Job and Career Advice - CDL & Trucking

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been unemployed for a couple months now. I can’t say I loved the office work (in fact, there are several rants in the BBQ Pit courtesy of that environment) but it did pay the rent, the bills, and let me indulge my hobbies. But now that I’m footloose and fancy free I figure there might be an opportunity to change careers.

I’ve been thinking about many things, and one of them is trucking. Now, I do NOT want a pile-on about what a godawful choice that is. I am fully aware that if it was all fun they wouldn’t have to pay people to do it, every job has a downside, right? I want some level-headed facts and advice, preferably from folks who have been there.

Now for some background - I’m a pretty healthy woman between 40 and 45. I don’t do any sort of drugs (other than what the doctor gives me when I’m sick) and rarely drink, and NEVER drink before driving so I’m not worried about passing a drug test. I have a spotless (knock on wood) driving record. I have no legal troubles in my history. I can pass a FAA flight physical so I presume I can pass any physical required for a driving job. I’m assuming that if I have the intellect to earn a pilot’s license I can manage any sort of study required for a CDL. I don’t mind working in male dominated environments. I’m not real fond of driving in and of itself but I’ve taken long road trips on my own and certainly getting a paycheck for it will increase the appeal of being behind the wheel.

Now, is getting a CDL and driving a truck of some sort a reasonable proposition for little ol’ me?

I know there is a wide range of things one can do with a CDL, so suggestions are welcomed.

What about companies willing to train people? Obviously, I will research any such companies prior to showing up at their door. I note that there is the frequent qualification that you get the goodies “on successful completion of training” which, of course, means you have to come up to a certain standard and finish the training to get your foot in the door.

Mostly, like I said, I’m just investigating options and have no definite plans for anything at the moment (due to good planning I have the luxury of not being desperate at the moment). I’ve known people who drove for a living and loved it, and others who hated it, and for most it’s been a job they could do without getting bent out of shape over it.

I’m not fond of cubicles. I would like to get out from behind the damn desk for a change. Is this something reasonable to look into?

2

I pondered this question a few years ago while facing layoffs. It sounded kinda appealing, and I found this site. It’s maintained by a lady driver, and had a lot of tips/journals/experiences. Sorry, but I don’t have any personal experience in the field (I was about to sign on the dotted line with Swift, when I found another job in my field; my past truck driving was only local delivery for UPS). I have two relatives who make/made a living this way. One is specialized (only large/wide flatbed loads), the other only does it to pass the time during the off-season of his offshore oilfield work.

Hopefully some of our members will be along soon to add more relevant experience. If memory serves, A. R. Cane spent many years as an Owner-Operator.

Wishing you good luck. I’ll post more if I get a chance to quiz my relatives.

3

Trucking’s not what it used to be. A lot of people are drawn to the idea of the freedom and the travel. There’s very little freedom left, w/ all the electronic communications in use today. OTR drivers, almost exclusively, get paid by the mile and schedules are very tight when you’re loaded. Anytime the truck is not moving, loading/unloading, waiting for a load, breakdown, out of hours, etc., the driver doesn’t get paid. I’ve been out of the business for over 3 years and I don’t keep up at all, but starting pay has been historically low. You’re going to be away from home most of the time, living in the truck, work 70 to 80 hours a week and if you work very hard and get a good dispatcher (a rarity), very thrifty w/ personal expenses, and can do 120,000 miles a year, you might be able to take home $40,000.00 after all is said and done. I was a leased operator (owned the tractor and pulled a company trailer) for about 16 years and an owner/operator, with my own licensing authority, for around 8 years. I did very well through the 80’s and into the 90’s, but operating costs kept creeping up while hauling rates were slow to match.
If you hire on as a company driver you’ll likely be assigned to a team driver situation. I’ve never driven team, nor would I even consider it. The odds that you’re going to be paired w/ some who is compatible is pretty slim, but your going to spend weeks at a time in very close proximity w/ whomever they choose for you.
If your unattached, have a strong desire to try the life and can roll w/ the punches, you might enjoy it and be successful, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

4

My brother was a commuter pilot & after the carnage in the industry in 2001 he tried long haul trucking for about 18 months. Flying for the commuter carriers is a pretty sucky job, and he figured there were a lot of similarities in the lifestyle, so how much worse could it be. He found out.

