Jobs with Home Depot, Lowe's & Menards

I know people who ran dump trucks in the RDU area for as low as $9/hr. But speaking of $12/hr jobs, you might be familiar with this one - in Colorado Springs, there's an Oriental food company - Han Ming Food Company, I think it was. Anyhow, I applied with them, and they offered $10/hr to run a refrigerated straight truck, and $12/hr to run a 53' reefer from Co. Springs to Denver and back, and, to top it off, it was only a part-time position. Suffice to say, I told them "thanks, but no, thanks".

 

Yep,.............Menards to,..........

http://www.menardsracing.com/

 

Not in NJ they lost their contract.

 

There seems to be two different conversations happening here.

The first is about the $10 hour that they pay drivers at the LOCAL stores. It is my understanding that Lowes pays about $12-$14 hour for making local delivers for purchases made at their store. Home Depot was all in house at some point, but they are testing stores hiring companies like JB and SNI to take over those responsibilities. Menards sub contracts out all of their delivery services to local outfits than can manage to obtain the proper equipment. The larger ones then hire employees, to drive those trucks, for either a % or that same $12-$14/hr rate.

The second is running dedicated freight from the DC's to the stores. I do not know who pulls out the local Lowes DC, but the JB Hunt hauls from the local Home Depot DC to the stores within a 250 mile radius. The work weeks is Mon-Fri and pays a salary of I thought $850/week. Now that I think of it, working 5 - 12 hour days for $850 a week is like a hair about $14/ hour lol.

Raid3r

 

Menards does not pay drivers anything...they contract every delivery and DC load they have moving. If you see a delivery van with the big Menards logos and ads on them...it's an independent contractor.

That being said, the only thing they care about is if you can afford to buy the equipment they require, and that you cover their loads. They run 7 days a week, and the pay isn't the dream paycheck they lure you in with. You can get by, but you are going to work your butt off, and you won't be an employee of the company, so you aren't entitled to anything but your gross paycheck you get from the deliveries you do.

I did this for 3 years. I had a single axle truck with a hydraulic fork contraption that was welded directly on to my tractor, and pulled their 30' flats for local delivery stuff. I had to buy the truck through Menards, and I had to have that damnable fork contraption on it to haul locally for them. It was never a comfortable experience. In general, Menards has so many policies that are designed to make sure you don't get a penny over what they feel you are worth, that it's tough to even get them to pay you for what you do! If you forget to sign your paperwork on a particular delivery, they will not call you and allow you to fax it back in. You will eventually get it back, unpaid, for you to resubmit. You can't talk to the accounting people or anyone at corporate. You work for the local store if you do deliveries for that store, and they will invariably say they don't have control over anything.

If your truck breaks down, you are expected to rent a truck and continue to make deliveries, which isn't too bad, except if you have a tractor like mine and the hydraulic lift is broken...very few people will mess with a custom lift like that, and all warranty work has to go to Eau Claire where they put it together.

DC loads are pulled by a variety of carriers, and they change often. None of them are employees of Menards. The loads are mixed freight which may or may not be built well on the pallets. The store docks are often horrible to back in to, and you will often encounter long lines of other trucks delivering, especially through the spring and summer months.

My strong advice is to not become a contractor for Menards in any way whatsoever, and do not drive for anyone who does any significant amount of hauling for them unless you are paid hourly and make a LOT more than 12 per hour.

As a contractor, I was constantly resubmitting paperwork to be paid for deliveries that only pay $35 or so, give or take with fuel prices. Instead of just calling me or phone/fax verifying, they would just send it back, even when it wasn't MY issue but a store issue. At one point I had to get my lawyer to write letters to the corporation about a large payment I was due, and it took over 2 months to resolve it. I could not afford to hire replacement drivers, so I worked 7 days a week all year, every day there were deliveries to be made. So even if there was only 1 delivery on a January day, instead of consolidating a couple of days, I still had to come in and deliver a door, or maybe some insulation or something Menards could have thrown in their pickup and drove over to their "guest." That was the deal, and I accept it, but you LOSE money on 1 short delivery in a day after you burn a few gallons of fuel in the truck, a few in your car, and then only collect $35 for the delivery a couple of weeks later.

In the end, it was really the fact that I could not take a vacation, and could not afford to hire anyone to give me any relief. There isn't enough money in the Menards local stuff as a single truck contractor. If you own several trucks and have other business and multiple drivers, it would probably work out for the contractor, but in my opinion, there are many other companies that will pay much more for half the work. Do NOT believe their estimates of income. Your expenses are going to be a LOT more than what you believe they will be. That's why you see Home Depot and others contracting out to JB Hunt specialized, and even Schneider is getting in on some of that action now. They can handle the driver turnover and the low profit. That's built into their business plan at this point.

Okay, enough ranting for now. Have a nice day.

 

Crete runs out of two lowes dc's one in rockford,il and one in indiania outside of seymour, but other companies run those too. Homedepot uses cardinal logistics on the west coast not sure if that's nationwide, they use them for store deliveries needing a flatbed

 

All I can say is, stay away from the flatbed DC to store freight (TMC and others). Ever tried to tarp a mixed load like they load? "Dangerous and frustrating" is a major understatement.

 

As has already been said, Lowes will be a poorly maintained straight truck
and you'll make less than you'd make working in the store. No idea what their experience requirements are.

Home Depot subs final mile delivery out in Michigan and the company that has the contract uses lease/operators exclusively. I've got some experience working for one of the lease/operators. The only thing I'll say here is I don't recommend working for a lease operator and I absolutely positively don't recommend becoming a lease operator yourself for that company. I won't say more in public. PM me if you want details.

If you want to do that kind of work I would suggest looking at the smaller local lumber yards/building supply houses.

 

I have seen forklift jobs advertised for that (in my area). And you don't have crazy four wheelers to deal with, or the DOT and possible fines etc...

Mikeeee

 

Actually Home Depot DC loads aren't that bad as far as DC freight goes. Its all drop/hook as far as I know, so I'm usually out of there in 45 minutes tops as the clock ticks. The stores usually get on unloading you right away...only occasionally have they sat me there for 2 hours or more. I've definitely dealt with worse shippers/consignees.