, let me know.
Thanks for reading!!!

 

Funny you should mention that, because I did about 15 mos. OTR prior to LTL.
I thought that it was a pre requisite.

 

Just feel like I should clear some things up so it doesn't confuse new drivers...

LTL means Less-Than-Truckload and it refers to carriers that ship smaller amounts for companies when it wouldn’t make financial sense for that company to hire a full 53’ trailer. So if Walmart orders 500 microwaves from GE, they would have an LTL company like FedEx Freight go pick them up, then they would ship a few skids to each Walmart distribution center around the country. If they ordered 10,000 microwaves, they would probably hire a traditional carrier to ship full truckloads to each DC. There are tons of local daycab jobs that will take new drivers if you know where to look, and only a small part of that is LTL companies.

Linehaul is something that is often associated with LTL but it’s really something that many different companies do. Basically anytime you move trailers between your company’s yards (or meet another driver halfway to swap and return), that is linehaul. What @FlaSwampRat does for the Coca-Cola bottler is not LTL work but it is linehaul.

 

Where and what kind of companies?

 

I did some pretty extensive research on companies that would (in theory) hire me when I was fresh out of CDL school. There were the obvious ones like LTL and food/beverage delivery, there were megas that specifically offered daycab jobs in my area (Schneider and Swift), mail contractors, fuel haulers, dedicated 3PL carriers, construction related companies, and probably some more that I'm forgetting.