Training was trivial for anyone with half a brain who could read even a little bit and had the discipline to show up to all 20 days of classes. That eliminated about 1/2 the starting class. Of those who graduated, most had 2 job offers and some had 3. Nobody had zero.

Right out of school he learned the reality of long haul trucking.

70 hour work weeks, 6 hours sleep/day tops, 2 days off per month, crazy round-the-clock hours & $40K/ year to show for it. And this was with one of the supposedly better long haul outfits.

After 8 months of this crap he, in typical fashion, doubled down by getting his wife (another laid-off pilot) to do the training & join him as a team. Broomstick has always reminded me a bunch of his wife.

Team has the potential to make more ike 80K or better a year, but only under ideal circumstances where the company can really keep you moving 24x7. Their employer wasn’treally set up for that. So their combined earnings were $60K/yr.

The good news is they were always together. The bad news is when one is awake the other is trying to snooze. And you never get to sleep when the truck is stationary. Trucks ride rough & the bunk was always in moderate continuous chop. And noisy. After a couple weeks they spent the next 8 months in a sleep-deprived haze where each got about two 2-hour naps per 24 hours, spent 10 hours behind the wheel, and the other 10 hours staring out the copilot’s side like a zombie orhelping with the loading & unloading.
Perhaps the most worrisome part of the career choice is that the lifestyle can be a one-way trap. Once you get out there, it becomes very hard to locate a regular job. “When can you come in for an interview?” “I might be within a hundred miles of you 2 weeks from now on Wednesday, unless something changes.” And something always changes.

Imagine how it was before laptops & cellphones. You were literally incommunicado for incoming messages for the rest of your career. Nowadays that’s not nearly so true, but you’re still pretty handicapped for communications compared to everyone else.

He ended up quitting the trucking job so he had the time, energy, and connectivity to even start to look for another job. Had he been living paycheck-to-paycheck that would have been impossible.
As another former pilot (can you say “not real bright”?) I gotta admit the idea of doing it for 3 months sounds fun in a gritty sorta way. But I’d approach it like “Dirty Jobs”; an adventure, not a job, and certainly not a career.
Broomstick, have you really considered flying? The low end of the flying industry sucks pond scum too, but I’d rather be driving a 402 than a Freightliner any day.

Even of you don’t have the ratings & experience yet, you could probably do one of those ab initio programs.

And despite the layoff stories I mentioned, the industry is turning around a little now. The hiring standards are falling through the floor & anyone with a Commercial & a clean record can be driving an RJ in 6 months.

5

Ditto that. I was hesitant to mention it since she only asked about trucking in particular but… I work at a flight school and our current record for Never-been-in-a-cockpit to Right-seat-of-an-RJ is 7 months. Some of our CFIs are heading for the regionals with as little as 275 hours. Add that to the cargo outfits that (purportedly) will pay for your multi*, and aviation sure looks like a better choice.

*I think you ride as SIC at reduced pay to gain the multi hours, but I haven’t really delved into it.

6

Pullin,

My bro is now an RJ Captain & the stories he tells of those 300 hour wonders are not something nervous fliers want to hear. :slight_smile:

7

Understood. The non-flying public would probably be aghast to discover that experience requirements are actually higher* (in some situations) for flying a small plane on a cargo-route, than to fly right seat in a jet full of passengers. :rolleyes:

*135 mins

8

What was that like?

Since I’m not doing this for freedom and travel but rather for a paycheck maybe that wouldn’t be a problem.

I fly airplanes for a hobby. I’m on radar and all my radio conversations are recorded. Yeah, I think I could adapt to that.

What about local delivery options?

Yes, that is also an option, but I wanted to know more about driving for a living as opposed to flying. I’m looking into flying, but that’s not what I wanted to know about in this thread.

