Thinking about quitting...

Most if not all LTL outfits have a ton of applicants looking for work, as they’re often more appealing jobs for most people. People get sick of the road, they want to be home more, they want more of a routine schedule, weekends off, more stable work, etc. LTL companies either pay hourly and/or a generous CPM rate. And drivers don’t put up with some of the OTR nonsense dealing with layovers, long detention at shippers and receivers, among other things.

So, the point is that you with your almost zero experience, these companies almost certainly aren’t going to choose you over other applicants with more experience and particularly if you quit your 1st job in the 1st few weeks or months. OD, one of the companies you mentioned, gets a TON of applicants for the very few open positions they have and I’d imagine FedEx gets quite a few as well. And I’ve done beverage hauling before and it’s very taxing work and a lot of stress and long days. For significantly less pay most of the time relative to other jobs I’ve had...

I’d fulfill whatever agreement you have with Schneider, which I’m guessing is a year, then move on. You might get lucky and slide into a better gig elsewhere, but likely you’ll have to get more time in to get in with a good LTL company. As others have already stated, Schneider is a juggernaut of a company with a ton of lanes and different accounts. Talk to your manager there about sliding into a different route or division. Best of luck and don’t give up just yet.

 

I didnt read the entire thread before typing this post but heres my take.

On nights, it takes longer than a week to adjust to nights. Some research says up to 4-6 weeks. Even then you are never really "used" to it, but youre adjusted enough than you can operate and do your job safely.'

About Pepsico, for the love of god dont go there. The only positive youd get out of that is youd be working days. Pepsico works the dog crap out of you, 14 hour days of pushing a dolly, stocking and rotating product, in the heat, 1000 cases, 1200 cases, by yourself, no help. They also dont pay worth a ####. They talk like $50k is big money. Their equipment is trash. Usually their tractors are Internationals from the 90s, with no AC. Constant breakdowns, all their trailers leak air. I dont really have anything positive to say about Pepsico.

Last thing I'll add, youre new. Youve gotta pay your dues. You didnt think you were going to walk into trucking and have a perfect schedule and make 6 figures did you? Give it time. Schneider isnt the best place to work but you could have done worse. Work for a year, keep your record clean, and you can basically write your own ticket to wherever you want to go.

Dont be a quitter, you'll never make it anywhere in life if you never see things through to the end.

 

Starting out driving truck is a shock. The equipment is never as good as promised, the shifts are longer than promised, the work is harder than just driving a car around all day, the traffic is worse, the respect you get as a driver sucks, and even driving a big rig can quickly loose its luster. You aren't alone in how you feel and most of us have been in your shoes.

Try and settle into your groove and stop focusing solely on the negative. You will get used to nights but it takes time if you've never had to do it before. You will get used to long shifts but it will take time as well. No social life is a fact of trucking because of long shifts and erratic schedules combined with limited home time. If an active social life is a deal breaker then you may have picked the wrong career path and you might never find a driving gig that makes you happy.

There are good driving jobs and bad driving jobs. In my opinion just jumping from job to job hoping you land at one you like isn't the way to do it. Most places that hire drivers with little experience and a lot of job hopping probably aren't the places you want to work at anyway. Be sociable at truck stops, fuel stops, rest areas, etc. and ask the drivers around you if they like working where they work and they may be able to help you figure out where you want to be.

 

You left out the part about spending half your day just trying to get your trailer backed anywhere near the tight little stores you are stocking while the parking lots are swarming with cars.

 

And the a hole managers/store owners who will waste loads of your time by waiting to check you in, asking you to do extra crap, like move product around in the cooler that was already there in the first place. Want to inspect your work and complain because there was space for one more bottle in a particular spot. Then make you wait again to get a check. Got customers walking around the store! Cant take 20 seconds to write you a check. I hated that job and those people with a passion.

 

there is one particular store.

You know you have shelving for us to walk through picking out cans of soup or whatever right?

If you ever peeked through that one door which leads to the entire large room behind the side dock for the 18 wheeler? You will eyeball 12 feet worth of mountains of boxes tossed all over the walls. They form a rough valley of sorts and I bet you bottom boxes never see light of day for weeks. They just grab the stuff in the semi and toss it against the walls in the back. Toss toss toss.

When it comes to unboxing and pricing these things onto the shelfs you can see them tossing it. Until it piles underfoot making the pathway between shelves ever more narrow.

Morale is poor in that particular store. One cashier trying to take care of 20 grumpy people waiting all #### day... Serves them right for dropping in during lunch hour. Now they are going to be late clocking back in across town or county. And a manager with bad morale hiding. If you are smart you went else where.

And the cars never stop coming in. So when Werner or some other outside party trucker that is relatively young and youthful tries to get into that side dock backing off a three lane divided highway with cars flowing both directions around his rig coming and going in addition to two lanes worth of traffic impatiently waiting for him to back onto the property and gtfo out of the way... The accident chances are seriously sky high. In fact I think some of the poorer people WANT to be hit so they can get a big cash out settlement.

Always a different young driver making those deliveries each week. Same unit number but different drivers sometimes.

Let's not address the robbery threat level. This is what really bothers me. The robbers cross a entire county passing up three whole towns to this particular store to rob it., a mile away sits a brinks truck with huge money and three armored rifles protecting two more armored and handgun packing money men. That store NEVER gets robbed the way the lower level retail stores do.

And finally but not last... I used to haul pretzels out of hanover PA. Snyders comes to mind among other sources of pretzels. I like a good bag now and then. I don't discriminate. But when morale is so bad the manager takes her big fatty fist and absolutely mashes that tiny bag of pretzel rods and breaks all the rods in halfs and thirds and crumbly peices... Im not wanting to spend a dollar for that. I'll go across to searcy and buy a 5 dollar bag instead that is not crushed by angry people.

It's a really small thing but bothers me a great deal.

 

Last year my hubby was on nights. He absolutely hated it until week 2-3. Then he adjusted and actually liked it.

 

Quite correct. After a few weeks he won’t be tired anymore, which is probably what is bringing on the mood swings too.

Some melatonin will work wonders getting that bioclock reset.

Night driving is tons of fun and you get the road to urself

 

I love to run at night.....I love when the broker tells me a load picks up after hours, and he's like, "We can move it up to an earlier time." I always tell no need to......that after hours pickup is perfect. So many more pros than cons.

1. You don't have to worry about looking for a parking spot at the truck stop.

2. Likelihood of getting a DOT inspection is greatly reduced, because the majority of scales are closed(except in Florida, California, Virginia,West Memphis,and occasionally Missouri).

3. You get your best fuel mileage.

4. The number of idiot four wheelers ate greatly reduced.

It's easy to get in a good rhythm running at night. Once you break it for a reason other than the half hour break, you've made your run suddenly difficult.

 

^^^^^Now that’s a thinking man.