Where is the money at?

If you don't mind me asking....Who do you drive for now ?

 

55k first year isn’t bad at all. Could have done a lot worse.

 

@KaoMinerva can confirm this!!!!

 

Yes.

 

My first year owner op flatbed/step deck I made about 145,000. The second year over 200k

 

I vote cryo or chemical. I’ve never made less than 80/85k on the cryo side. You can go easy doing 45 hours a week and make 75k. Not hard to gross over $2000-2200 a week if your doing 60 hours.

 

I run with FedEx ground contractor. We have Mercer guys in here for peak. One been here since last December. He runs 157 mi Nashville trip one way. Goes down loaded back empty. 6 nights week all year. $3.20 mile. He is almost over 300k now. Too bad that’s not permanent.

 

Ya I got a good place near home always light going out then whatever I find coming back for example, elkhart indiana to Boise Idaho paid 6300 2 weeks ago or so maybe 3 but that's pretty good if I go to Ohio or Minnesota it's like 5.50 a mile no less.

 

If he has an automatic restriction on his license then Estes will not take him. There's a lot of cons to working LTL and I listed them here in this long post:

Is LTL the best area of trucking? What's the catch?

Don't get discouraged by my post listing the negatives in the LTL industry though. Even in that post I said, and I'll say it again, despite the BS you WILL get paid and you WILL get paid good if you go to LTL. When I was at the Charlotte Estes Terminal earlier this year I was on track to make I guess around 85k - 90k per year working 59 - 63 hours per week. They started the P&D guys out at $26.15 per hour, overtime after 52. We had the option of running a linehaul run (but short enough where you were back home in your bed by the end of the day) on Saturdays if we wanted to, so if they're still giving 59 - 63 hours per week then if you work a 6th day that would push you up into the 100k - 105k range per year.

Linehaul guys were making around 85k for the lowest mileage dedicated runs, the average was probably around 100k. The top guys on the dedicated mileage run were making around 120k per year, I'm assuming extraboard was probably about the same.

If you can put up with the BS that comes with LTL, you WILL get paid and you WILL get paid good. The dispatch for P&D at the Charlotte Terminal earlier this year consisted of (mostly) females in their early 20's who probably had some generic college degree and had never driven a truck before and probably had limited managing experience. One day I had an argument with one of them for 15 minutes about letting me take my lunch break at around 7.5 hours INTO MY SHIFT WHERE I HADN'T TAKEN A BREAK YET. Yes, they wanted me to do another run which would have pushed it to 9 hours since I had eaten and 9 hours since I had a break.

The P&D manager (so the big guy over P&D, who only had one single boss above him at the Terminal) was a great guy and really friendly. But he didn't know the difference between pre tripping and TRIP PLANNING. He asked me what was taking so long to get my loads done when I was brand new, and I had to explain to him that I didn't know my way around Charlotte and and until I learned and memorized what roads were good for trucks and which roads weren't, that each time they gave me a new pick up/delivery location I had to cross refererance my atlas and then many times check the Google Satellite View to see if the roads off the major highways were good for trucks (does the road have an industrial presence, are there trucks on the google satelitte view on that particular road, etc. etc.). Sometimes I had to straight up call the warehouse and ask for the best way to get in just like I do OTR lol.

He literally thought that truck drivers could just plug the address into a truckers GPS and that was all the "trip planning" that we needed. Lol.

The P&D dispatch, who consisted of the mostly early 20 something females, liked to gossip and talk #### about the drivers after the drivers left the drivers P&D dispatch waiting room (the waiting room is seperated by plastic glass from where the dispatchers sit at the window, so while it's two seperate rooms drivers can still hear what the dispatchers say and talk about).

A huge problem at that terminal was that there were never any pallet jacks avaliable for the P&D drivers. Estes had a "system" (if you can even call that mess a "system") where some drivers and maybe dock workers, had "assigned" pallet jacks that would get locked up with locks. There were only so many pallet jacks that were freely avaliable to the P&D drivers each day. And it seemed like every single day, there was at least one driver who couldn't find a pallet jack that was free (not locked up). So everyday a driver would have to do the same song and dance of letting dispatch know that there wasn't a free pallet jack on the dock. Then dispatch or the dock supervisor needs to figure out which pallet jack the driver can use.

