Thinking about team driving

If flatbed is easy for you.
Bumping docks is a cakewalk.
Come back in a week and give Trucking some time.

 

Mostly steel. I do a couple runs a day of it. But I also do lumber, concrete barriers, and I got to be a part of a crane tower the other day but I don't think that will be very often. They take most of their new guys and have them do pretty much steel, lumber, and concrete barriers all day, every day.

I work for a trucking company that only does flatbed.

I am a pretty small man and aging (early 50's), and it's a lot more physically demanding on me. I don't like throwing chains all day. I am not going to like throwing chains in the dead of winter and dealing with snow. I don't like getting soaked in sweat in the heat of the day, then driving a few miles, to get all sweaty again, and do it all day long. Throwing straps isn't so bad, but throwing chains sucks. It's one thing to drag a chain out and secure equipment, but it's an entirely different thing to throw chains over steel all the time, especially as high as they can stack it for me. I come home every night exhausted and don't want to do anything else, but I am also working a lot and still acclimating to it all. I have had to get stronger in a hurry throwing chains every day, so maybe in a few weeks, I will be even stronger and it won't be so physically demanding on me.

I am super grateful we just about never tarp, but I know if I eventually go into OTR that will all change.

I heard this too. I actually have to back "out" of a lot of places but I haven't been put to any radical tests yet either. I definitely don't have to back into as many tight spots as bumping docks guys would so I am grateful for that. It's giving me just enough backing to slowly get better at it, which I noticed just this week I am definitely getting better at it. If I have to get into tight places like alley docking kind of moves I would still make a lot of mistakes. But my job lets me go out in the yard when I have free time and practice.

Absolutely.

I don't know where you are located but if you are East of I35, check out this Flatbed Trucking, Hauling & Shipping Carrier | TMC Transportation I was watching a bunch of their videos on youtube and listening to some conversations from other posters on different forums about them and they sound like a very good company to work for. They only hire folks east of I35 from what they told me though.

I also know I definitely couldn't do team driving. I don't have enough patience for the other humans to be in that close of comfort on a regular basis with them. If I had a girlfriend or wife that had her CDL, that might be a totally different story and I wouldn't mind doing something like that at all. In fact, it's kind of a secret desire...but I definitely wouldn't want to do it outside of those conditions, and that happening for me at my age and life story I sincerely doubt at this stage of life..

 

I see lots of flatbedders change into coveralls for messing with securement and tarps. Dry van is the easiest type of freight to haul and the majority. But flatbedders are probably healthier and he schedules and customers are generally better. You are not likely to pick for your first trucking job the company you will stay with for a long time. Think about the one thing you want to achieve by being in trucking, and then rank the other things you would like to have, and then keep those in mind. Some things you are only going to find out by doing the job.