Stay Away from Conway Truckload!!

Nice try, Double. God forbid we might get suspicious. Havn't seen you bring up how awful unions are (from totally out of nowhere) in a while either.
That being said, I suppose you could typically "expect" to make just about any amount of pay you like. Problem is, of course, your "expectations" are not reality. You might have a few good weeks and as a result, consider yourself to be making a pretty good living. BTW, $872.00 bucks a week to work 7 days a week at 14 hrs. a day is still pretty lousy pay. However, most weeks, you wont even be making close to even that. You'll be lucky if you even make $35,000 this year.
Like I've said so many times before: to anyone considering going to Conway (or any other large trucking company), physically go to any truck stop and personally speak with as many drivers as possible. Ask them about pay, AVERAGE miles per week, and conditions.
These driving jobs have become dead end sweat shops that pay very poorly and have no future, unless you are fortunate enough to maybe move out and into a smaller carrier that treats their drivers more fairly. And the mega carriers are ALL making record profits. And don't forget the three characteristics of anyone posting on this forum that writes in defense of the mega carriers: They are either in total denial; are totally ignorant and/or are actually posting false, positive information in hopes of some type of compensation. Can't really hold the latter against them, I suppose, considering the paltry amount that they are paid as a driver.

 

Driver pay does suck starting out. Experience brings better pay and opportunity.

"Do what thou wilt."

 

Not necessarily and not always.

There is a former 18-month Schneider driver joining the company I just joined (yeay, I have seniority over one person!). He was out all week with them working 12-14- hour days getting a paltry check grossing $500-550 for a given week.

Experience brings that one should know to escape a bottom-feeder at first opportunity.

 

Mega carriers are a foot in the door to get experience, they are taking a huge risk with every new driver... $35,000 a yr starting is not bad starting pay for learning a profession... I doubt many students have gone right from school to a small company with great benefits and pay to start... I figure when we get ready to give it a try, just making it through the first yr will be a successs, it sure wont be about the money so much...We'll worry about that the second yr and forward.. Don't get me wrong We want to work for the best mega carrier we can for that yr though.. And from the things I have read ..Conway is right at the top of that list .

 

I've been at Conway 2.5 yrs and my avg the last yr has been 2600 mi and I run regional

 

This thread is getting old...If there was something new on it, that might be a different story. Here is something new.

I made $33k last year, and only worked 7 months so all this talk about not being lucky to make $35k is unfounded. The other five months off for cancer treatment. I

nsurance did reasonably well so the financial hit wasn't as bad as it could have been. Ran out of Family Medical Leave, and the stinking rotten company (according to Surfer Joe) chose to put me on some sort of other leave when they could have terminated me. That random other leave preserved my medical insurance for when I did return to work. No new deductibles or out of pocket expenses. (Paying twice in the same year would have broken my back)

When I came back to work, the company made me do a "random" drug test. Can't blame them for that, they didn't know what was in my system. They had the nerve to tell me to let them know if I thought I couldn't make a delivery due to fatigue or side effects from Chemo. They have the nerve to get me home, on time, every time, for additional treatment.

As I said, no new medical expenses for the remainder of the year. The company had the understanding and compassion to allow me to fight my cancer. I am winning. Couldn't have necessarily done it in another company.

How you doing Surfer Joe? If you want to know what it feels like to win, meet me in a truck stop, anywhere in the country, I will buy you a cup of coffee and drop some knowledge that you don't have at the moment.

Surfer Joe, you don't know what it is like to win because you have been beaten down so bad. I can help you break that habit if you choose to take me up on my offer.

 

It didn't come 'totally out of nowhere' -- it was in direct response to your hyping union labor as a superior alternative. Unions did a lot of good 100 years ago, but their quest for ever expanding power has turned them into parasites dragging down both worker & company. You complain that OTR truckers don't make enough money, but the teamsters are largely to blame by narrow pursuit of increased regulation that spites productive drivers in favor of creating more (but lower-paying) jobs to increase their membership. Don't believe me? What is the teamsters doing about OTR living conditions? Anything to protect drivers from having to sleep in extreme temperatures without climate control? Anything to protect drivers from big brother antics like cameras monitoring drivers inside the cab? Anything to make companies provide or reimburse for necessary tools of the job (like a cell phone allowance)? NO. Instead they focus on limiting the amount of work we can do in the name of "safety" and "job creation." So more and more companies expect their employees to team (I'll take 6 hours of stationary sleep anyday over 10 jostiling down the road) and more independents are leaving the industry or going back to company driving because its getting harder and harder to get enough utilization from the truck to cover its cost.

The teamsters pushed for the new hos regulations -- they even wanted to lower the 11 daily drive limit to 10 hours. But their once-a-week reset really kills me... Maximum possible weekly driving hours goes from 82 to 70. Thats 3800 miles/week instead of 4500. But that freight still needs to be moved, so companies have to buy more trucks & hire more drivers to move the same freight -- so freight rates go up some and driver pay goes down some. Of course the shippers see the rates going up and some will move their freight from trucking to rail so trucking freight actually goes down (notice all the companies going intermodal???)

Basically when unions act mainly in their own interest (which they all eventually do), they leave their industry in shambles.

As a former professional poker player & investor, I'm exceedingly confident that I know volumes more about variance and expected values than you. Expectation is just that -- you'll rarely hit it exactly, but if you can deal with short term fluctuations over time the law of large numbers takes over. In industries prone to short term uncertainty (of which trucking is one) it is very helpful to put immediate results, positive or negative, in the larger context of expectation. Failure to do so is a costly flaw called 'results oriented thinking.'

1). The average weekly hours worked (on duty or driving) was just a touch over 45 -- less than half the legally impossible 98 hours/week you are claiming (14*7)

2). While 8 weeks is still a small sample, it is statistically significant enough to say with 3 sigma probability ( over 99.7% certainty) that I will earn at least an average of 600/week. And this is based on a sample taken during the slowest time of the year. It essentially confirms my suspicion that there was some large defect in your character that made you earn, or claim to earn, so little during your stay at con-way.

3). I wouldn't go as far as you in calling 872/week lousy -- that's still 45k/year (though I wouldn't personally be happy if that was all I wound up with in 44weeks). But for the 5th time -- that weekly average was from the slow time of year and included 3 breakdowns in a short time frame. I'm extraordinarily confident I'll clear over 60k. Hell I did 51+ my first year otr with a starter company...

Thanks to your beloved unions meddlng, it is getting harder to make great money otr, though the money is still pretty decent. But for the love of god, do NOT go into this or any career solely for the money -- you will be miserable. If you need a job to hold you over while recovering from this economic mess that has effected everyone, fine. But long term do what you love, and you'll rarely have to 'work.'

 

I take home over a grand a week, every week unless I go home. .43 cpm, plus detention and load/unload pay adds up. I pull tanks for big Orange. If Schneider is a bottom feeder then the pastures must really be greener out there.

 

You appear to be an anomaly to everyone I have talked to or typed to about Schneider. For the past six months I have been playing phone-tag with them trying to get a real person who both had the authority to hire me and who would answer their phone at least once per every six times I called.

If it makes you feel any better, I put Schneider at the top--or the best of the bottom-feeders; in other words, I read and hear of no other bottom-feeders better than Schneider. Pay seems to be the major complaint from all polled. My complaint is, that Pumpkin is a company too big and too corporate and too impersonal to deal with a peon such as little ol' me.