On one instance a driver couldn't find a pallet jack. He came into the dispatch P&D waiting room and told dispatch he walked the entire dock and couldn't find a free pallet jack. Dispatch looked at him like he was an idiot and said "Well you need a pallet jack".

The driver replied "Yeah, I know. That's why I'm here. I walked the dock and there are no free ones left."

Dispatch replied to him again in a very condescending tone "Well, you can't leave until you find one."

The driver replied, getting more frusterated with this song and dance, "Yeah, I know, that's why I'm here! I walked the dock, there are no free pallet jacks, they all have locks on them."

To which dispatch replied "Well you're going to have to find one."

The driver got pissed off, threw up his hands and said "Whatever I'll handle this ####" and stormed out.

Keep in mind there were drivers in the waiting lounge while this was going on. We could hear everything that the driver and dispatch were saying.

The driver left and dispatch started laughing at the driver. One said (making fun of the driver) in a fake angry voice

"I need a pallet jack!"

To which the same dispatcher then said, now just speaking for herself instead of immitating the driver, said "Well what do you want me to do about it?!"

To which the the other female dispatchers erupted in laughter over.

This is the type of BS that I had to deal with at a regular basis at that place. The BS of arguing about taking a lunch 7.5 hours into my shift. The BS of dispatch being 100% unprofessional and making fun of drivers when other drivers can hear them. The BS of explaining to my boss (who had never driven a truck before a day in his life but had a college degree and I guess the degree takes precedent over actual trucking experience but I digress) what the difference between trip planning and pre tripping was.

That BS, along with the BS of the LTL in general that I listed in my linked post above, along with the zero work life balance I had working 59 - 63 hours per week in a 5 day period with a 35 minute commute each way, was too much for me to take. I'm a young, single man and I don't need the money like that. I wasn't going to dig myself into an early grave thanks to the stress that that place was causing me. Hopefully, since it's been several months since I've worked there, they have addressed some of these issues and if those dispatchers weren't replaced, hopefully they have been coached by management on how to be more proffesional (not making fun of drivers in front of other drivers) and how to be decent human beings (not trying to make drivers work 9 hours straight into their shifts without eating lunch).

This turned into a long ### post lol, but I guess my point is is that there is a lot of BS in general to deal with in LTL and at the Charlotte Terminal specifically, there is a lot of BS that could very well be unique to that terminal that stems from how workers are treated (including dock workers but I won't go into that).

That said, man you will get PAID and you will get PAID good! OTR pay doesn't even come close for company drivers compared to LTL drivers, I 100% aknowledge that. I took a pay cut going from LTL back to OTR and I knew that when I made the switch. The only way OTR pay can compare to LTL pay is if you don't have rent or a mortgage and can just live out of the truck and bank your money. But in general LTL is the place to be for pay and health benefits and 401k matches and all that stuff. LTL really is a great career.

I looked online just now and it seems the Charlotte Terminal is still hiring for P&D, linehaul and now combo drivers as well. If they're hiring combo drivers maybe they've cut back on the hours for P&D guys and you won't have to pull 63 hour work weeks in a 5 day period anymore. I think there's some CDL schools around here that have refresher courses where you can test out in a manual.

OR, you could also work the dock at Estes and inquire about dock to driver programs. Other drivers at the Charlotte Terminal started out as dock workers and Estes helped them get their CDL's without the automatic restrictions (at Charlotte it's probably 50/50 in terms of manuals and automatic trucks that the terminal has). You've been out of trucking so long most OTR companies are going to require you to train again like a new trucker probably. You'll get paid more to work the dock at Estes and get paid to get your CDL.

Now that I think about it, dock to driver program at Estes would probably be best for you. Look into that but ALSO I would first look into Old Dominion (OD). I just looked Old Dominion is hiring dock workers right now at the Charlotte Terminal. I've seen OD dock to driver programs advertised for the Greensboro, NC Terminal in the past few months, so I'm pretty sure at the Charlotte Terminal they would be able to do a dock to driver program there too. Old Dominion pays slightly more than Estes, they're going to overtime for P&D drivers after 50 hours starting in 2022 (Estes is overtime after 52), and hopefully the P&D dispatch would be more professional with a better working environment than what I just described what was going on at Estes earlier this year at that Terminal.

Sorry for the long post I hope this helps lol. But yeah I would definetely look into a dock to driver program since you've been out of trucking so long at either Estes or Old Dominion.