Anyone ever do a paid hourly regional gig?

I'm starting with a company tomorrow that pays 24/hour running Ontario to Quebec. I've only ever run by mile and am wondering if anyone can fill me in (pros/cons) or offer some tips on being paid by the hour.

Thnks

 

There are no cons. Except maybe the $24/hour part. Should be $28-30

 

Yeah, but it is what it is. Hard to find those 30/hr jobs

 

As far as I've been able to tell there are no cons for a driver working by the hour. That's especially true when there's time and a half and good benefits.
It makes for a little more work for the company because they have to keep an eye out for slackers but if they're doing regional work it's not hard to spot somebody who drags their feet.
I know very few drivers who moved from a percentage job or a mileage job to an hourly position that ever wanted to switch back.
The attitude and morale of the drivers is usually better at an hourly company and that makes it a more pleasant place to work.

 

No cons to being paid by the hour if your truck breaks down you’re getting paid , stuck at a shipper for 8 hrs it’s happen to me you’re getting paid , delayed because of a accident or the weather you’re getting paid . Also you’re right about trying to find a higher paying local gig almost impossible if you want a work life balance and not just working your life away


New company paying you Overtime

 

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to find out upfront what the terms are in which they pay for hours.

Some employers want you to log your wait time/delays in order to be paid.
-Which is fine. It does get tricky when you’re chewing a bunch of hours up somewhere and need to make it to a truck stop that night or home for days off.

Might also be good to verify they haven’t capped any of the unproductive time at a certain hour amount. For example: no more than 6 hours paid while stuck in a road closure or whatever.



My employer pays for downtime; they don’t require it to be logged either. But they will only pay for the hours we can legally work. If 3 hours into my day I have to start laying over, I get paid out for the 11 hours I had available. Then after I spend 10 off in the sleeper I can resume billing hours again.

 

Its ok if its a regular run and they pay a minimum of hrs, otherwise you’ll just be another slow poke trying to max his hrs

 

It's all good, until you can't produce enough revenue
To pay you by the hour for whatever delays occur.
Traffic,customers,breakdowns, whatever.
Then they'll have a problem with it.
Until then just cash the checks.

If you think your gonna sit 3 or 4 hours at some dock
and get paid time and half for it all the time,
Your dreaming.
They'll find a way to stop that clock.

 

That's not necessarily true in every case.. We pay our drivers by the hour and since we run short regional and local they're usually home every night.
We don't do grocery warehouses, DCs, or produce hauling. When we realized we couldn't afford to pay our drivers to sit and that we couldn't keep good drivers if we didn't pay them we had choices to make.
We got rid of the dry vans and reefers and concentrated on our tankers, flatbeds, and construction trucks. We can keep a better eye on delay times and costs that way.
Our net profit percentage was just as good and in some cases better.
If one of our drivers gets hung up somewhere he lets us know and we plan accordingly. We don't make him go off duty. He gets paid for the delay time and we try to get the money out of whoever caused the delay. Sometimes we collect and sometimes we don't but we never make the driver sit for nothing. That's not the deal.
If a driver is dragging his feet or intentionally milking the clock we'll know about it pretty quick. We know how long it should take from point A to point B and a slacker shows up right away in excessive travel time and load/unload time.
We don't really have too many problems like that. We have a good crew, older guys mostly, who understand how things work. They stick with us and do a good job for us.
You might be surprised at how well a company runs if the drivers are paid right.
Not everybody thinks hourly pay is a license to steal.

 

As long as your company has enough work and enough hrs that your drivers don’t have to sit around that’s awesome to hear . The mega carrier i work for if i don’t take my time and just rush around all day then i will not get the hours i need to live in which is 10 + hrs a day .Everyone here sits around dogging the clock its just the way it is . Work can be busy for a few months then next thing you know your picking up empties just to get your hrs