No job is perfect. A grand a week after taxes, a new truck with a fridge, and no duties outside of driving works for me. But I've also been in some pretty bad trucks and had jobs that didn't pay so I tend to appreciate things instead of finding flaw in everything.
Indian River Transport- The journey begins
Discussion in 'Motor Carrier Questions - The Inside Scoop' started by Deadhead75, Jun 13, 2014.
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I will say this, I started driving a little over 5 years ago. I went over the road hauling flour pulling a pneumatic. It was an old school company that ran loose leaf logs and ran you day and night, holidays, weekends, you name it. I enjoyed it and made them a hand for about 3 years. I even trained a dozen or so guys for them while I was there on how to operate the tanks. The most I ever made was $54,000 a year and that was including per diem and bonuses. They had nice equipment. Volvos, Cascadias, and a few Petes. 3 year old trucks at the oldest.
When I wanted to come off the road I ran local Monday thru Friday pulling an end dump hauling petroleum coke out of different refineries, weekends off. I made about $45,000 a year doing that. Again, for a company that ran all newer Petes and Kenworths.
Here about 6 months ago, the wife and I thought we would buy a 5th wheel and move to South Texas to cash in on the oil boom. I went and got my hazmat and TWIC. Started out hauling frac sand, then crude oil, then back to frac sand. I never tried the water trucks because I knew it was similar to crude hauling and didn't enjoy the crude. The money was good doing all of these things. The lifestyle is rough though. The trucks stay dirty all the time on the inside and the out. It's nothing but dirt roads all day, dash falls off going down the roads, a/c doesn't work half the time, shorts in the light wiring everyday, etc. You're constantly watching out for rattlesnakes, scorpions, and illegal immigrants who want to murder/decapitate you for your truck and the bottled water that you carry in the cab. You might see a half naked woman running down the dirt road in the desert at 2am crying for help. When you stop to help her, 8 or 9 illegals come out the darkness and try to kill you. It's a horse of a different color down here. All for what? So your paycheck is $150 more than the guy who's driving over the road? The rv parks are expensive and usually just dirt and gravel. Most of the co-workers I've worked around have the IQ level of a gnat, can't get a "real" trucking job because their CSA and MVR is so screwed up from driving junk equipment, and running illegal all the time. I'm really just put out with the whole oilfield thing. I'm ready to go back over the road and have a nice, new, clean truck, stay on the highways all day, not slip seat and share my truck with some pig who has no respect or and brings it back to the yard with all kinds of mechanical problems half the time.
The oilfield might be for some guys, but it's not my cup of tea. I kind of like cruising down the interstate in clean clothes, jamming to XM radio, enjoying a nice clean truck that will always pass an inspection. At .37 cents per mile and 3000 miles per week that's $1,110 gross per week. Of which, $270 isn't getting taxed. So about a grand bring home. Yeah, you can bring home $1,200 a week running local in the oilfield down here, but look at the bs you have to put up with in order to get that extra $200 a week. Money can't buy everything. It takes more than money to make a person happy. A new truck, being left alone by dispatch and allowed to think for yourself goes a long way in my book. I'm not going to sweat the small stuff on layover pay, detention time, etc. If they're feeding me a grand a week after taxes and giving me a new rig to drive/live in I'm content. I've learned my lesson on quitting a good job just to go and chase down a few more bucks that the other company was paying. Chances are, that other company might pay for a few more things that the other one isn't, but their is still going to be pros and cons. They might pay a few hours detention, but their trucks might be 7 years older. They might pay for a layover, but they might not have the consistent customer base to keep a guy in a steady paycheck 52 weeks out of the year. It all boils down to what a person is willing to tolerate and what the pros are that offset the cons. Just my 2 cents.Deadhead75, truckerman75103, Redman30 and 7 others Thank this. -
Very well put. I am learning the same lessons. The hard way of course. Irt is based in my hometown and for some reason tanker just hasn't appealed to me. Move the mileage pay up a bit might make them more appealing. A lot of carriers have started upping pay a few cents in the last year. They should as well.
Deadhead75, 48Packard and hal380 Thank this. -
Yeah they just raised it from .35 to .37.
I was making .45 loaded and .34 empty hauling chemicals.
Yeah .37 is still low but it will pay the bills. -
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I think as the oil and gas industry continues to boom, the OTR companies will continue to increase pay. Too many people are leaving the highways and going to the oil fields chasing the higher pay and local routes. The only way to increase driver retention is to compete with the new jobs that the oil and gas industry have created. Sooner or later it will start to equalize in pay. You'll probably always have a difference in pay when it comes to OTR vs oilfield, but in the future I don't think it will be enough to amount to a hill of beans. In the 6 months that I've been down here, I've seen a lot of guys fall into that rut of going out and buying Denali trucks, Platinum edition diesels, Camaros, 6 figure houses, etc. It traps them into a position where they have to continue chasing the higher paying jobs. Even if a company sounds a little more enjoyable to them, they have to go ahead and choose the one that pays a little more because of the financial situation they've gotten themselves in.
Deadhead75, 48Packard, xlsdraw and 2 others Thank this. -
Like Texas said, money isn't everything. I would rather be happy and making a little less than unhappy making more. I just want to be happy and pay the bills and maybe save just a little.
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