Class A license, class B job offers

And that attitude is why....

 

Since it is warming up ready mix is the way to go. With a halfway decent company $65k is easy to get.

 

Apply at Old Dominion; they hire new cdl grads and even send recruiters to cdl school looking for drivers.

 

Yeah, sorry, I respectfully call BS on this. Where I'm from Pepsi drivers are routinely poached by local companies every chance they get because they know 1) you can't out work them. & 2) they can put that 48' -13'2" trailer in places it's not supposed to go.

Hey, maybe that's how it WAS, or is possibly a geographical thing? But in this area, in this day & age , if you can survive at Pepsi for any length of time you'll always have Job offers.

 

You can call BS all you want but it is in fact how it went down. Keep in mind this was about 7 years ago in Albuquerque.

The manager at Coastal at the time was an older guy, maybe late 50's or early 60's, and he had a ####ty attitude from the moment I walked in the door. I think it was more a case of "I want to sit on my ### and not do anything" on his part that day, but I didn't receive the same kind of treatment from any of the other companies (Western Refining, United Petroleum Transport, Groendyke, etc.) that I talked to or applied at.

The guy was just a dick, no nice way of putting it.

 

After 1 year OTR I got a job locally running a cement mixer. After 9 months, I was permanently laid off due to the economy. I started looking OTR again. It was tough. Because few companies saw my B experience as real experience. Ended up at Whiteline Express which was a decent gig for a time.

 

I drive a class B truck in the day doing residential and a 53' at night... I don't give a f..ck. I make the same as all the other drivers here and I get TIPS (sometimes)

 

Funny... I'm going on 9 years OTR... I don't recall EVER seeing a 53' fuel tanker. Maybe in Michigan where they run 8 axle trailers for ####s and giggles but surely not in Texas. I guess everything in Texas isn't ALWAYS bigger...

 

Lmao, I had something similar to a "larger" flatbed outfit that had an ad in one of those truck stop job magazine that said, "You're not just a number here!"

Anyway, the place sounded good though I found out later that they are owned by/affiliated with Boyd Bros. So they wanted 12 months in the last 2 years experience. I was close, but only had like 11 due to taking time off to help my old man on his farm. So I apply.

Now keep in mind this 11 months was all flatbed work. Some of it was pulling glass for Combined Transport, a no-BS type of freight that'll straighten you out quick or send you packing. The rest was pulling for a small company out of Phillipsburg, NJ. All specialized stuff, some oversize, out of the ports there in Newark. Backhauls routinely into the 5 boroughs. This was in a 4 axle Pete with 53' spread axle steps and sometimes 43' RGNs, very occasionally straight 48' flats. Fun stuff. Anyway, not your regular van-weeny type experience.

Anyway, the recruiter gets back to me and has a few questions about my past experience. Things sound like they are going ok. She's duly impressed by my last 2 jobs, and my references check out great she says. Nothing but shinola from all 3 of em. Next day she calls me again to say they can't offer me the job because the safety and compliance department won't take less than a year experience no matter what.

LOL

Ok then. Not just a number, eh?

 

Yeah, sounds like the guy was exactly that. I hear guys trash local gigs (like Pepsi and other stuff all the time) and some of it is really area specific (like your situation) and others might be company specific. I only say anything because I don't think guys should steer away from this jobs because of what might be other people's experiences. That's all I'm saying.