Hard work?

Yes it is work but it makes driving truck worth while. While chaining and tarping yes you work but your not holding a steering wheel for 10hrs a day. Even trade. Good luck as its not that bad.

 

my son and another owner operator are both leased to the same company,my son is 21 the other guy had been with the company for 37 years but not sure of his age. They were both loading plate steel in Chicago last friday and my boy said the old guy worked circles around him. This was the boys 3rd load of steel the old guy has hauled hundreds of loads. I think it comes down to experience,it was much harder on the boy than it was on the older guy because he had a system worked out

 

Work smarter not harder....Tarping and Securing are not near as exhausting as the other things you deal with being a freight relocation specialist.....and also things get easier as you do them you learn tricks how to do this and that

 

Easiest job I've ever had thus far...make of it what you will. Some people love it, some people don't.

 

Yes you learn little shortcuts here and there. Take a look at my thread I created a while back, it should still be on this page.

The hardest work can be moving your tarps around. I bought a four piece lightweight tarp system just because of this. I'm around 5'8" and 160 lbs. I still have difficulty sometimes getting the tarps up on the load. It all depends on where it needs to go.

Straps and chains are easy, even my 16 foot 3/8" chains. There may be difficulty at first throwing straps over the tall loads but you get the hang of it.

 

I am older and cannot see myself hanging tarps like I used to but it still can be done just takes longer and with experience you learn what not to do twice.

Military will help, adverse weather conditions you may have been accustomed to will not seem so bad.

Load securement and placement to scale weight, takes time but hey we all start out as new people and I learn something new all the time.

Tarps imho is a art of covering the load and not ripping it to pieces in the route.

 

I don't know why this has been called "hard" work. I suppose if one is a lazy ### it would be. Actually I work harder unloading freight when I pull dry-box for my current company.

The way I see it though-flatbeddin can suck in the Winter;still IMO it's the way to go. I'm 53 BTW and throw the 8'ft drops on at least once a week.It should not be that big a deal for you. Good Luck..