Schneider Oil Field Truck Driver Jobs/ The Texas shales and beyond

Well my 1 & 2 week I avg. 15 hrs a day. My 3rd week 9 hrs a day. My longest day was 28.5 hrs. My shortest was 5.
Now as I read this it would appear to be decent to the avg. guy, my 1st two weeks here there were hardly any trucks in the yard. This past week hardly any trucks have gone out. I've been lucky to get hours but my first two weeks I was training g so I went out everyday with a driver. And since I'm living in a tent behind the garage I'm always in the break room eating or just sitting in the aircon.
So when a call comes in dispatcher often looks at me and says, "you wanna work?" Three times that I know of I got a job that way even though my name wasn't on top of the list because the customer wanted a truck there ASAP.
Im not worried since my manager told me a month ago that it would be slow between Father's Day and the middle of July. But they said (dispatcher & mngr) that they've not seen it be this slow for this long. I've learned the oil industry works in cycles, up and down. Another driver here told me the cycle here is a few weeks it is slow and then several months its busy.
At one of the busiest disposals in the Eagle Ford, Inland near Garwood, the office guy also told me its been slow lately with vacuum trucks coming in to unload.
Payday, yesterday, 3 guys quit to go find greener pastures. This am the mngr. asked me are you quitting too and I said no, I'm here for a year and then I'll reevaluate my situation.
BTW, I really like my job, mngr. and everyone here. 2 of the drivers who quite I didn't.

 

Howdy Rockdoctor, where is your area? My yard is in Kenedy.
As you've said, "new wells are coming online". Our biggest customer is ConocoPhillips and so I've been to many of their well sites that are actively drilling or in the completion stage. And I've seen so many other wells that are in the same stage so it looks like lots of work around here for a long time to come. When I first got here it amazed me to see how many well sites there were just in the local area and how close many of them are to one another.

I thank you again for starting this thread and for your desire to help others like myself get started in this biz. In the beginning my ultimate goal was to haul crude like you but I do enjoy the work of a vacuum truck driver.
I really enjoy driving a truck, especially through the small towns and pretty countryside and just yesterday while on a long drive to a disposal I realized that my comfort level was now way up and my stress level way down.

Safe driving

 

I also talked to schneider about their job opps and NONE of them are by the hour...its all percentage...kinda sorta left that little piece of info out.

 

Schneider in the permian is day rate with load and unload pay. Not a bad gig for a newbie to get aquainted with the oilfield

 

Rockdoctor said, "but I use the time to listen to a lot of audio books, etc so don't mind that part too much."
I'm curious as to how loud the cabin of your truck, or anyone else's truck is. Do you use any kind of audio earbuds or noise-canceling earphones (to block-out the engines noise) or just listen from the trucks speakers?
As a newbie I'm driving the worst of this yards old Mack's and the noise in the cabin is so loud that I find it uncomfortable to have to turn the volume up high enough to be able to listen well over the engine. So I don't turn the radio on; mind you, only some of the 21 trucks in the yard even have any radios in them. When the time comes that I'm issued "my own" truck I'll have the option to put a radio in. I'm wondering if it'd be safe (or legal) to use noise-canceling earbuds to listen to the radio/audio books?

 

I am hoping to start a CDL in September and 6 weeks later have my license, TWIC, HAZ-MAT and Tanker endorsements. For the job that you have, I believe I need 6 mo before I could be considered. Is there a waiting list for drivers to get to a specific job like you have or is it a luck of the draw that an opening will be there when you inquire about getting a specific driving job, like the one you have.