Can I get some advice please???

You gotta look at the bigger picture here. What is important to you? What do you want from a company? Are you willing to go above and beyond in order to get some experience under your belt? Do you need to be home more? Are you fine with being out on the road?

Pepsi will make a man out of you,.. as in its labor intensive and requires you to be able to think and work out issues on your own. That and you will more than likely be working insane hours that push the boundaries of legal driving hours. Local jobs are going one of 2 ways. They are either super easy and pay well, or become a serious PITA and the only way to make decent money is to work extreme hours with little personal time, and what you do get is usually spent resting before you have to go back to work.

CTL from what I understand pays by the load. Again,.. your only means of making decent money is to work longer hours to get more loads in. I looked into CTL bulk tanker here in Fl and after talking with a few guys doing it, I decided against it.

Of the 2 you mentioned,.. I would go with Pepsi. But personally and this is my opinion, at your age, I would try to get some OTR experience under your belt, suck it up and put some miles down. Try a few different companies doing different things. Tanker, Flat bed, Reefer,.. see what you like and then figure out what direction you want to follow at that point. At your age, dont try to go after something strictly for the money. Instead, find what you are good at and comfortable with. The money will come later after you become experienced and maintain a reputation as a dependable, drama free driver.

Hurst

 

What he said! I have had local jobs and to make good money, you do work crazy hours and do alot of hard work. I'm sure there are the "good" local jobs, but I have done Direct Store Delivery (DSD) for Nestle, food service for Performance Food Service (Roma), pallet pickup and delivery, and local LTL. The food service gig paid nearly $1500 a week and I was home weekends and evenings, but when I was home I was wasted from working almost 80 hours in 5 days throwing three trailers worth of product (35000lbs each) on a two wheeler and running it into stores. I was in really good shape, but all the work made my weekends a time to just try to rest for the next week. I like OTR much better. I get home almost every weekend and I have the energy to do things with my family. Buyer beware of the local jobs that pay well!

 

I worked for CTL for a little while out in So. cal. I met the owner Mike, he was a pretty cool guy.

There a straight up old school company, not a bad outfit at all. At least not out here they weren't.

If you start pulling them tankers you'll really haft to learn to respect them chemicals. Pays well, though and I never really heard any complaints.

Good luck with whatever you decide on.

 

In all honesty, none of us can really answer your question.

This is something your going to have to figure out on your own. Its what I like to call your trial and error period. The only advice I can give is to just keep your nose clean, no accidents, damages etc. Dont PO those in charge. Try to stay out of their radar so to speak.

Your just going to have to try one and figure out if you can handle it or move on to something different. No shame in calling uncle and moving on.

Hurst

 

A lot of national carriers will not give you much credit for strictly local work. They (many) want to see recent regional, multi-state trucking experience at the least if you expect to be brought in to a new carrier and not needing any time with a "trainer".

I'm not saying it would be a waste of time working local. I'm just saying it could be an issue, or maybe not, depending. Pepsi work will be tough on a body but may very well be your best option ... or not.

 

All good posts above. My 2 cents, Pepsi. I never met a Pepsi driver who was desperate to get out. Daily work, hourly pay, home every night. Sounds to me that's what you want.
Good Luck!

 

Thats what I'm thinking. He's young enough so he should be able to handle it well. If he has a good work ethic, I dont see Pepsi being a problem for him. My wife has a friend who's boy friend drives for Pepsi. She's pretty hot and he's built like a brick house. I wouldnt want to be on his bad side.

Hurst

 

Pepsi is an opportunity. A good opportunity. Yeah, it's hard work. But it's good pay, free workout, free soda, and great benefits.