Great jobs in Texas

School's out June 7th. Now all I need to do is decide whether to go with old experience and a newly printed CDL with X and taking my chances getting hired as a "newbie", or going OTR for 6 months first. Decisions, decisions. It works out to about a $16K decision by December if I do OTR first, or the risk of possibly wasting time and money looking in SE TX for a week or two right out of re-school. Where is my crystal ball?

 

Its tough isnt it im in the same boat head out to texas on may 7th for a couple of weeks I have pre hire ore dates for May, schneider and still talking to watkins shep if I strike out in Texas. Im going to take a shot otr isnt my cup of tea CDL x and twic spotless mvr since 98 I think I'll find something in Texas hope you do to gl.

 

Never been otr but have worked ltl and made decent money but can tell u there anti no better money that the oilfield. Headed down to south Texas in a week as an o/o. Can't wait to get out of the field up here in pa and to Texas!!!!! See u all down there

 

EB&down:

Sounds like we have the same apps/prehires on OTR. I'm personally going to have another beer and think it over. Don't have to decide today, and my wife is no help, she likes the TX money, and she also likes me, so if I change my mind, she agrees. Not much help. lol There's no way I'll strike out in OTR, BTDT - GATSDNTGB, though.

I'm still doing on-line applications to see if anything comes up postive. I have several apps in now. We'll see.

 

I have several questions. Will anybody hire me with one ticket on my mvr- equipment misue (ticket was actually for a light out on my trailer) with no points. I have 12 years of driving experience, but no tanker experience but I have the tanker endorsement. And what is the best company to work for- ie) treats their drivers good and pays good. Reasonable hours-70-90 hours a week at the most. 120 hours a week as some people quoted is crazy, I'm getting too old for that. What's the best area- east texas or Midland/Odesa area? Finally what about housing? I have a family so I need a house to rent. I heard it's getting really difficult to find a place in Midland so is it easier to find a place in east texas? I currently live in Ohio.

 

Not to be snotty, but use the search feature, enter "oilfield", and all of your questions will magically be answered by reading the results.

Your single ticket on the MVR won't be a problem.
You have plenty of experience. (recent?)
Depends on what you expect from a company. Best to see what people have said about various companies here.
Hours depend on the company. If you don't like long hours, hauling crude seems to be pretty regular, not so many hours as vacuum trucks/water haulers.
East/Southeast Texas is easier to find housing than Midland/Odessa.
GO! You'll do fine.

 

East Texas would probably be a lot easier for housing and west Texas easier for employment. Not saying you couldn't land a job on the east side but a lot of activity has slowed down due to natural gas E&P slow down there. Still oil there however.

Most of the oilfield companies have a presence in all of the active areas.
There is a lot of activity in south Texas also in the Eagle Ford Shale.

 

OTR experience is of no value to off road oilfield trucking. Invest the 2 weeks to do a face to face.

 

I was thinking the same thing. I've driven log truck up in Eastern Oregon with my dad as a kid, and off road ain't EVEN the same job as OTR. (well maybe in some yards, for a minute). Anyway, that's the plan if I don't go do something stupid like go OTR for burger money for 6 months just to get the wheels under me again. I wouldn't even consider THAT if every job description didn't say you need 6 months to a year of OTR. (I know it's to sort out the wannas from the gonnas)

Still, I have the very good fortune to be able to pay for staying out there a couple of weeks to see if I can get hired.....and that's the way I'm leaning. As a "rookie", I don't mind if the only way I can get hired on is to do vacuum trucks, or whatever, I like working hard and don't mind the hours anyway. I'm kind of an old fart, so I don't know how long I'd want to KEEP doing it, but I can for as long as it takes.

Right now, I have a conditional hire from one BFI, OTR, 2 weeks out 2 days home here in AZ, which I applied for to get a pre-hire for school, and then they got all serious on me, so I'm going to have to make the call one way or another in about a month.

The other option (to going straight to SE TX and banging on terminal manager's doors from Houston to Austin to San Antonio to Corpus Christi and all points in between, excluding most any border town) that I'm a little bit really interested in would be to start out post-grad training on yanking tankers for the same BFI either regional, 48, or if I get real lucky, in the SE TX oilfields with them for halfway decent pay as a start. (no, not FFE) Since it would be direct oilfield experience, it's at least going in the right direction, for a start. Right now, I'm just waiting to see if they get back to me on those jobs, or better yet, one of the larger service companies will get back to me on my applications with them before school's out.

 

Can someone tell me what a entry level crew man on a frac crew makes a week take home i have my cdl with haz and 7 years exp pulling fuel tankers 20 years driving total thanks