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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;haulit6272, post: 8433151, member: 221210&quot;]With as many trucks as I see 24/7, I can&#039;t imagine why a customer would have to reach 200-500 miles to find an available truck to move it&#039;s stuff. But that&#039;s another topic.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>What did the privileged few do to become the privileged few? I&#039;ve never heard of a truck company awarding route preferences based on seniority, so it must be something else. I have no idea why seniority isn&#039;t used in the industry, at least for dedicated routes, other than perhaps the manpower required to keep up with it all. Everyone from the airline pilot down to the non-union reservation agent gets to choose their schedule based on tenure.</p><p><br /></p><p>I noticed.</p><p><br /></p><p>So now your truck is gone.&nbsp; Then what? You get even more home time until another driver also exceeds his maximum, in a yard you&#039;re willing to drive to? How many weeks might that take?</p><p><br /></p><p>As long as the zip code you request surrounds their &#039;yard,&#039; aka their terminal? That would narrow it down quickly. I don&#039;t understand why every &#039;Drive For Us&#039; webpage of every trucking company doesn&#039;t show from the git-go where their terminals are. This would effectively tell the driver, &quot;If you want ANY kind of a life on your one day off per week, you&#039;ll need to live in one of these cities.&quot; Applicants could potentially save a lot of time wasted by knowing that fact alone, and the companies could reduce the number of applications to consider when they stop getting applications from people who already know they aren&#039;t going to move to one of those cities.</p><p><br /></p><p>I need company training. There&#039;s no bank account with $8K lying around and no more student loans for me. Reimbursement for CDL school only applies if you managed to come up with the cash to begin with. I&#039;m expecting to have to move, not find a company that&#039;s near where I already live. If the general definition of &#039;home time&#039; is.....&quot;the time between when you drop off your truck in one of THEIR &#039;yards,&#039; (aka &#039;terminals,&#039;) and the time you need to be there to pick it up again,&quot;....one of those cities would be where I would move to.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve typed in zip codes for cities I might want to move to, using the job finder box on this website, along with the &#039;I need CDL training&#039; line in the drop down list. The drop down list weeds out most all the companies you&#039;d get otherwise. The cities I&#039;ve put in so far, besides where I am now, are nowhere near me or near each other. CRST is the only company that pops-up each time, along with maybe one other depending on the city.</p><p><br /></p><p>There must be companies with training classes who aren&#039;t paying to have their schools show up in the search. It&#039;s probably cause they aren&#039;t huge, family run, have infrequent classes, or get more apps than they need via word of mouth. There&#039;s a driver with a youtube channel who worked for such a company and said he was the only person in his &#039;training class.&#039; He apparently got one-on-one training.</p><p><br /></p><p>No gas policy for idling? No APU? Either of those should take care of the hot or cold, right?</p><p><br /></p><p>There are two companies within 100 miles of me who train for CDL&#039;s and the closest one already turned me down without explanation. Haven&#039;t applied to the other one yet after talking to the recruiter on the phone. They require two years of verifiable employment prior to application. Don&#039;t have that. So you aren&#039;t allowed to have been laid off or come out of retirement.&nbsp; I&#039;m not flipping burgers for two years just to be on someone&#039;s payroll just to apply.&nbsp; An alternative is to produce IRS 1040 returns proving income. Since they aren&#039;t the last company on earth, I think I&#039;ll keep those private.</p><p><br /></p><p>The one recruiter I&#039;ve talked to over the phone had a case of RWA (recruiter with attitude) which means they *sighed* after every question as if I was suppose to be so desperate I would just apply and show up without knowing what I was getting into. I&#039;m not homeless. I can&#039;t imagine asking them, or any other hiring manager/recruiter at any company in any industry to put me in contact with an employee that I can ask questions of unless it were their own idea to do so, not mine. They&#039;d be thinking, &quot;What? You don&#039;t trust us?&quot; I don&#039;t know how that wouldn&#039;t hurt my prospects of getting hired. Even if they were friendly and gave me the name and phone of someone, I would expect it to be the happiest, most pro-company biased driver/trainer they have, certainly not some random guy you strike up a conversation with at a truck stop. I appreciate the suggestion, I just don&#039;t have the guts to ask them that.</p><p><br /></p><p>I haven&#039;t checked prices of community schools, but unless they have extra tuition costs specifically for CDL classes, that would mean students are getting out on the cheap. If the tuition were in line with other classes at a community college, why would anyone pay $8-$10K for a private CDL school, especially in the same city? I don&#039;t think my local community college trains truckers. They have a web page that says they do, but no one answers the phone or returns calls, so I can&#039;t get any information. And if it were operating and relatively cheap, they&#039;d have a waiting list that circles the globe. There are private schools in the area if you&#039;ve got the cash, and it would make no sense for people to go there with a local community college making it possible to just sign up any semester and do it. So I&#039;m not sure what&#039;s going on with that. I probably need to spend the huge amount of time needed to research the names of community colleges in cities I might want to move to, find out what it takes to get in, and how much it costs. That still doesn&#039;t solve the dilemma of having to sell my house and move. The house is the thorn in my side. If I sell it, then wherever I go, I&#039;m homeless. &quot;Home time&quot; will either be a van or RV I&#039;d have to buy, or Motel 6.</p><p><br /></p><p>Most threads/posts assume full-time positions. I rarely see a trucking company that offers part-time, which I&#039;d love, preferably without having to give up benefits like 401(K). There&#039;s a PRIME flatbed driver on youtube who does 6 weeks on, 1 week off.&nbsp; He likes an entire week at once with his family. I was mildly intrigued by this option. I&#039;m not going to get much done with one day off but pay bills and do yard work. With what amounts to a week&#039;s vacation, I might actually get something done. I don&#039;t know why there aren&#039;t more simple job boards showing every opening based in every city so that you could apply for THAT city/schedule. Seems it would make things a lot easier.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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