Is trucking right for me if I only want 40 hours?

A lumper on wheels with an hourly wage that's reasonable AND a life. If that's the truth, I would rather be a lumper on wheels than live in a closet for weeks on end.

Not everyone wants to sit and be lazy with nothing but no touch freight.

 

Sure, but only if ya wanna work 3 days a week.

 

I wouldn't want to live in a closet either! I'm talking about driving a 53" footer around locally with 99 no touch. That's a local job. Have fun lugging your soda kegs when it's 105 in July or through 4 feet of snow in January.

Maybe you enjoy this kind of work, but it's not for me.

 

Me neither. I don't do beverage work. I haul fuel, alot of it for storage. I am just saying some people like physical exertion. I actually PAY a gym for it.

 

Call it what you want,..But I was making 40 grand a year and home every night and had three day weekends!!,....Yup it was a four day work week,...Not a bad gig,...

BUT,...My new local gig pays way more with better benefits and retirement,...

And I have never been what ya'll call an otr driver,....

 

I don't do local soda anymore either,...

BUT it is a way for someone who want's to get a cdl and be local to go to work,...And be local,....

I never said it was easy,...But it can be done,...

 

Hey that's great. I honestly forget about the beverage companies when I said the OPs chances of getting a local job are slim to none.

The regular local general carriers and P/D companies do at least require 2 years experience.

 

I don't pull a 53 footer around, more like a 48 foot flat and drop and also
a flat that extends to 75'. Most runs get me home every nite some
require me to sleep in the truck a couple nights. I quess it's more
regional but you couldn't give me a local job by your definition and you
also couldn't give me a OTR job.

 

Agreed. Well over half of my co-workers at Con-way have never driven OTR. Many have never done anything but LTL since day one and we even have a good number of million milers who have never driven for anyone but Con-way.

I ran a P&D route for 3 years with a 53' servicing everything from heavy industry to residential deliveries in sub-divisions and learned more about driving a truck in a month than I did over 1 1/2 years of OTR. You have to get your truck into 30 tight spots per day and be a positive representative of your company while dealing with the customer. Looking back, some of my favorite deliveries were the residentials where the customer was very surprised with the level of service I provided them. I always took a lot of pride in servicing customers and made an extra effort to be overly courteous while driving - the guy I let out could be a traffic manager at a major account.. Ya never know..

I applaud anyone who tries to avoid OTR - wish I had been able to. A P&D route whether it's LTL or food service becomes kinda the polar opposite of what OTR has become. You get to know the other drivers and customers personally, you help your fellow drivers, you assist the customer, you treat everyone with respect, and you get it all back in return.

An old hand at Yellow Freight showed me the ropes around the towns I peddled and I"ll be forever grateful to him. Every new driver should be required to ride with a seasoned route driver for a week - it's amazing how much could be learned from it.

 

Not sure exactly what you mean by P/D companies but I work for an LTL that is local/home daily with P&D and out of the last group of hires at my terminal two were students and the others had some serious LTL time - one was a part time dock worker who now is getting his CDL paid for by the company and the other was a student fresh from school. Both are in their early 20's and seem to me like they'll do pretty good here.. Lucky SOB's..lol..

I think it's kind of a myth that you need X amount of experience to land a local job. FedEx Freight, UPS Freight, Con-way Freight, and the holy grail of pulling sets, UPS Parcel have all taken on drivers with no experience and still do. UPS Parcel promotes from within so you start loading packages, move to a delivery car, and graduate to the highest paying trucking job I know of without having trucking experience let alone doubles experience. Maybe the small local companies require X amount but the ones I mentioned above are all probably top ten driving jobs period when it comes to pay and overall working conditions/compensation and there is absolutely no set amount of required experience.