Daytime work and being home every night

I hear ya, I'm in limbo with a couple of LTL outfits and it's the same song and dance at most of them. Unless you're lucky and you get spot on P&D or Line-Haul right out of the gate, you're at the mercy of the extra-board. I'm a pretty schedule oriented type of cat. I have no problem with some variation from time to time, but after doing some soul searching, I'm just not sure I want to deal with the absolute up in the air scenarios I've been offered from a couple of places. Not knowing what I'll be doing any given day, or the time at which I will be doing it sort of bothers me.

Hell the thought of running the city today, then having to run line-haul the next just doesn't seem like a very exciting situation. Seems like it'd cause havoc with your sleep patterns. Granted there IS a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a set run in the city or line-haul, the only problem is it could be a week, or a year. It's really luck of the draw. Now obviously you have to pay your dues when it comes to LTL due to seniority, which is good because that shows that people actually stay there. But currently I'm not sure what I want to do long term with trucking, so right now I'm not really motivated to climb the ladder I guess. I love flat-bedding and have been entertaining the idea of buying my own truck in the future, so I guess my motivations are different than most, regardless of how good a particular job, or company may be.

Dave

 

Especially after having been on scheduled days on and off for awhile, the adjustment to the extra board whooping is something that I'm just not prepared to handle. I could do 12 hour night shifts and such with no problem. I could handle days off in the middle of the week.
But when the same money could be made on a set-schedule job right off the bat as it could be at an LTL outfit, that alone encourages one to kind of shop around until they settle.
The milk shuttling thing I've been doing has experienced a good pay hike and I'm riding the wave until some renegotiating turns it on its head again.

 

Right on, at least you have a plan. I got hired on today at flatbed outfit. Local, home daily, decent hours and I take the truck home with me and avoid commuting 70 miles round trip a day in my personal vehicle. For 1100-1200 a week starting after taxes, I can't complain when you're offering me a 7-5 schedule Monday through Friday lol. I've got to run up to Dallas tomorrow for orientation, then I bring my truck home and prepare to start Monday. I guess we'll see if the promises pan out. If not, I've got some things formulating at some LTL's and if things don't fly like their supposed to, then I'll consider the extra board at that point. But for now, this seems like my cup of tea.

Dave

 

Which ODFL terminal would've had you babysitting the phone with no set days working extraboard? Every ODFL extraboard driver I know from around the country works the same set days according to their extraboard "schedule" and has a window when they're contacted at the beginning of the work week.

 

That's the same as I've always heard. And no switching from nights to days and back in the same week as was also mentioned. If I had passed up that opportunity, I would expect a true friend to punch me in the face. But to each his own.

I tend to over analyze things as well, but sometimes you just gotta go for it.

 

lol That was a good read Bob. I'm guilty as HELL of over analyzing things, especially when it comes to employment. Drive me nuts, and apparently my wife as well.

Dave

 

Well, tie me to a cross a fire the RPG, but I just tend to be one of those guys that assumes the worst of most companies. After some bounces from company to company over the past decade, I feel as though things aren't going to get any better if I keep up with the "grass is greener" mentality.

As for the ODFL job and some other linehaul/LTL gigs, it was kind of a "soft blow-off". As in I overanalyzed some of the details I was fed and never called them back again to affirm my interest in getting on.
Of course I could always try out another terminal with the same outfit elsewhere and see how that pans out.

The biggest thing for me now is time off and proximity to things I like to do. Nothing tears a hole in your plans more than having your time on your days off being eaten up by distances between cities and having to obey speed limits getting through the numerous "doo-dahs" you've got to pass through.

 

With my weird mentality and possible Aspergers, I don't have any "true" friends in my life. I've got acquaintances and associates, but no one to really help me go over big decisions like these. Only time I ever seem to truly scramble for another job is after I have been fired from some place.

Sad thing about me is the fact that I haven't voluntarily left too many places in my work life. It's either a firing for a number of reasons, or the work just slows down and a lay-off occurs.

 

Man I certainly know exactly what you're talking about. I'd go into detail but I'll just say that, I hear ya.

Dave

 

Just wanted to set the record straight for anybody interested in ODFL. I know some other companies do have you babysit the phone and work basically a swing shift, but ODFL doesn't operate that way. What you described is exactly why I didn't even bother with ABF or YRC (to name a couple examples). When I first started researching trucking, I got a lot of info and help from forums like these and talking with drivers that frequent these forums, and it's important to have accurate information out there for prospective drivers so they can make informed decisions.