WannaBe, what to do...

Hello!

I'm new to the truck driving scene and I just have a lot of decisions and questions that I was hoping some with experience could help with. I got a job about a year ago driving straight trucks and delivering packaged ice for Home City Ice in Illinois. I was reluctant to take the job at first because I had never driven anything bigger than a pickup truck, but I went ahead with it. I got the minimum license the company requires to drive and deliver (Non-CDL Class C) and it turns out I love it. I love driving all of our trucks (even though they're ALL junk) the only real downside is the actual delivery part. It's backbreaking, the days are long, the trucks have no A/C, and now working during the winter is horrible because the pay is commission based and delivering ice in winter...not really a good time. So I've decided to go to a CDL training program my community college offers and get my Class A to be able to get a job driving and hopefully less of the killer manual labor and crappy trucks.

The only problem is...I'm only 19 (turn 20 in 2 months) so I know my options for driving are limited. So should I wait to go to the CDL program until I turn 21 and go from there? I really don't want to work another summer at Home City Ice but if I have to I will. If I got my Class A License before I turn 21 I'm fairly certain my boss would let me drive our transport tractor trailer between our plant and some of our nearby warehouses, which would get me some driving experience for when I do turn 21. Or, I've also considered applying for a dock worker position at a local LTL company (Dohrn Transfer) to get familiar with the LTL side of trucking, as I am planning on staying local, and then trying to get a driving job with them after I go to the training program.

As you can see I'm just confused as to what I should do and how to go about doing it I just know I really enjoy driving at my current job even despite the bad working conditions, so I really want to get into something better.

Any help, suggestions, or any advice at all would be greatly appreciated, and please, I'm totally new so if I sound like I don't know what I'm talking about...It's because I don't

 

I've considered that too, although I'll probably have to wait until it warms up because I'm not sure they're hiring anybody right now. I know my area has an Anheuser Busch distributor and a Pepsi as well. I may try those, although I really want to drive something bigger then those side loaders they use. I talked to a guy that works for the Anheuser Busch distributor and he does bulk delivery's at high volume accounts, but he said to drive the bulk load tractor trailers he had to go to a CDL program. I live in Central Illinois, and considering there's only one Home City Ice plant that serves the area you'll be able to figure out that I'm from Decatur. I'm just at a point where I'm not sure what to do