New Guy Need Advice1

I've always adviced newbies to hang on, try to stay at least 1 year before going with another carrier. In trucking, the gold mine is getting with an hourly paid union job like the supermarket grocery chains. These are called "private fleets," which often require 5 years of verifiable driving experience, clean MV printout, and no past history of job-hopping from one employer to another. Anything less than 1 year is defined as "job-hopping." It's assumed that if you job-hop, you're likely to quit in less than 1 year after they've invested a trainer to ride with you, showing you the way they conduct their unique way of doing business.

Most carriers have driver turnover issues, which is indicative of drivers leaving because they were lied to when they got hired initially. If you look at the newspapers and the internet, companies who put out daily or weekly ads for drivers, 365 days a year or weekly ads on the Sunday newspapers, it is indicative of drivers quitting out of frustration, because another carrier had lied to them, again !!! The key word here is "common carrier." They cannot stay in business without lying to their drivers. If they were totally honest in how they do business, no one would submit an application, so they bend the truth to attract applicants.

When you look at hourly-paid local positions with private fleets like Walmart Transportation, Tyson Foods, Foster Farms, etc... you'll observe that these companies rarely put out advertisements to announce they're hiring a class-A driver. Their driver retention rates are indicative of people who are content with pay and working conditions, and intend to stay with the company till they retire.

When you've been with a carrier over 5 years, your mileage begins to go down because it's costing the company too much to keep you on the payroll. If you have a load going 3,000 miles, a newbie at 28¢ per mile will cost $840 in payroll if you give him/her this load. A veteran driver earning 34¢ a mile will cost $1,020 in payroll if you assign him this load. By giving the newbie the 3,000-mile trip, the company saves $180 in payroll. This is why you rarely find OTR drivers who had been with the company over 5 years. The ones who exceed 5 years are often on dedicated accounts who are paid salary wages.

Before you quit England, ask about their dedicated accounts, and see how many drivers are on the waiting list. If I were in your shoes, I'd stay with England and wait till you've exceeded 1 year, then move on to another job, preferably an hourly-paid local position. When you secure a local job, the key to good paychecks is overtime hours. Some drivers claimed they made less $$ than OTR, but if asked how many overtime hours they were pulling, they report 10 hours or less. When you exceed your 8-hour shift, you earn time & ½ overtime; if you're making $10 an hour, you earn $15 an hour after your 8-hour mark. As a local driver, you want to average 60 hours, or 20 hours per week overtime to make decent pay. Drivers who average less than 60 hours as an hourly-paid local driver sometimes make up the shortage by finding a part-time weekend driving job.

 

They haul a lot of loads out of weed and are willing to deadhead from as far as sac to get them so you would get home every week or 2. You won't get rich at Knight(expect to bring home between 500 to 600 a week).

Upside you'll have a decent, well maintained truck. Downside, do you like sweating?(strict on idle time but no idle air or apu's)

 

By the mile.

 

2 bits of advice.
1. Listen to others about getting that year in.

2. Some people are only happy when they are complaining.

Sure that first year will be the hardest. Shoot your a noob. What do you know about managing your own transport business? I mean thats what you took on when you leased the truck.
We don't know how dependable you are or how timely your loads are.

Maybe you show up to deliveries stinking of B.O. and cigarettes and a bad attitude to boot because you don't really like sitting in a portable cubical all day and always using a public toilet.
Maybe you really miss home.
Maybe you were a lazy, terrible worker before this all and you thought driving all day would be an easy way out.
So maybe CRE wants you to leave.

Maybe you ARE a stand out person capable of so much but the company you work for is used to losers and just doesn't have a groove that suits you.

Man up stop whining and take advantage of a company that is overwhelmed with new drivers and ever increasing taxes and fuel/repair costs.

Set the example like no one else is willing to do at your company, in your field.

Be the Difference.

 

To whom is your post directed, LightBulb?

 

I have been driving for 26 years and you hear drivers complain all the time if you got in trucking, thinking it was easy well you are wrong you can take it easy and make little money or work your but off and make alot of money you have to decide which one but you can’t have both. But one year OTR is not going to get you the dream job and they are out there, I have had my share of dream jobs. But I had to work my but off to get them. So just hang in there your time will come. And every company has it’s up’s and down’s but no one can tell you with company to work for you have to decide that just take your time and read about the company you are looking at you can find alot about them on here and the BBB.

