Is it possible for a rookie to find a local driving job?

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...w-drivers/147991-monday-thru-friday-jobs.html

This thread addresses local jobs in trucking.

 

i say stick it out over the road for a little while, quitting soon after being hired is going to look bad on you, you can start looking while your over the road. but i would say stick it out for a year and you will have a much better chance of getting a local job. a year will go by a lot quicker than you think

 

I think it's quite possible to find a local driving job. I'm not sure if most know what a local driving job is though. They aren't for me.

Most of the dump truck jobs, in my area, pay less than a good factory job. Then there's beverage or food service where you handle all the freight, unload and dolly it across a parking lot. I hear a few of the food service jobs pay well. With some local jobs sales is a part of the job.

Most are 10 - 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Beverage delivery has a brutal reputation. Most local jobs are about delivery not driving. You're home every night but too tired to have a life. I'll take the road any day but then that is the biggest reason for my chosing this profession, the freedom of the open road.

Ocassionally I see a dock job at a major freight company. That might be a good way to work into local freight delivery. That would be a local job I could live with. IMHO, most local jobs mean more work for less pay which makes no sense.

 

Yeah that's the magical number, one year. Like Ezrider said, it'll go by quicker than you think...you may even start to like it!

 

You've spent years on this forum and lots of money on getting into trucking. At the very least suck it up and put in a year OTR, then you can get a local job.....Why not suck it up and possible get on with UPS/FedEX/ Conway?

Or you could quit, throw your money away, waste 4 years and $1000's of dollars on school and STILL be unemployed because noone wants to hire a recent college grad now adays.... Money is so tight with allot of companies they would rather pay 1 guy allot of money to do a job he KNOWs how to do then 10 new guys decent money to screw stuff up...



Most of my freinds went to college, all owe $30,000 - $100,000 in college loans and ALL of them are either unemployed or working at a minimum wage job.....so much for that exspensive peice of paper they just HAD to get.

all the while i've been working and makeing $35K -$45K a year for the 4 years they were in school and now make $40k - $45k a yr sitting on my butt driving a truck and working my way up to a cushy local job......


So who made the better decision?????


THINK! If you at least get some exp before you up and quit it'll make it easyer to get back into a truck, after you relize college isnt the quick fix you think it is...




American Trucker

 

i couldnt disagree more

i got hired full time as a city driver for UPS Freight at age 21....my buddy who also works there was also 21 when he became a driver

yes it is possible, dont let people tell you its not........the catch is, we both started out working the dock for peanuts....but it was definitely worth it

theres alot to be said about being home every night.........i tried that OTR crap and hated it.....it just aint for me....

local driving isnt easy, you are constantly looking for buildings that dont have any signs or addresses posted....sometimes it feels like you spend more time going backward then forward......but because of this i can hit all kinds of crazy docks without problem

but im paid by the hour, i go home every night, and i actually love my job, no matter how much i might b**ch about it

 

my wife, spent 4 years in collage and got 2 associates degrees and a bachelors and shes working as a cashier right now.

 

If you were going to go back to college you need to really research what jobs are available, as a few of the previous posters have said, they have or know someone who has college degrees and no jobs/not in their field.

I am an RN with many years of different types of experience and lucky for me in NY there are jobs- but many states it is even tough for a nurse to get a job!! Also with my years I get more expensive d/t my experience thus sometimes making it harder for me to get the pay I deserve.

I would say stick it out and see- it might be harder now as it's so new and you are just getting into it and don't know alot of the 'tricks' of the road. Keep asking the seasoned drivers here for advise on how to make OTR tolerable (for lack of a better word....) and remember all jobs come with their good and bad points, long hours, not so hot bosses or co-workers.

Good luck to you!!!!!!

 

Most of the guys I know who went to university are pulling down big bucks now, but they're in their 40s and 50s. Most of them hate their jobs too...bored stiff, too many hours, to much bull**** dumped on them. More than a few of them are away almost as much as OTR drivers too. Sure they stay in hotels and ride airplanes, but away is away.

The mechanics and tradespeople I know all hate their jobs too. As an electrician friend of mine said on Sunday, "I've pulled a million miles of wire, and every time I kneel down to wire a plug-in, I pray to the lottery gods." He made $80,000 last year and he'd walk away tomorrow if he could.

When I was building decks and fences...pretty much my favourite thing ever...there were a lot of days where I thought I'd had enough too. Muddy and sweaty and you've pulled the trigger on the air nailer or drill so many times that your hand is cramped up and when you're done you get to go home and have a shower so you can go and do estimates that evening, and the hirelings break your tools and equipment, and people are calling on your cell demanding warranty work because they drove into their new fence with their new car and it certainly must be your fault somehow.

I was fortunate enough to have hired a philosophy student as summer help though and he taught me the secret of loving your job...the sure knowledge that the next one is likely gonna suck even worse. He was an odd kid...very wise and he actually liked doing physical labour for the exercise. Also, he could juggle, which made lunch breaks interesting.

There are local driving jobs though. I hope to get one some day. You can work in a yard shunting trailers. You can make local deliveries. You can haul gravel and dirt and concrete. You can haul building supplies. You can haul garbage or recycling. Pay rates vary. So do hours.

Something you might want to do is appraise your other skills and abilities. If you clean up well and like people, being a sales rep/delivery person is okay. If you have an interest in heavy equipment, maybe see if you can get on with a construction or landscaping place...a lot of times they need somebody who can deliver a bobcat, run the bobcat, then take the bobcat back to the yard. Things like that. Everybody needs stuff hauled, and a surprising number of places employ truck drivers as part of other duties. A CDL may make you more qualified than others.

There's also starting your own business. I know one guy who does nothing but construction clean-up. My nephew hauls grain and hay and sometimes dirt. There are guys who do nothing but cleaning up after roofers. A couple of guys I see on the docks drive for the family farm/nursery. If you've got the capital to start with, look around your area and see what might work for you.

Finally, think about the people you know. Most of the jobs I've gotten in my life have been because I knew somebody and surprisingly few of them have been a direct relation to the industry I worked in. Mostly it's somebody who knows somebody else who heard about something from a friend. Chase those things down because most jobs are never advertised. It only takes a few minutes to make a phone call and say, "I heard you might be looking for a driver and I'd like to set up an appointment and talk to you about it." At worst they'll tell you to get lost.

Mostly it's about experience though. I fully expect to have to do long haul before I can get the job I want. I'm 46 years old. I've got a plethora of work experience and have never had a boss that wouldn't give me a good reference. I'll be a newbie in trucking though, and one thing all that work experience has taught me is that you don't get to start at the top.