Just got my CDL today, need advice please!

congrats steel ! will be going this summer for mine

 

I don't know anything about these companies but I can tell you having a reason to get out of the truck and get some exercise is a BIG deal. Constant sitting can cause a lot of health problems besides just weight gain. That said, the more your truck is moving, the more money you're making unless you're in a salary position.

I'll pass on one thing that changed for me between getting my CDL and the first 6 months of work. At first, I wanted to take any new routes I could get and 'see the country'. There were several senior guys who ran the same route every singe day. I wondered why they didn't get out there and get the 'good' routes to run more miles and make more money. About a month into it, I realized why. They know where they're going. The traffic patterns are basically the same every day. They know what time they are getting home, where to stop for fuel/food, the load type and weight, the shipper/receiver, the drop/hook/load/offload process, etc, etc, etc.... You get the picture. Even though the scenery might be a little different coming and going, the loading dock on a warehouse in Vegas looks just like the one in Newark and the only sightseeing you'll be doing is around the shipping office and driver lounge.

Hope this gives you some perspective. Good luck and congrats on the CDL. Keep it clean.

 

If it's Fuhrer, you're gonna have a ton of stops with a lot of traffic and lots of trouble finding places to park to offload (and people pissed off that you parked beside them or idled your truck next to their office window). You could get lucky and get what they call 'bulk routes' where you'll bump a dock at Sam's, Kroger, Shoprite, etc, and offload with a pallet jack. Otherwise you're schlepping cases with a forklift into some overloaded cooler in the back of a 7-11.

Unions are overrated.