Cant decide which job offer to take, fuel hauling or LTL?

Something else to consider here....

Of the options under consideration -- I would submit that the fuel option is/will be more recession-resistant of the two.

In bad economic times -- people will shop less on Amazon (i.e., general freight will slow down)...but they will still continue to buy fuel -- & go places.

This will be true even moreso if you haul/deliver fuel for a private fleet.

-- L

 

Shoot, if your already fly team and 3 weeks on and one off for tankers, I'd call KAG and get on there Merchant Gas Cryo division. Then you get Cryo experience, which is much cleaner than fuel hauling. Do that for six months then get on a home terminal doing cryo work.

 

No, I meant FLY team, where they send you every three weeks to a different locale, and you slip seat a tractor, then they fly you back home.

You show up with a duffel bag, drive solo for three weeks in an area, then they fly you back home for a week. There is no partner, you a ringer, or a scab, as the unions call it. Cryo companies do that alot.

 

I run linehaul for OD and there's no question I'm choosing Estes linehaul over fuel hauling. I work right at 52hrs a week and make $146,000 on my bid. All I do is a meet and turn. I don't have to deal with gas station parking lots, fuel racks, or ignorant ### store people. My son ran fuel for Marathon and I made significantly more money and worked far less hours than he did. The hardest part of my job is paying for the fountain pop at my meet point.

 

Another thing to think about is do you want to just sit and drive for the entire shift or have the ability to get out and move around multiple times during the day?

 

Gemini is great but I don't think you're hiring on with them without years of direct fuel experience. Most places consider you completely green if you aren't carded somewhere. You'll have to go with a trainer and all that crap if you haven't specifically done fuel. It ain't like most jobs where they hand you the keys and say sink or swim driver. Oil field is good but still, with insurance regulations and how costly any mistake is in fuel, your gonna have your hand held no matter where you go.

Pilot/FJ hires to fire from what I heard at the racks.

And yeah, LTL is very slow right now but even at 3 nights a week, it's decent money. I lived hood rich for a short period of time once that LTL money came in. Didn't finance anything and ultimately sold off ever materialism consumerist crap I foolishly bought. Live with less and below your means. 3 nights with Estes could be 1200+ bucks for the week. That's still good money.

LTL linehaul is a once in a lifetime, life changing job opportunity. Take it. I hate that the economy cratered and I got starved out. It's now very, very, VERY difficult for me to go back to some ######## trucking job that pays half as much for way more hours and way harder work.

The hype ain't hype driver. It's legit life changing getting into a good LTL Linehaul gig.

 

That'd be something to ask the terminal manager in the job interview. Not sure how extra board works at Estes. OD could send you to stay in a hotel and run out of another terminal. Sleeper trucks were only teams. They didn't want to pay for hotels regularly on extra board. If you ran out of hours another driver or dock worker would pick you up within about 50-75 miles. I've seen Estes parked off at hotels oftenish though so IDK.

More flexibility is better but Extraboard can actually clear more money that set bids. OD extraboard was 5 days, anytime they had freight. Sit at home and wait for a call. Anytime. Lot of guys couldn't handle it. It used to be 7 days with requested days off or just off for a 34. Extraboard was ruthless back then.

7500/mo take home after taxes is quite a bit though. That's more than 100k/yr so I'm not sure why you need more money. Are you going in the hole right now? Turning loose of 7500 a month in bills is insane. I can't possibly imagine a scenario where you can't cut costs unless you live in Switzerland or something. In that case, move.

I can tell you this though, OD pays more than Estes for linehaul and running triples at .91 cpm and staying at another terminal with per diem and the hotel paid, my take home after taxes for that whole month was 10000. Nearly 2k was per diem alone. That was turning 6 days a week on 10s and 34s. 7500 after taxes is going to be a big ask anywhere in this economy. Forget about it in poorer Western regions like WY, NM, SD etc.