Switching career to trucking, need advice

Trucking is a great job if you've got the stomach for it. It's a job that dictates your lifestyle. It's a self-leadership position. And it's a trial by fire.

As a company driver you are a human chess piece, your job is to move the truck from point A to point B as the company sees fit. And every week your paycheck starts at zero.

If your company has good accounts and keeps you moving, you're golden.

But if they're scratching for freight, or making bad decisions, it doesn't matter how motivated you are... you will sit. The truck makes the $$ and you get a cut. Not the other way around.

Most companies will spend a dollar to make a nickel, and you're along for the ride or you're fired.

You are labor, and labor is an expense like fuel or a tire or a left headlight. The less they can pay for it, the better. And if it costs less to replace than keep, they will replace.

You don't have a supervisor looking over your shoulder every minute, but you are not free. And if anything goes wrong it's on you.

Some companies sugarcoat it with rhetoric, say you're part of the family etc, but don't let it go to your head.

It's a high dollar business with high dollar equipment and high dollar stakes.

The only thing easier than getting into a truck is getting kicked out of it.

With that said, and im not kidding, I love this job and can't imagine doing anything else.

Jump in, brother. Kick and get kicked. Buy the ticket take the ride.

 

When you are sent a preplan you would use the mac 9 to accept or reject the load.
There are 3 options.
1. Yes.
2. No. You need a valid reason to simply turn down a load, such as a home time request.
3. Counter. This lets you counter the pick up and/or delivery time that is in the preplan. If you feel you need more time than is allotted you can enter your own time. If it is acceptable you will be committed to the load with the new times, if not they will remove the load and send you something else.

 

Here is an example that happened today.

I am sent a pplan in Phoenix, AZ. Pick up at the Costco DC a couple miles away and deliver in the Las Vegas area tomorrow morning.
It comes in at around 1130, with a delivery time of 0530 tomorrow morning.
It is 360 miles away and over 6 hours drive time. I still have to pre-trip, find an empty trailer and get to the shipper, scale the load and have time for the 10 hour break.
So I counter the offer with a 0800 delivery time. The load is removed.
The next one comes in, again a Costco load in the Las Vegas area, with a 0430 delivery. I counter that one also with a 0800 delivery time, and it is taken off me.

I will mention that both those loads had a pickup time starting 2 days ago. They were ready and waiting, and the planner decided not to sent it to me until the time was very short. If it was sent 3 hours earlier I would have taken it.

So, I basically turned down 2 loads in a row.
Was I punished for it?

The next pplan that was sent was picking up 90 miles away for any time today (the 6th).
It delivers in IL on the 10th by 1200, total miles around 1,600.