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I don’t think I can do this anymore.

Discussion in 'Questions From New Drivers' started by TBS54321___, Nov 11, 2025 at 9:16 AM.

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lual Road Train Member

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If you can't relocate out of FL for better opportunities....you might find one of the following opportunities of interest:

This first one is food-grade tanker duty -- smooth-bore tanker experience would later open doors for you with some of the highest paying CDL gigs out there:

Indian River Transport | View Open Positions | Indian River Transport

This next one is reefer freight, & runs loads out of Lake Alfred, FL:

Produce 5.5 Days Out - Kottke Trucking, Inc.

Either gig above would make a very worthwhile choice. Best of luck!

-- L

lual, Nov 11, 2025 at 10:47 AM

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BillMot said: ↑

Look, I’ve seen this story a hundred times. The truth is, you usually gotta put in your time out on the road before those local jobs open up. It’s rough, and the pay doesn’t always match the grind. Don’t let the bad bosses or broken promises knock you down. Keep pushing, rack up those miles, and find someone who actually wants to help you, just not some bitter old guy who’s done with the business.

Keep your head clear and save what you can. It won’t be easy, but the local work you want will come. It takes time to earn respect in this business. Hang in there and don’t let the struggle kill your spirit.

Keep driving, keep grinding, and things will change!
Click to expand...

What he said....
No consolation, but there are thousands of people out there in the same situation as you describe, tho in other fields of employment.
Times are hard all over; and news flash, they are not going to get better for some time. There are 3 men posting on TTR now; with very ill
relatives, 2 dads and 1 sister.

Not in any way making light of your situation, but just offering an overlook of "You are not alone."

You have managed so far in a very commendable way, and I salute you for it. Continue to persevere in your efforts.
Some where there is a phrase: "This too shall pass". I am 90, I've seen it work. Takes time. But with your efforts. you could be halfway there.

JolliRoger, Nov 11, 2025 at 10:48 AM

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lual Road Train Member

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Indian River Transport actually has an active thread here on the Forum....where you can communicate with other current drivers who work there, ask questions...& find out what that carrier is really like for yourself; driver morale seems pretty good over there:

Indian River

-- L

lual, Nov 11, 2025 at 10:55 AM

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TBS54321___ said: ↑

I’ve been driving a little over 3 years now.
I’m 28 years old. I live in central Florida.
I got into this industry because I was struggling and I was told I could build a decent career and make good money.

I saved up and dropped 7 grand to go and get my CDL. It was a little over a month of juggling my job + school and it wasn’t easy, however I did get it done.
During the whole process I expressed to pretty much anyone that I could that I had absolutely no interest in going over the road and was told repeatedly I wouldn’t have to, that I could find a local job no problem .

After I got my CDL and started searching for a job I quickly realized how big of a lie this was. Literally no local company would touch me with zero experience. Almost instantly the concern and frustration started kicking in. I considered giving up before I even began. Long story short, searched for 2 whole months before I ended up having to go with SWIFT transportation…

I won’t go too much into detail about my experience with them, but it was by far the worst job i’ve ever had. My “mentor” basically used me as a logbook and threw me to the wolves. Had me driving while he slept the second day. He was an angry and bitter old guy and overall a nightmare to be around. But I got through it. My driver leader/dispatch was making me run recaps pretty much constantly, I was working/driving 55+ hours a week for 1.5 years, miserable in crappy trucks that always had something wrong with them. I was sent through snow, got caught in a hurricane without power for 4 days. Missing home constantly. Speaking of which they would repeatedly lie and keep me out for days and days beyond my scheduled home time. my job was always at jeopardy here. Every minor incident was met with threats of being taken off the road. And I was putting up with all of this for about maybe 700 a week take home on average. I was questioning what I was even there for. I was doing worse than I was at my previous job… I wasn’t making money, in fact almost every month paying my bills put me in the hole. I was driving myself insane.

