Looking for opinions about driving for Groendyke

Consider this.

Home - Groendyke


Most of their jobs advertise $84K - $85K.

I'm guessing things are done on a seniority basis by their day shift/night shift listings and difference in pay.

Your route will probably take you west to the mountains which means chaining up, chaining down. Vail Pass, Eisenhower, Monarch, La Veta, Wilkerson. Those are long days. 11-14 hrs days. That usually lasts from November 14th through May 1st. Although chain season lasts from Sept 1 to May 31st.

Is $84K - $88K commensurate to you for those kind of days and that pay?

$84K / 52 weeks = $1,615 GROSS (before taxes or 401k or benefits are deducted). So figure about $1100 take home if you're lucky.

Now take that $1615 a week and divide it by 55 hours. That's $29.37 an hour average. If you have a 14 hour day every day that $1615 a week / 70 hrs drops you down to $23.07 an hour. Are you willing to run yourself ragged every week to make $23.07 an hour on average?

And you don't get hazard pay for loading and unloading diesel, gasoline, Jet A or other chemicals let alone hauling them around. Plus you will smell like those things at work and at home.

Because you can go work at McDonald's for $21 an hour. You could also go drive a garbage truck and make 6 figures.

A truck driver should be averaging $35 an hour at least with a CDL and a few years experience. Any less than that and you're being taken advantage of and ripped off by a company.

 

When you add in benefits like medical/health insurance, retirement plans, vacation pay etc. that’s around what you make.
As far as chaining and weather conditions, Groendyke is a pretty safety conscience outfit.
Most cases the driver makes the call if it’s unsafe to drive in those conditions.

 

I run linehaul making $0.85 cpm
Made $126K this year

and I do far less work than a Groendyke driver does. The pay those guys get is garbage wages for the work they do.