Sygma

Ginomusicman-

It sounds like you are not afraid of hard work and need money. It so Sygma may be for you. You will make more money at Sygma than any other entry level trucking job available to you, guaranteed. Not sure which terminal you would be out of but you should easily be able to clear 50k your first year. And if you are willing to pick up extra shifts, or learn how to work the extra board to your advantage, 70-80K is within reach.

Having said that, you will earn every penny of it. Is the work hard? Yes. I've been working at Sygma for about a year now and it will take time for your body to adjust. You will have to tough it out for the first few months. But over time your body will adjust and your technique will improve. Use the brake on your dolly going down the ramp. Don't worry how much the other guy puts on his dolly. You load only what YOU can handle safely. You have to understand your body is your livelihood and you need to protect and maintain it. Dont be a hero and put undue stress on your knees and back. Those are the guys who end up on disability. Work fast but work smart and you will get through the first few months.

This is a hard job and certainly not for everyone. But for me, being home everynight, the money, and losing some weight and staying in shape have been enough to keep me at it for this long and I plan on staying for the foreseeable future. Best of luck to you Gino.

 

I completely agree with cmhtrucker. I work out of Sygma Harrisburg and love it. Does it kick my ### some nights?? Yep. But getting that big fat paycheck every week makes it worth while. And being home quite a bit is nice too. Someone said Sygma is union. Not true. Sygma Harrisburg is not union. Some terminals are, some aren't. We are not. Work at Sygma and do a good job and they will take care of you. Best of luck to you.

 

been at sygma in GA for about 7mos and it is very physical work. depending on what location you work and what runs you get you can make decent money. the extra board SUCKS! all i can say is dont plan to do anything for the day in advance because you can and will get called at anytime to come in and work. 10pm in the bed sleep, ring ring. hello? need you hear asap to go on a route that needed to leave out 5min ago lol. i make about $825-950 a week B4 taxes depending on the weight on each route, going out 3 nights a week sunday, tuesday, and friday night. pay in GA is .28cpm solo/.19cpm team, 7.66 per 1000 pounds solo/5.56 team, and 2.10 per stop. you can make good money if you run extra routes or your day off but dont plan on spending any time with your family and friends, because when you're not working you're sleeping. one of our top guys here made like 84k last year but he ran 4-5 routes a week just about every week. he sometimes would come in off one route and hop in the next truck with a guy going out on another route.

 

I work out of the Denver Sygma branch.

Been here coming up on a year before to long...

The first couple months KILLED me, and I came up in the asphalt industry.

There's really no way of preparing your body for this work except general strength and cardio. The biggest problem for me was switching over to nights.. The hard work backed with a complete change in sleeping habits will crush most mentally and physically. It crushed me but I stuck with it and now I can sleep whenever I want, and staying up over 24 hours isn't all that big of a deal.

One thing I can tell you is worry mostly about your accuracy... Not your door times to start out. Speed will come and they know that, just don't be misdelivering all night long, they don't like that.

With stacking, be conscious of having more solid boxes on bottom of course, and be smart about balance distribution of your product.

Try to get familiar with your product and always be thinking of which boxes stack well next to each other. I see people just making a single stack from top to bottom and running it in the store... That may be light, but it's not smart. You can double stack boxes next to each other atleast half way up the wheeler if you are smart about making your last stack match in height and getting a heavy wide box to tie them together so they don't split apart while walking the load into the store.

So stack smart... That's the single biggest piece of advice after your body adjusts to staying up all night and the physical aspect. There's a bunch of tricks to be learned, thats for sure.

Oh, make sure to eat vitamins and think of things to keep your mind occupied while driving at night. I use toothpicks and dental floss for example, to keep my mind going at night. Being tired isn't what will make you fall asleep, it's boredom when you're driving hours at a time at night.

Good luck