Need Advice Please...Career Change To Becoming A Driver
 

I am 42 yrs. old, have been in Purchasing for 10 years and I am getting burnt out from the stress and need a change. I have always thought about becoming a driver but never pursued it. Hoping you guys/gals can help me out with some questions. Is it possible to find a company where you are out 5 days max and home on weekends or even drive part- time, or am I dreaming? Are the showers and other facilities at truck stops usually decent? i.e. driver lounge.

I guess the most important thing for me is being able to get home after 5 days or less on the road. If it has to be a minimum of 2 weeks on the road, it won't work out. Have any of you made a career change to becoming a driver after doing something else? Thanks in advance for your help.

Paul

Well, First off, Welcome to the boards! I went from being in the fire department to truck driving. Is it possible to find a company that will only keep you out 5 days and home on the weekends....yes. You will have limited choices as a rookie but there are companies out there. Just do your research!
Being new to the business is hard sometimes but it will get better after you get some experience. If you have not listened to anything I have said until now then listen to this......In my opinion, stay away from CR England, Swift and Werner. I used to drive for Werner and it USED to be a decent company. But now the pay is the lowest in the industry and the miles are next to none. BOL

It may take longer to find a job that will fit your needs.

It is difficult to get any Trucking job, without building up some experience. The job you describe is highly sought after...by very experienced drivers...who have paid their dues running OTR...and want to have more home time too. Sooooo...GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.

Just won't do you any service to blow sunshine up your Afghanistan.

Also, the training to get your license is a lengthy process. Then whatever Company that hires you, will need to train you, until they are satisfied you are competent.

Your needs may be best met in some local, or Intrastate Company and larger Cities will also offer more jobs in that regard.

Do a lot of research in your area, in who is hiring, and would they hire you. If it is possible to keep your present job, while you train...do it. Take a leave of absence...schedule it during your vacation time...whatever.

What part of the country do you reside, that could make a big difference in the opionions you recieve. Some companies do have local and regional runs, but as stated before, very hard for a new driver. Researching the LTL companies will be your best bet. But again, depends on your region.
If you live around Chicago, Houston, Dallas, LA, New York, those types of oppurtunities are greater. If you live in Cheyenne, Odessa or some other remote area, good luck.
You may have to pay your OTR dues for a year or two, before you can get on with a local or regional carrier that will get you home every week.

Horseman

Everything they said....

+

I've been in Corporate America and owned my own business. Got burnt out in both. I always wanted to drive the big rigs and made the decision to finally do so. Starting out will be both an adventure and an ordeal. IF and I mean IF you really want to drive the big trucks, that will keep you going through the tough spots.

If you've got money to spare (and burn), go to a commercial driving school. If there is one close to your neck of the woods, they probably have a flexible enough schedule where you can learn how to drive around your current job. When you graduate, you'll be one step closer to deciding to take the plunge or not.

OK--ignore that last paragraph. Few people have the time/money/energy to learn how to drive a truck just to see if they might want to pursue a trucking career. You really need to jump in with both feet and give yourself a minimum of 6-months to 1-year to decide if you've made the right decision.

For what it's worth, Here's an ancient diary of mine (06-04 to 09-05) I kept that may help you in your decision (http://radio.weblogs.com/0141714/categories/truckerLog/). It's about my experiences getting trained and going with 2-trainers in my first big rig position as well as some experiences I had with my second company job.

BTW...showers, facilities, driver's lounge vary from location-to-location--both at company terminals and truck stops. I've experienced the "good", "not bad", and "pleasantly surprised" locations as well as the "never again in 3-lifetimes" locations.

BOL! :)

As Countryhorseman said, it would help to know where you are located. Also don't forget a driving job with the company ( factory ) themselves. Alot of companies around here will hire right out of school but many require that you work the yard ( spotter ) for a while first.

