My Journey Begins

I got my first driving job out of Orange Park Fla. while I was still in the Navy. The government thought it was a great idea to only work 4-10 hours days a week. (of course we all agreed). So every Fri. Sat. & Sun. we got off our Navy job unless you had duty. And that only came every 30 days. I was at Cecil Field (Yellow Water) and of course that's not even there anymore. But that was back in the late 70's. I made 12½ cents a mile!!! The company was Sav-A-Stop and we called it Slave-A-Stop. I'm sure that's not there anymore either but I do not know. It was great to have regular OTR experience on my record before I retired in 1990. I did have other civilian trucking jobs but that was the first. We ran 7 southern states with team driving and hauled everything dry you'd buy in a conveniece store but delivered to a warehouse where we had to unload ourselfs. Slave work! Just though I'd let you know there's guys that have retired from the Navy and are working in this field and some are even happy!

 

How much longer do you have in school and who do you intend on driving for?

 

Glad everything went well for you and hope Schneider works out for you.

 

Good deal, keep us informed!

 

Florida Rock and tank is a real good company and would keep you within state. Oakley is also another good one. Personally I would avoid the mega-carriers At Schneider you are going to bring home around $300-$500 a week. At a smaller carrier you earning potential is going to be substantially higher. $700 - $1000 !!! That's a big difference! It may not make sense to you now but your income lies solely in the hands of your dispatcher. At those mega-carriers the dispatcher are overseeing hundreds of drivers and your load is assigned to you completely random depending on where you are. You have no say so in where or what you will be hauling.

At a smaller carrier a dispatcher may have a handful of drivers. This allows you to build a good personal working relationship with each other. They are making commission off of you so its in their best interest to work with you and decide together what is going to be best for the both of you. Trucking isn't just driving from point a to point b. There is a lot of strategy involved in order to make good money. At a smaller carrier you will have control over what you are doing or where you are going. When you have some control over what you are doing then obviously you aren't going to strand yourself or put yourself into a bad set up. You and your dispatcher will strategically plan out loads keeping you in motion and keeping you into the higher paying freight lanes and destinations. At a mega-carrier if they have a crap load going to BFE they will send you there without hesitation! You could end up sitting for days, not making a dime because you don't have any say so in your job.

This is extra crucial in the tanker world! You can't just haul any kind of freight. Therefore you really want to be choosy and strategically plan out your loads ahead of time.

Sorry didn't mean to type a lengthy post, I was trying to put a few examples behind why I bark about not driving for the mega-carriers. I'm not doing it because I think they are evil or just plain hate them. I'm trying to give you guys an insight so that you are choosing carriers blindly or because of their big ads and shiny trucks.

Any questions, hit me up....