9

Broomstick, I assumed you were looking for more than a paycheck. Some of the people who ask me about trucking are attracted to the freedom and travel, others are looking for a way to sit on their asses all day and get paid for it. Both believe that they will be well paid and they are sadly mistaken on all points. You appear to know what you want, you don’t need my opinion, go for it.

10

My husband did local trucking for 12 years. He owned his own truck and did most of his own repairs. A lot. Sometimes on Christmas day. It’s expensive if you’re thinking of owning your own rig. He left it for a $7/hr job (23 years ago) and he made out better financially. Make of that what you will. And, as others said, down time means no money, hence the repairs at all hours of all days.

11

…my past truck driving was only local delivery for UPS

A pretty good job, actually. Hours were 8:30 'till whenever you finish. Pay was considerably above average due to the union. Loading group calculated the size/hours of your load, so you were dispatched with x hours of work, and were guaranteed to be paid at least that much (if you finished early, you still got paid for the hours.). Pretty good benefits and paid vacation (as I remember). Also, you’re home every night and off weekends. The only drawback is that the work is pretty hard. I’d delivered for other local companies, and UPS works you much harder*. Christmas season is a nightmare, but it only lasts for a month or so.

Typical day started at around 8 am, checking in, changing clothes (weren’t allowed to wear unis when not on the clock), checking out my load, pre-trip the truck, etc. Your route is planned out for you, and all the packages are in order**. I usually spent a few minutes re-organizing because I knew my route better than the loaders. As I remember, I started with businesses, usually hitting the same ones every day. Then gradually morphed to residential deliveries, then ended the day with pickups at various factories/loading docks. I got an hour for lunch (it was docked from my pay). My goal was to finish deliveries before loading the truck with inbound packages, mainly to eliminate confusion and not have to keep pickups separate from deliveries (the boxes all start to look alike). At day’s end I drove onto the UPS lot and handed the truck off to a hossler. I took all my receipts/records inside to reconcile (we had a lot of CODs back in the day) and usually was finished by 6pm or so. On rare occasions, I’d be sent back out to help another driver who was running late, but I got paid OT for this.

They were very anal about safety belts, driving habits, locking doors (the one’s leading into the cargo section of the trucks), and they don’t forgive many accidents. I had one fairly spectacular wreck when I let the back dual wheels drift off a no-shoulder road in the hinterlands. The truck actually rolled onto its side and tumbled down a ravine. I was bruised but unhurt and since my cargo doors were locked, safety chain attached, seatbelt on, etc. etc., they decided to let me keep my job. The truck was a total loss, and after transferring all the packages to another truck (they sent lots of help for this), I got to finish all the deliveries (this took well into the night). If any one of their safety rules about doors/belts/chains had been violated, they assured me I would have lost my job.

Standard disclaimers, this was more than 20 years ago. My son works for them as a loader right now, and although he’s not sure of all the details, he says not much has changed. I asked him and he said he thinks drivers are getting in excess of $25.00 per hour now. One of them told him to expect 60-70 per year if he ever decides to drive. There is also some ratio of inside/outside hires when filling the driving ranks. The union agreements apparently call for the company to offer some percentage of driving jobs to their part time box handlers first (before offering it to outsiders). Sorry, but I don’t know the details of that.

*Seen King of Queens? It’s unrealistic, there aren’t many fat UPS drivers.

**First stop is frontmost package, lower shelf, right side of the truck, if you’re interested :stuck_out_tongue:

12

Just to add…

I thought about what I posted for awhile (missed the edit window). Those pay rates that my son recounted sound awfully high. I’d take those numbers with a grain of salt. Could be that one of the drivers was just shinin’ him on. I know the box handlers are paid around $10/hour, and it seems unlikely that delivery drivers would make 2-3 times that amount. If I can verify the rate, I’ll post more.

13

That actually doesn’t sound bad to me. I’m rather anal about safety myself, so that might be a good match. I’m sure the first couple weeks of hauling boxes would be a little rough, but after that I’d have a job that also provided a little exercise and long term that would be a good thing. Hmm… think I will look into that. And the other delivery companies.