Now you might ask, why didn’t you just leave? Well, I tried. As I said, I NEVER had intentions of being OTR… so I wasn’t about to jump #### to another OTR job… I started searching for local jobs in my home county at about 6 months into my 17 month stretch with swift. Every company either ignored me, or told me I needed more experience. Coke, pepsi, keurig dr pepper, saddle creek, sherwin williams, gordon food services, every one of them. For a year.

Until, I FINALLY heard back from a company called Sygma, which is owned by Sysco… in Orlando. I’d always heard they make great money and I knew they were local so I was excited. I applied for a “Class A Driver Job” as it was listed. And was contacted by an HR rep a few days later, to keep it short I was told this was a delivery driver job and that it was scheduled for about 10-12 hours a day. I figured no big deal sounds great to me. They interviewed me over video and decided they wanted to send me a job offer and schedule orientation.

Me being eager to leave Swift I put in my two weeks almost immediately. The only problem was, two days later I had not gotten a job offer… and I could not get a hole of the HR rep or actually ANYONE from HR at the Orlando office. A week later she sends up emailing me saying she was sorry she forgot to send it and went on vacation… and that unfortunately although she would send it now… this delay put my orientation off another month. So I sat unemployed for almost an entire month due to this mistake.

I figured oh well, I finally got there and things would get better right? Wrong. It was only then I began learning the truth of this job I accepted. It was not a delivery job as I was told, it was a shuttle position. The hours were also inaccurate as well. I was told it was scheduled for 10-12 hours a day max, in reality it was set for 14 hours a day 5 days a week. And paid about 1400 gross each week. No safety bonuses (since I wasn’t a delivery driver) This is absolutely criminal. I was on the verge of having a breakdown. I’d been lied to and lured here to be suckered into a job that I simply couldn’t feasibly perform. 14 hours a day is simply too much and for the money? Even worse.

I started frantically looking for anything else in the area that could offer me a way out. I figured I was screwed, I had dug myself a hole I wouldn’t get out of. But by pure luck I managed to make a friend, and older driver who said he could help me get on to a local company that was actually in my hometown, and only a few minutes from where I live. I won’t name the company but it’s where i’ve been working for the past 16 months. I explained my situation to the people at Sygma and we parted ways amicably.

I deliver medical supplies off the back of trailers to different places around the area with a pallet jack and a hand truck. At first it was all good. I had a job that was doable, wasn’t killing me on hours and had management that treated me good. The issues didn’t start piling up until a few months in. When the initial happiness of finding a job wore off and I realized this simply was not going to cut it forever.

My life has gotten pretty difficult this past year, rent has gone up significantly, the cost of everything has really. I had a recent very expensive medical issue, and I am now having to take care of my dying grandfather. For me to make 1000 take home on a paycheck at my job I have to work 50 hours. And let me be clear I absolutely do not get these hours every week. They keep is at around 46 a piece as often as they can. We get no stock, no bonuses, no pension. Nothing. My rent alone is nearly two weeks pay. I’m basically living month to month. And technically speaking any money I do save is just going towards replenishing what I lost working for SWIFT. In addition this company is soon to add in can cameras, and they are using that as an excuse to skip over everyones raise this year. So that’s great.

All in all almost 3 years later I am pretty much right where I started, barely making it past ends meet and struggling.

For the past 8 months or so I have been searching for jobs and applying to any I see that are decent. I even went out of my way to get all my endorsements hoping it would help my chances.

Airgas - Had an interview scheduled, was ghosted by the recruiter. Never heard from them again.

Ace Hardware - applied two separate times, both times received an email saying they chose “someone more closely matching their needs”

Keurig Dr. pepper - I have applied 3 times over the past months, all 3 times got asked to do a video interview, all 3 times I was “not selected”

Carvana - Applied never heard anything, job got delisted.

Circle K - Applied never heard anything job got delisted.

7-11/Speedway - Actually got a referral for this one, was told they were unwilling to hire me due to commute time being too high.

