Recent Graduate needing hometime any help???

I'm here to help where I can. I am talked to a couple of people here on this forum who happened to be recruiters and they defended their positions well against some of my ... concerns.

I don't understand recruiters very well. I do UNDERSTAND that they want bodies for the company they work for. Sometimes they don't know very much about the REAL doing of trucking for said company. I remember one little company here in Little Rock (I deliberately leave out the trucking company name to protect both of us from problems because it's not really a problem) that hauls cream in tankers. The day I showed up to sign papers and be hired, the boss man who was also being a recruiter, dispatcher, Mr Fix it etc. told me that one driver quit on him with a 70K value Cream load that is time sensitive in Galloway Petro (North Little Rock off I-40)

I told him have me the keys and tell me where that cream needs to go it's very similar to my old milk farm hauling days. Let's do it this minute. Just give me a ride to the petro.

What he did instead was hand me a dry van trailer and a worn out broker to play dispatcher for two weeks. What is it that I have to prove to this man to earn such a crappy regional playing at a dab of dry van trucking in the carolinas and deep south? What have I done in a past life to earn such a hell in this one? Nothing I was told match what I was doing currently.

On the way home to Little Rock, JBH recruiter was on the phone for 300 miles hammering out the final details of hiring me to go to their orientation the following monday. (This was a thursday) in tennessee on 40. We went back and forth about cabovers. I specifcally told that recruiter that I cannot be in cabovers. I have not been in one since the early 90's and am not about to start now because I take cars out with them. (Fair warning)

Monday then wed comes and goes. The second week with a beer load out of St Louis going to Iowa I took out a car trying to throw my weight around to get that lane just before a closed construction on that interstate. No one gave me room so I made it. The left steer wheel punched a small pickup next to me. The ball on his antenna top gave me early warning (And saved his life) because I whipped the wheel away from him instantly but smacked him anyway. 3000 in damage because there was a work computer inside the bed where I punched his body panel.

I quit the folllowing week. Recruiter asked me why? I told her, fair warning. I don't do cabovers. You have 50 conventions parked in a square at the far corner of the Prothro Property unused and unassigned.

Recruiters don't listen to you. They nod, smile and sell you snake oil that promises to cure all your ills. In those days of the late 1800's that snake oil had actual cocaine in it. It most certainly cured what ailed you for a while that day. Which is a main reason for FDA today.

But anyway.

Recruiters will lie, they will paint a yellow brick road going to oz with mountains of money, wine, women and song all the way. They will not tell you good answers and will squirm and wriggle out of tough questions.

If you really want to know anything about a trucking company, go to a truckstop and sit with a driver over coffee or food YOU pay for. Listen to him or her a while. Or better yet, visit the break room of that company yard. Listen to the drivers there. Then go up stairs and listen to dispatch office. If things are calm, orderly and keyboards going and all is well, then it's a good company. If people are profane, yelling or safety suits turning purple on phones and people in OSD running around stressed about damaged cargo etc. Then you do not want any part of that company.

These forums contain all you need to know mentally about this industry, good, bad and the ugly.

You said you worked for a major food installation. You could not pick any higher stress position to work for with truckers asking are you loading them yet? And your bosses saying where is my pick order? Sysco is another very high stress. I get stressed thinking about what will have to happen to deliver into any Sysco (With one exception, Pokomoke City Maryland)

I can go on, but sometimes you have to understand you can only learn by doing. Before you do though, you really need to put aside any emotion, any gotta do it now, stop thinking about how poor you are etc and carefully consider what you are getting into.

 

That's the problem. 15 over is serious in this business. And 3 in a row will get a CDL suspended for a year. Most good shops won't touch you until they are 5 years old. Sorry to be a downer

 

Sounds to me the job you have been with for 7 years is something you like.

If you are in the truck and know those cases, that's going to make a faster work when you have to check each one off against the spread sheet manifest while unloading all of it from the floor onto small wood as just a Drivah. Follow me?

Why throw away 7 years just to become a DRIVAH!?

 

We've all been there. Us xpress is an ok company or were 18 years ago. I doubt any will get you home every other weekend. If they say they will get it in writing

 

OTR Trucking you will not get home every weekend or every other weekend. Very much.

Even if you did, you will learn yet another lesson.

Being home off OTR trucking causes you to lose so much money in unearned payroll. That's about 300 dollars gross a day if not more at .50 cents over 600 miles each day you sit home.

I understand your positions etc as you explained. But I am also trying to hold the line at a hard truth. You will not be getting home any time soon OTR.

 

Keep trying. Apply to more local/regional companies. It’s worth a shot and they may be more flexible for hometime.
Also, if possible, take a day off on a Wednesday or other weekday and go in person filling out applications to some smaller companies. Take note of the local/regional outfits that deliver to your warehouse. There are options just keep trying.