Is it possible to drive only 40hrs a week right out of school?

You didn't do much research before going to CDL school if you are only now finding 40 hours per week seems like asking for the moon, I suspect. 40 hours per week is a part-time job in trucking. Trucking is exempt from the FLSA which more or less guarantees 40 hour weeks and minimum-wage for everyone else. What would happen if you told your First Sergeant you expect to be sleeping until 9am and have weekends off while you were in the service?

 

There are a lot of part-time jobs out there, but the problem is 99.9% of them are going to require 1-2 years experience. Otherwise it doesn't make financial sense for a company to spend the time and money to train a new CDL holder when they're not getting the normal 60-70 hours out of them. I was lucky and did find one at Schneider after I graduated, but with the market down now, I don't think they are even offering part-time positions to recent grads with no experience any more.

 

As other have mentioned, finding a 40 hour a week job in trucking will probably be extremely difficult. Finding a 40 hour week job as an experienced driver is very hard to do, let alone somebody that has no experience. Local would be an option if you can find the right gig, OTR or regional, I don't think so. Instead of looking at trucking companies you might want to look at places that haul their own product.

 

I see we are a little bit sensitive. Not good if you want to succeed in trucking.

 

@ontheroadagain33
You're gonna get a lot of hate mail over your desired 40 hour week. Mostly from those who don't know better or have never tried.
Ignore it.
While I'm of little help, as I'm in Pennsyltucky and you in the Denver area, there are places that can accommodate you. Vocational type work -dump truck, cement mixer truck, logging truck type stuff.

It might be tough to find what you're after, but it does exist. Just gotta ignore the naysayers that never tried or don't know better

 

40 hrs? I have no idea what is possible in that realm.

getting one weekend off and two weeks in the summer for drill? Yes. They have to, its the law. Not only that, if you deploy, they have to hold your job for you when you return. Again, it’s a law passed by Congress many moons ago.

 

The trucking companies pay a lot lot lot of money in bribes to congress to stay exempt from the fair labor standard act , so they can pay minimum wage to people for working 70-80 or more hours a week and living in a truck cab .

 

Wow. Tough weekend warrior.

 

there are limits to what an employer can do, they are not required to save the exact job for you as you had and YOU have to communicate to the employer about your deployment.

I have a driver who was deployed for three months and didn't give anyone notice of deployment in the office, he just parked the truck and vanished. We called his house and his wife said he was deployed for 10 days. He expected to have the same work offered when he returned three months later. Three months without notice didn't entitle him reemployment becase he became exempt from the protections for a lack of notice.

Now when he came back, he was replaced, the truck was assigned to someone else and his personal gear was returned to his wife, I didn't terminate the contract but instead moved him to an open deticated route which pissed him off even though it was better pay but less control. He filed a complaint with who ever at the NG and we were contacted by the Ombudsmen services office about the complaint. He said we were refusing to reemploy him with the same position he was hired for but when it was all said and done, he was corrected by the services office about the limitations and obligations he has. He wasn't happy but when they explained it all to him, he accepted it. Eventully he got back to running as he wanted and the next deployment he sent a certified letter to the office and it was put into his file.

Not true, the exemption should not change until the work is reconginized as skill trades which at the rate of the crap drivers increasing on the road will never be.