Gordon Food Service, Golden State Foods and US Foods - All 3 didn’t even notice my application it seems and the jobs got delisted.

My most recent one was for Sysco. I actually have a friend at my current job who worked for sysco for 16 years and he put me in touch with one of the lead drivers the my local terminal, he put in a word for me, I put his name in my application, I even handed in a printed out Resume in person and I still got rejected…

Most of these places rarely have positions open and when they do they go fast… and everything else pays too similar to what I make now for it to be worth a transition to a totally new job.

I just don’t know what to do. I know it makes me sound entitled, but I feel as if I work too hard and have sacrificed too much to feel this way. I am tired of feeling like I am invisible to every company I reach out to. And as if my hard work has been for nothing. It’s really begun to affect my mental state.

So my question is, has anyone been here before? What do I? How do I get out? I truly don’t know how much longer I can keep standing around just hoping to get lucky before I drive myself insane.
Click to expand...

I am sorry to hear what you are going through. If anyone can help it's @Chinatown

bad-luck, Nov 11, 2025 at 10:56 AM

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Well, hold on, don't pack the bags just yet. I say, stay put. As mentioned, we've heard this quite a bit, and it's cool, it's why the site exists. Hey, at least you have us to talk to. Years ago, there was no support, and we made foolish decisions because of it. We all can feel your anguish, we've all been there, but quite honestly, nothing unusual. See,, the thing is, good people, like yourself, who are seemingly out of options, turn to trucking as kind of a last resort. Oh sure, the recruiters will hand you more BS than is in Wisconsin, and it's to keep a pool of drivers handy, with no real intent of ever hiring you. Remember, dispatchers have heard it all, and have no conscience, and they hear your story a hundred times. You can't win in your situation. Florida has more money than Vegas, almost, and if you are going to be gone, do like Chinatown sez, get a cruise ship job, or any number of tourist related jobs. Heck, a Disney trolley bus driver would be better than Swift. Not that there's anything wrong with Swift, but I think you are capable of more. Your biggest mistake was thinking trucking could be a "decent" career for new applicants,, it's not, and we hear time and time again, how lousy the hiring is. Get into Publix or "Lexus of Orlando", but I'd give trucking the heave ho. Good luck.

201, Nov 11, 2025 at 10:57 AM

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TBS54321___ Bobtail Member

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HintsfromHomie said: ↑

I’m just north of you. Here’s the best tip I can think of: try PAPER TRANSPORT (PTI) . They have an office and yard in JAX, they have GEORGIA PACIFIC as a client and run large volume out of the GP plant in Palatka where they also have authorized parking for PTI drivers. They are CONSTANTLY trying to hire OTR southeast region 5.5 days out , 1.5 DF 34hr reset. You’ll Avg $11-1200 take home. I just left there 2 mo ago, starting for a smaller company in JAX as an independent sub contractor now. Just don’t tell PTI you heard it from me: find them on a Google search or go to TENSTREET and search them in the Jobs section. Good luck: they’re a decent company but be aware they have driver facing cameras and some attitude about micromanagement , otherwise that might be your out.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately i’m just not interested in OTR. It was a horrible experience for me and I never even wanted to begin with. And with my situation currently I have to be home often.

TBS54321___, Nov 11, 2025 at 10:58 AM

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TBS54321___ said: ↑

Unfortunately i’m just not interested in OTR. It was a horrible experience for me and I never even wanted to begin with. And with my situation currently I have to be home often.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, living in Florida means being OTR if you want to make money with a CDL. I'd look at yard jobs/freight handlers, but the pay will end up being about the same. Best bet would be getting on as a package handler driving a box truck.

gentleroger, Nov 11, 2025 at 11:12 AM

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TBS54321___ said: ↑

Unfortunately I can’t control where I live. Even I was comfortable uprooting my whole life and moving somewhere else, I couldn’t afford it and I have people here that rely on me.
Click to expand...

If done homework or asked around everybody would have told you Florida is extremely difficult for jobs as a truck drivers in a multitude of ways.

