Driver demand?! Nervous in Rockport, Texas.

I got company sponsored training and hired on by the same company and I had a drug trafficking conviction in the distant past. Even a bad record is really no excuse. If you have a CDL you can get SOME job driving. Which one, that's a different story. Mega carriers are always hiring if all else fails.

 

Look into ALL the tankers companies out of Corpus, they have quite a few chemical plants. Also like the company I work for, Trimac you can apply in the nearest terminal to Corpus like San Antonio.

If you could get your foot in the door hauling chemicals, if and when the oil field turns around you will have lots of opportunity

Also Schneider has many different driver schedule and haul tanks plus they train. Pay is not bad but not as good as other tanker companies

Other that for good pay look at different freight companies like Saia, Old Dominion etc

 

Does Trimac have decent pay? Are the hours typical 13-14 hour local shift?
Thanks

 

The only local work I have been around for Trimac was during my training in Houston, most of the guys I was with work 8-10hr days, they are not paid by the hour but by the load and each load pays different pending how far the local run was etc

 

As far as pay, yes they pay good VS most driving jobs.

Most the local guys were telling me they were making 60k, most the OTR guys here have told me they are making 70-85k a year.

I run teams here so it's a little different for me, I average anywhere from 1400 a check to 1800. Now take that with a grain of salt, I have only 2 months experience and that's not many checks so after a year that average could be a lot different. But for my first driving job I think I'm doing pretty good.

 

There are things I don't like here also, so let me list thoughs ( I hated when researching a job and all anyone post is the good, there's always bad to lol)

1. Vacation- we get it, it's a percentage paid to you every week and it's up to you to save it so you can take one. Also if you take a week off, if you have paid for benefits the toll keeps going, so in other words when you get back from vacation you owe double the benefits on your 1st check

2. Pay period- if you get dispatched on Saturday going to California, miles are paid on that weeks check even if you don't get back from that run until Wednesday of the next week. So plan accordingly with money

3. Maintenance- the trucks here breakdown a lot. Still trying to figure out if it's the drivers or our maintenance department that causes most of the issues, could be a mix.

4. Communication- it's very lacking, make sure you over communicate, send a email following a phone call. Also during training make sure you ask any and every question under the sun, there's lots of small things we get here or paid for that nobody tells you about

There probably more but considering what I'm being paid to drive I'm still coming out good, especially for my first driving job.

 

How's it going?

 

3100 miles this week, on a 34 hour reset at a hotel while mentor has home time. I had like 8 hours left and 7.75 coming tomorrow on recap. Mentor keeps rejecting loads. I'm at my 50 hours. He prefers to super solo, rather than team. I run my clock out and he will go on duty and run us back. Averaging 65mph in his Pete. He is hell bent on doing a Target dedicated so he has rejected loads all over the map. Cool dude but I can't wait to be solo. I'd have like 3500+ miles by now.

He still keeps trying to get out and spot me when I am backing. Not necessary. We had to park at a rest stop for my 30 earlier and the only spot open was a blindside parallel. He told me to take off and park on the on ramp. Negative Ghost Rider. He was salty when I put it right into the spot he said we couldn't fit in.

Yesterday in Little Rock he was on the phone with the DM trying to explain why we couldn't deliver a load. While he was doing that, I went wrong way down a one way street and blocked 2 lanes of traffic to bump a dock. "Tell them to hurry the #### up and unload us."

Swift promised to pay the parking ticket I got lol.

Gotta do what you gotta do man. He refuses to look at Truckers Path to find a place to shut down, so I have spent a few nights in sketchy spots with no toilet, wifi, lights or radio signal.

 

Sounds fun! I could never train it would drive me up a wall. I also can't get teaming either unless maybe married to the teammate.