Two Job Offers, wanting veteran’s opinions on which to go with

The dollar general position looks good on paper, but my personal preference is to stay away from anything that isn't hourly pay.

I have done local work most of my career. I have held two jobs in the last 12 years that were mileage pay, and got burned both times.

For me, it's hourly pay or bust from here on out.

 

You should make both companies you are considering put you in contact with a driver doing that job for them right now before you decide. Have him describe the process and time required at each stop, plus anything else you want to know before making a decision. If you don't talk to those drivers you are walking in blind and deserve what you get. DG accounts have very high turnover. Those accounts are kind of famous for the high turnover. The people doing the job never learned what they were walking into, then quit. Not every DG account is bad, but your guess about the job is not likely to be accurate without eyewitness testimony.

 

Double check on the Dollar General account. Around here they are not unloaded via liftgates, rather rollers. That mean every item on that trailer you are picking up and setting it on the rollers. Tedious and labor intensive. Also around here CR England has the account and they're reputation isn't sterling. But because of the difficulty of keeping drivers on the DG account they are paying $29 to $31 per hour with OT after 40 hrs, which is easily over $100k per year.

 

Easy there @tscottme . Take a breath. I actually agree with you.

 

You'd be a fool if you passed up on the roll off job. The DG job not being hourly is labor theft IMO.

 

Taking the truck home is a good perk, but chances are the other job might let you take their truck home as well. Did you ask them?

IDK... I'm sure the potential is there to make lots of money with them, and I'm sure you can handle the hard work if you are used to delivering beer, but still... mileage pay for a local job is just a recipe for failure.

I'm speaking from experience. Every little thing that happens throughout the day that holds you up (traffic, breakdowns, slow customers, etc.) will add up and stress you out. You will burn yourself out trying to turn the miles after dealing with all the BS. At the end of the week you will find you aren't making near as much money as they said you would.

They tell you how much you CAN make. But that's only if nothing goes wrong, and in this industry, especially in the local world, at least one thing goes wrong almost every day. Especially if you are hooking up different trailers every day. You'll get stuck dealing with flat tires and other issues that the last driver was too lazy to deal with. Of course you'll have the same issues at the other job too, but at least you'll get paid for dealing with them!

To be fair I never worked for Dollar General so maybe I'm wrong. Again, I'm only speaking from my own experience.

 

This is accurate. He will bleed hours away every day for free while the carrier makes bank. Any carrier not offering hourly with OT over 40 on a local job is a scumbag. Around here it's Hogan that does the DG deliveries and they run ads for it everywhere with a new listing every single day.

They've been doing so for years. If that job was so great they'd never have to run an ad at all. They're desperate to find someone stupid enough to believe their lies or is naive enough to think they can beat the clock and make bank.

 

Bottom line, do you want to be a truck driver -or- a traveling lumper?