Your location is your biggest roadblock in this industry .

Kenworth6969, Nov 11, 2025 at 11:12 AM

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TBS54321___ said: ↑

I’ve been driving a little over 3 years now.
I’m 28 years old. I live in central Florida.
I got into this industry because I was struggling and I was told I could build a decent career and make good money.

I saved up and dropped 7 grand to go and get my CDL. It was a little over a month of juggling my job + school and it wasn’t easy, however I did get it done.
During the whole process I expressed to pretty much anyone that I could that I had absolutely no interest in going over the road and was told repeatedly I wouldn’t have to, that I could find a local job no problem .

After I got my CDL and started searching for a job I quickly realized how big of a lie this was. Literally no local company would touch me with zero experience. Almost instantly the concern and frustration started kicking in. I considered giving up before I even began. Long story short, searched for 2 whole months before I ended up having to go with SWIFT transportation…

I won’t go too much into detail about my experience with them, but it was by far the worst job i’ve ever had. My “mentor” basically used me as a logbook and threw me to the wolves. Had me driving while he slept the second day. He was an angry and bitter old guy and overall a nightmare to be around. But I got through it. My driver leader/dispatch was making me run recaps pretty much constantly, I was working/driving 55+ hours a week for 1.5 years, miserable in crappy trucks that always had something wrong with them. I was sent through snow, got caught in a hurricane without power for 4 days. Missing home constantly. Speaking of which they would repeatedly lie and keep me out for days and days beyond my scheduled home time. my job was always at jeopardy here. Every minor incident was met with threats of being taken off the road. And I was putting up with all of this for about maybe 700 a week take home on average. I was questioning what I was even there for. I was doing worse than I was at my previous job… I wasn’t making money, in fact almost every month paying my bills put me in the hole. I was driving myself insane.

Now you might ask, why didn’t you just leave? Well, I tried. As I said, I NEVER had intentions of being OTR… so I wasn’t about to jump #### to another OTR job… I started searching for local jobs in my home county at about 6 months into my 17 month stretch with swift. Every company either ignored me, or told me I needed more experience. Coke, pepsi, keurig dr pepper, saddle creek, sherwin williams, gordon food services, every one of them. For a year.

Until, I FINALLY heard back from a company called Sygma, which is owned by Sysco… in Orlando. I’d always heard they make great money and I knew they were local so I was excited. I applied for a “Class A Driver Job” as it was listed. And was contacted by an HR rep a few days later, to keep it short I was told this was a delivery driver job and that it was scheduled for about 10-12 hours a day. I figured no big deal sounds great to me. They interviewed me over video and decided they wanted to send me a job offer and schedule orientation.

Me being eager to leave Swift I put in my two weeks almost immediately. The only problem was, two days later I had not gotten a job offer… and I could not get a hole of the HR rep or actually ANYONE from HR at the Orlando office. A week later she sends up emailing me saying she was sorry she forgot to send it and went on vacation… and that unfortunately although she would send it now… this delay put my orientation off another month. So I sat unemployed for almost an entire month due to this mistake.

I figured oh well, I finally got there and things would get better right? Wrong. It was only then I began learning the truth of this job I accepted. It was not a delivery job as I was told, it was a shuttle position. The hours were also inaccurate as well. I was told it was scheduled for 10-12 hours a day max, in reality it was set for 14 hours a day 5 days a week. And paid about 1400 gross each week. No safety bonuses (since I wasn’t a delivery driver) This is absolutely criminal. I was on the verge of having a breakdown. I’d been lied to and lured here to be suckered into a job that I simply couldn’t feasibly perform. 14 hours a day is simply too much and for the money? Even worse.

I started frantically looking for anything else in the area that could offer me a way out. I figured I was screwed, I had dug myself a hole I wouldn’t get out of. But by pure luck I managed to make a friend, and older driver who said he could help me get on to a local company that was actually in my hometown, and only a few minutes from where I live. I won’t name the company but it’s where i’ve been working for the past 16 months. I explained my situation to the people at Sygma and we parted ways amicably.