What the hell - UPS and the others also have airplanes, down the road I might be able to swing that, too…

As for the pay - right now $10/hour to shove boxes around would be an improvement over my current situation. I’d certainly like more. $25/hour would be fantastic, but I could live with less.

How are the benefits at UPS?

14

Not sure exactly. My son hasn’t signed on for benefits, since he’s still covered under mine (full time student). I’ll ask him to gather some details, and try to verify some more of the info regarding pay rates and inside/outside ratios for driver hires. I’ll get back to you once I find out more. We’re supposed to meet at the gun range today and I’ll try to ask him then.

[10 minutes later]

Son dropped by for a few minutes. I quizzed him on the above. He says starting pay rate for delivery drivers is 28.00/hour. He agreed to try and get some benefits info from HR when he goes in to work Monday. He didn’t know much about bennies, other than a 60-day waiting period, and he thinks it’s Aetna HMO. He also wasn’t sure about inside/outside hiring ratios, but said it takes 2-3 years for your “number” to come up if you’re part time. He also said he’s pretty sure a CDL is not required prior to driver hire. Just a good driving record.

I’ll send you any details I can find.

On edit: Your comment about getting exercise. Son took the job partially to lose weight. He said it didn’t make sense to work at a restaurant and spend part of his pay at the gym. He decided to combine the two (work/gym). The first few weeks were hell, but now he’s over the hump (and getting in shape).

15

Something else you might consider along the same lines is trains. I know there is a huge demand for rail workers and there is some traveling involved. Garbage truck, maybe?

16

My ex husband was an OTR truck driver and if you want you can email me for a company recommendation. They were paying back his school fees from where he learned all the stuff for a CDL. I really liked them. He worked for about 300 companies in a year (ok, exaggeration, but he doesn’t exactly stick with stuff) so I can tell you the home side of them to give an idea of how long you stay out and which ones he liked and didn’t. My email that is not listed here that I actually check more is pepperdemented at live dot com.

My ex really loved it until he hit the snapping point where he just really hated it - but keep in mind that those times came when he had been on the road for 4 weeks, was still across the country, and I’m telling him that the youngest learned to walk and the gas bill has to be paid. If you don’t have that pulling you home then you might be OK. If I were you I would definitely NOT go for owner/operator - at least not until you decide this is what you really want to keep doing. There are a lot of companies out there that will set you up with leasing deals to buy their trucks but we didn’t like it.

You say you are a pilot - does that mean you are accustomed to being in the boys club and having to prove yourself? Because there will be a lot of that. You will always be the “lady truck driver.”

17

Oh, yes - aviation is very much a boy’s club. On average the ratio is 20 men to 1 women. However, I got started in the ultralight and homebuilt end of things which is (depending on where and what exactly you’re doing) is somewhere between 50:1 and 200:1 men to women. Let’s just say I have some idea of the challenges of being a woman on men’s turf and I think I can deal with it most of the time.

18

My thread on this topic (Truck driving, not women in truck driving) from some time back.

Wow: 2002 thread…

19

PM’d you Broomstick.

20

My dad is a driver for FedEx. Technically, he is a sub-contractor, meaning he owns the route in an entire county. Except, he can’t really do what he wants. He can’t put on as many drivers as he needs and his route can extend off into other counties based solely on whoever is the supervisor that day.

Typically, he has around 100 to 120 packages a day after splitting it up with the other drivers. They suck and usually can only do around 50 each. He leaves at 6 or 7 in the morning and, if lucky, will be home before 10. Usually he’s home around 11 or 12. Around 200+ miles a day. Constantly stopping, getting out of the truck, opening the door, finding the package, closing the door, going up to the porch, ad infinitum.

Did I mention North Carolina doesn’t believe in unions? He has zero job security and really no other options at his age. He’s stuck. There’s also little benefits, such as healthcare, and he might pull in 50,000 a year if it’s a good one.

Delivering might be nice, or it could be hell. Same with everything.