At a major crossroads!!!!!!!

True that, with the refresher thing. Unfortunately the only other companies I know Down their either require 2 yrs or are mega carriers.

We lived in north Fl, so theirs always log truck and chip truck companies. My husband did that to get tracator trailer experience then went to JB Hunt to get some OTR experience. JB wasn't that bad, his checks were all above $500 a week most around $700. Of course that was otr, though they do have intermodal and LTL and regional ( which is a joke, he was se regional, Tx I get but Mi, Oh, Mo?) Not that I'm saying go their or even look into it. Just stateing how mine got going.

 

Well I worked for them 3 years back in the mid 90's. I was making 45k to 50kback then which was decent money. I was in my late 20's and I can tell you from experience that you will bust your ### for the money you will get paid. I can tell you that running out to Oxnard you would have 15/20 drops starting in mobile Alabama and ending in OxnardCA then re loading flowers and have 15/20 drops coming back. You will have a ball of keys on you and you drop anytime you get to your stops. I was first seat and if you had a huge stop you have to get up and help then go back to sleep. Same thing when my second seat was driving huge stop I would have to get up to help. This job is a ball buster for sure but you will get paid accordingly. Yes you get home after every trip but depending on if there is a holiday depends if you get there long enough to hookup to a new trailer and start over or if you get 1 to 2 days off. They had dedicated runs that seniority bids on the best runs to the oldest drivers and usually they had there second seat already so its really hard to get on to a good run. If you get lucky and hook up with a old timer it could be a easy run like to Fall River MA 2stops and home or you could end up with 10stop North Carolina loop back in 3 days. Bottom line be ready to work your ### off and get paid pretty good. If you have any other questions pm me.

 

From what I've read it doesn't sound like you have any other choice. Your back is up against the wall and you gotta make a move wether it be the right one or not. I'd say cash out your retitement and hit the road. You gotta get yoir ecperience some how. It will suck for awhile but if it was that easy everyone would be doing it. It will be a good life experience at least. I went OTR after getting my cdl and I hated every day of it. Missed my wife and kid like crazy. But I stuck it out for 6 months and got a decent local gas hauling job and now I'm leaving gas hauling to haul bulk flour and make way better money. Its all about steps of progression. And you have to start at the bottom unfortunatly.

 

Take the job! Remember, you get paid by the mile even if you're sleeping and you get stop pay. Stick it out for a few months and then make a decision if you want to stay or not. You may like the fast pace of flower hauling. If not, you will have the experience to qualify for another company.

 

Well you have the right attitude and mindset so go for it man. I will give you a peice of advice though. Go into this expecting the absolute worst. Expect low pay, crappy trucks, horrible dispatchers and being treated like a slave without a brain cell. If you expect things like that your first year or so will go much easier on your mind. I'll be honest and say I didn't go into trucking with that mindset. My career before this I was looked up to and people relyed heavily on me and I even peoples lives depended on me know what I was doing. So to go from that to a voice over a phone telling me to do stupid things and boss me around like a slave was very frustrating and aggrivating. Made mt otr experience very hard. But now things are getting better. I'm relied on a lot where I work now because I'm very good at it and my company knows it. My terminal manager has tried to get me to stay but my next job starting in two weeks just pays a lot more and the schedule is better. And it all comes down to what's better for my family.

But like I said go in expecting the worst and come out of it a lot farther ahead than most people. Good luck driver

 

Being paid hub miles is a big plus. Sounding better all the time.

When I was a flatbedder, I delivered a new bulldozer to West Palm Beach. Picked it up somewhere in New Jersey. Finally got into tanker/hazmat and my pay jumped to over $60K per year. When I started trucking, didn't have a good forum like this to garner information from.