I deliver medical supplies off the back of trailers to different places around the area with a pallet jack and a hand truck. At first it was all good. I had a job that was doable, wasn’t killing me on hours and had management that treated me good. The issues didn’t start piling up until a few months in. When the initial happiness of finding a job wore off and I realized this simply was not going to cut it forever.

My life has gotten pretty difficult this past year, rent has gone up significantly, the cost of everything has really. I had a recent very expensive medical issue, and I am now having to take care of my dying grandfather. For me to make 1000 take home on a paycheck at my job I have to work 50 hours. And let me be clear I absolutely do not get these hours every week. They keep is at around 46 a piece as often as they can. We get no stock, no bonuses, no pension. Nothing. My rent alone is nearly two weeks pay. I’m basically living month to month. And technically speaking any money I do save is just going towards replenishing what I lost working for SWIFT. In addition this company is soon to add in can cameras, and they are using that as an excuse to skip over everyones raise this year. So that’s great.

All in all almost 3 years later I am pretty much right where I started, barely making it past ends meet and struggling.

For the past 8 months or so I have been searching for jobs and applying to any I see that are decent. I even went out of my way to get all my endorsements hoping it would help my chances.

Airgas - Had an interview scheduled, was ghosted by the recruiter. Never heard from them again.

Ace Hardware - applied two separate times, both times received an email saying they chose “someone more closely matching their needs”

Keurig Dr. pepper - I have applied 3 times over the past months, all 3 times got asked to do a video interview, all 3 times I was “not selected”

Carvana - Applied never heard anything, job got delisted.

Circle K - Applied never heard anything job got delisted.

7-11/Speedway - Actually got a referral for this one, was told they were unwilling to hire me due to commute time being too high.

Gordon Food Service, Golden State Foods and US Foods - All 3 didn’t even notice my application it seems and the jobs got delisted.

My most recent one was for Sysco. I actually have a friend at my current job who worked for sysco for 16 years and he put me in touch with one of the lead drivers the my local terminal, he put in a word for me, I put his name in my application, I even handed in a printed out Resume in person and I still got rejected…

Most of these places rarely have positions open and when they do they go fast… and everything else pays too similar to what I make now for it to be worth a transition to a totally new job.

I just don’t know what to do. I know it makes me sound entitled, but I feel as if I work too hard and have sacrificed too much to feel this way. I am tired of feeling like I am invisible to every company I reach out to. And as if my hard work has been for nothing. It’s really begun to affect my mental state.

So my question is, has anyone been here before? What do I? How do I get out? I truly don’t know how much longer I can keep standing around just hoping to get lucky before I drive myself insane.
Click to expand...

Well written, didn’t think I’d read the whole thing but it captivated me, lol.

Try Penske..they seem to have a few adds up in the Orlando area. If it’s anything like the job they had in the Melbourne area it’ll get you home every day. Driver over here starts early 4am ish and is usually done early afternoon.

Here’s a link..

https://www.google.com/search?q=pen...wPkOsWhgkPcsAAAAAA==&vssid=jobs-detail-viewer

Concorde, Nov 11, 2025 at 11:21 AM

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Cowan has local and regional work.

“All Cowan Dedicated Local Drivers will enjoy:

Full Benefits: Health, Dental, and Vision insurance after 60 days of employment

401k with company match & $20,000 life insurance

New PTO incentive – increase your paid time off within your first year as a professional driver for Cowan Systems!

Essential Freight = Job Stability!

Guaranteed increases with options to earn more by working a weekend or 6th day

Paid orientation with single room hotel stay

Requirements:

CDL A License

1 year of verifiable Class A experience in the last 3 years

Must have Dry Van, Reefer, Container, Flatbed and/or Tanker experience

Safe driving record”

CDL-A Regional Truck Driver Jobs
Concorde, Nov 11, 2025 at 11:27 AM

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