 

Number 1 to the thread starter and number two was in generalities.

 

10-4!
Gotcha!
Thanx for clearing that up.

Whatever and to whomever your comments are/were directed, your post well deserves a hearty THANKS. Well said and well stated. And should be a must read, --- (and hopefully understood), --- for any and all wannaBees thinking about joining the truckin' industry --- as well as those newBees, rookies and seasoned drivers who have already taken the plunge.

Understanding on, from and by, ALL sides --- management, support staff and employees alike --- should make for a better understanding of all things involved, and therefor provide a better chance for more folks to actually make a success of it.

I think, too often, that the companies take too much flack from disgruntled drivers who don't bother to investigate both sides of the flipped coin in an attempt to completely understand what it takes to keep the wheels turnin'.
Cooperation and consideration by and from all.
And it SOMEtimes seems there are those who just view a company as another big business making mega profits off the sweat of their employees with no real work or effort on the company's part, --- which MAY be true SOME of the time. But certainly not always. Nor can I imagine that's the norm.

I think it's important for folks to realize that, right now especially, times are rough and tough and unpredictable for the truckin' industry in general --- and only the strong(er) will probably survive when it's all said and done.

While SOME folks insist on blaming a company for every little thing that usually and normally goes with the territory of Big truck truckin', instead of realizing that SOME employees can be, and SOMEtimes (too often?) are, a royal pain in the buttox for a company to deal with, other, more reasonable folks, understand that it's prudent to go with the flow by dealing with what's required of them, and git 'er done in the best way they can in anticipation of better days to come in the future as they gain experience and knowledge along the way.

SOME companies may not deal with things in a way we all would prefer, but from what I've seen and experienced from the, so called, "new breed" of Big truck truck drivers, it ain't all a bed of roses for the companies either, --- dealing with newBees who think that their unreasonable demands should change the way an industry has been run for years, which ain't likely, are just spittin' into the wind.
Where do SOME of these folks come from, and what ARE/WERE they thinkin' in the first place?
(If they put ANY beforehand thought into it, at all?) :smt102

The truckin' industry is what it is, and folks need to be able to accept that fact without crying foul and feel as though they're being singled out for unusual treatment by the various, reputable, companies.

Perhaps Good Grief,........ just might be putting it mildly.
Ya reckon.

 

What you really need is more time to work things out.... You should research before you plunge.... If you are able to continue work, and communicate with CR and fufill your part of the contract..... Im sure no one put a gun to your head to make you sign up for the lease.... and an old adage is if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is too good to be TRUE...... The thing you need to protect before you jump is your DAC and MRV..... Or you might want to consider another way to make a living.... This is not an easy life but it can be profitable if you run it right....

 

You'll hear a lot of advice about what companies NOT to work for, I see much less fingers pointing to what companies TO work for. My version of the best advice is to stick with whatever you're doing now until you find a better position. Stick with that a while until you find something better than that. On and on. I moved around - I think my current job is the 5th one in less than 4 years - before I found what I was looking for and have been here 2 and a half years now. I happened upon my current job through a temp driver employment agency - I had no desire to stay at this place and had already had confirmed a position with 2 different companies, just had to decide which one I wanted to go for.

When my current employer found out I was taking a hike - they were paying nothing and it was only an interim job to go onto the next one (the one I had "left" I was actually laid off from - our foreman came up to all of drivers one day before the shift started and informed us that after the shift was over, we were all laid off due to losing a contract - it was a month before Christmas!) - they objected loudly. We don't want you to leave was repeated more than once. I ended up talking to the GM for a couple of hours and we struck a deal that was to my liking. Since then my pay has increased substantially and I'm getting to where I'm comfortable with it - the benefits and the perks are awesome.

Just saying that to say that eventually you'll find your place and you'll like it. Even if you get to not liking it over time, you'll find another place. You have to start with the crap apparently to get to the good stuff. We all started at the bottom of the barrel and had to work our way up, and even then, fate seems to have something to do with it as well.

I feel very badly for new drivers after I started reading this forum - I had no clue it had gotten so bad in the trucking industry.

Keep the faith, keep strong and you will get to where you need to be in due time.