USXPRESS dollar general and family dollar

so, I started training with usx family dollar acc. the pay is $70/DAY and they pay you all the days you spent on training which is (i believe) 150 hrs behind the wheels. i spent times in hotel on my 34 hr reset when my trainer went home because I'm coming from different state than him. meaning that pay your hotel rooms and your reset days also.

on dedicated acc and home on the week ends you don't drive too far and too long because you got to make all the stops delivering the merchandise. so that 150 hrs will go up to 6 weeks.

after you finished your training you will go home first and than go to the upgrade at any terminal they send you to. and from there you "might" get your truck to start your day.

the pay is 44 cpm and $220/trailer. mandatory is 3 trailers/wk. that means you practically has two days to finish your deliveries for every trailer. the longest run i had was about 750 miles on one trailer.

then I moved to Dollar General account. its also a dedicated acc and home weekly on the week ends. the pay is 40 cpm, $90/trailer and $20/stop. mandatory 5 trailers/wk. what makes the pay difference is that they give you $10,000 sign up bonus. longest run on one trailer for me was about 600 miles and the longest I've seen for other driver is 806 miles.

family dollar and dollar tree have the same way unloading the truck, they're using rollers and send the boxes one by one. average loads are 42,000lbs/trailer. i believe family dollar stores are very old and are located at rough neighborhood. meaning that its gonna be tight corners, tight parking lot on top of that you have to back your trailer door right in front of their back door to make a straight line for the rollers.

for newbies its gonna take some times to make that straight line, once you do it you have to get the rollers out and set em for unloading. they're made of aluminum but not as light as you thought they are. and rerack em back up after you done unloading.

the difference between family dollar and dollar tree is that you don't have to bring back any empty totes and card boxes to dc on dollar tree acc. i don't know the pay on dollar tree acc. but, both acc when you unload you work with the ppl from the store who will stay inside the store. rather than work together they will make your unload longer than its suppose to be most of the times. because when you want to finish your day quick they got paid by the hour so they want to make it longer.

at the dollar general you're gonna unload the roll container from the trailer to the lift gate in to the store. store mgr will take the paper work, open the back door, break the seal and tell you how they want the rolltainers set in their back room. after that you will work by yourself and at your own pace. some stores have the policy that driver only push the rolltainers pass the door line and store ppl will push em to the storage room.

every trailer has 52 rolltainers in avg and the stops are up to 5 per trailer, and some occasion-they call it milk run-it has 8-10 stops. and also you have to bring back rolltainers full of cardboards and the empty ones back to dc.

FD and DT sound like easier since they only mandatory 3 trailers/wk but the way they unload the trailer is so out of date and tiring. DG avg load weights are the same but remember that 52 rolltainers are heavy already, means you unload more pieces on DT and FD. some ppl like FD and DT because you only do boxes one by one which is lighter compare to pushing rolltainers that if not load properly can go up to 1,300lbs in weight. plus the broken wheels and wet grooved aluminum floors that takes all of your life just to get a grip for your feet.

like all the physical jobs it takes time to get your muscle ready to do the job done (muscle memory). i feel like i broke my back picking up them boxes off the floor on FD acc and also boxes falling to your head (some drivers wear football helmet when unload the truck) plus you take longer time at dc because you have to take in and out the rolltainers from the trailer every time. i took FD because sounds like you will make more moneyif you do 4 trailers, in fact if you're new you're not gonna get it. and its almost impossible to run 5 trailers in a week unless you want to work over the weekend.

with DG i run 6 trailers in a week couple of times. and also two trailers in a day. meaning once you get use to the job that is possible. and you will get about $6,000 of the sign up bonus within 7 months you work there. avg paycheck when i was there i would say $1,600/wk with the most i made was a little over$2,000 in a week. avg miles was 1,750miles/wk.

my suggestion is that don't take any of these acc when you're in training. get OTR for training so that the pay per day and the work is almost equal. then request for DG acc ($5,000 sign up bonus for no exp).

any of these acc let you park your truck at any of the stores acc you work at. they are everywhere so it will be close to where you live and after a while they will give you a couple of home loads in a week so you will have more home nights.

same bs on all mega corporation so they say, they will give you impossible run so you won't finish your mandatory and be stretched for the week end because they need drivers to work on the week end. they will give you two trailers in a day even you tell them you can't do it any more and tell you that its a mandatory. they will take your home loads for any reason they give you. and countless other bs.

but with all the pros and cons if you decide to go with any of these dollar acc my suggestion is take the Dollar General because its less frustrating and more money.

there used to be 3 companies work in DG acc and after most drivers quitter are 5 companies and independent contractors work there. and i believe they will have to let go some of the fms at that acc. which is GOOD!

and I've seen some drivers decided to be lease operator in this acc and i don't see them no more not too long from the day they sign the contract. LP is good as long as your truck has no troubles, thats all i can say.

if you have any question you can ask me.

thanks for your attention, i hope this help.