So I thought my biggest decision was going to be leaving my job of 21 years to go into truck driving, boy was that a misunderstanding! I gave the call back to Kim and she asks me what division/fleet I would like to join? As you may or may not know, that living only 60-70 miles from Marshfield pretty much has every division/fleet available for me...the website says 20 openings!! So my first question about Roehl is "once you are in a division, how hard is it to switch over to another?" I like the idea of flat bed but it sounds like ALOT of people are signing up for that and makes me wonder about availability of loads vs vans/reefers? Got the call to setup the appt. for the DOT physical..so I guess I need to make a decision pretty quick here...lol. Any and all replies are welcomed...thanks.
I'd sign up for curtain side to be honest. All the fun of flat bed and none of the tarps and a ton of freight for that kind of equipment. Plus if no loads are available anywhere they just give you a dry van load so your always running. If not we keep all our guys moving. We don't over hire in any division because we have too much freight not enough people. We don't sit. That's why people who start here stay here. The complicated system of changing divisions go like this. You ask your fleet manager "I think I want to go to ____" your fleet manager says "sure thing" when do you want to switch trucks?" Lol. It's that easy. You only have to switch trucks if going from flat bed to something else. Switching divisions is easy. Each has its own perks. Flatbed is physically challenging but more fun (my opinion as I was a flat bed cowboy before switching to gp deticated) van is more wheel time and just keepin the tires spinning. RReefer pays more per mile but you do alot of sitting because you have to live load and unload. Curtain side gets the beat of all world's. It comes down to what you really want and what you make of it. I'm a younger guy in my late 20s and I've been driving since I was 21 so after 6 years of throwing those #### lumber tarps I gave up on flatbed and now I get home 2 days a week.
I switched fleets before 6 months, but I kind of got pushed out of my flatbed truck and thrown into another. So that might have had something to do with it. All I had to do was send in a message over the Qualcomm and that's it.
Is it true roehl sets all your trips for you when to stop /when to fuel/ and how many miles a week do you get
So with curtain side flatbed I wouldn't have to be lifting those tarps I love so much? That maybe an option I didn't previously know of... Don't mind the straps... Hmmm Like the idea of more exercise LOL. Now I'm gonna have to refigure...side load curtain or van?