Re: Need Advice Please...Career Change To Becoming A Driver
 

Paul,

I left a 15 year career in financial services (credit/finance) when my last position was phased out. I read about the driver shortage and thought this would be a good move. And overall it was.....but with some pitfalls while learning the ropes. I am just coming up on my 1 year anniversary driving with Old Dominion. Here is the best answers I can do for your questions.

It is possible to find a company that claims you will be home about every 5 days. Some will even claim they will have you home nearly every weekend. But that is not a guarantee by no means. I don't know of any beginner OTR jobs that will have you out less than 5 days. Maybe in LTL but not OTR. Basically, if the wheel aren't turnin, you arent earnin. So the more you are on the road the....well you get the idea.

But as someone who came from an office environment let me ask you this question. Are you used to weekends off already and think trucking will work out if you can have weekends home? How often have you been away from home due to your current job? What is the longest you have been away from home due to your job? I ask this because if you are acustomed to being home every day and weekends off then trucking, especially OTR, will be a world of difference. Especially if your family is used to you being home and you have a close relationship.

As far as truck stops, well there are some really nice ones and more rat holes than you care to count. The majority fall in stages inbetween the two. The more you are out the more you will learn which ones are good and which ones to avoid.

I'm 41 myself and went into driving almost a year ago now and love it. I don't drive OTR even though I went out for a few weeks after school with a crap company that I chose not to continue with. I was lucky enough to find a local company that I drive 250 miles a night with and get paid hourly with overtime after 8 and double after 12 which occasionally happens.

You choose, OTR is going to be tough for you to get the home every weekend gig but certainly not impossible. Some OTR companies have local routes you can get after being with them a while too, so maybe go OTR six months and then switch to local or dedicated. Lots of options and tons of companies, check them out thoroughly before signing up. Good luck on your choice.

I'm surprised someone on here hasn't mentined flatbed....if you don't mind the hard work, you can make good money starting out and be home almost every weekend of the year. Where do you live?

For the noobs, what exactly is a spotter?

please note the new thread posted..........Trucking Lingo ..........


you will find any or most in that thread

Thanks Eastern.

Uh, I think I answered that question in the 1st response to the original question.

:sad:

Yes you did, thank you countryhorseman.

Re: Need Advice Please...Career Change To Becoming A Driver
 

It's possible, but don't quit your day job until you find something, because it's not going to be easy to find starting out.

Lots of people advertise "home every weekend." I haven't been a job hopper, so I don't know how true it really is across the board from personal experience. My own story is that I was trying to find something very like what you are now, but I also needed money, so I eventually had to give up and just take anything I could get, to "pay my dues" as an OTR driver, so I could work into something more suitable later. (And in retrospect, looking back at a recent job hunt after 10 years of experience, these premium jobs are hard for someone with only 10 years to get, so my "six months to a year" was probably delusional. YMMV depending on your local market, of course.)

I wound up at Great Coastal Express, and made it all the way through orientation there before the man I subsequently went on to work for for the next 10 years rolled by and snatched me out of the jaws of the driver mill just in the nick of time. I didn't quit under load, because I didn't quite get that far, but it was a close thing.

One of the most noteworthy parts of that experience was the "Hometime Equivalence" diagram they made me sign. It had boxes and arrows and lots of words in bold, and basically the point of the diagram was to explain that "home every weekend" really meant "home for one day every other week if you're lucky."

But I escaped all that after all. Before Great Coastal, I had gotten Jerry's phone number from my trucking school, and I had gone in to interview with him. We had a good chat, and it sounded like a great job for me. After an hour, he said "I like you, but I don't have any openings."

What?! You just talked to me for an hour, and you don't have a job to offer?

Big letdown, that. As it turned out, I was the only person who had ever followed that lead from that school, and he wasn't used to cold calls from prospective drivers. I completely flabbergasted him.

In the end though, somebody quit, and he needed a driver. He called my wife, and when I called her that night (this was before mere mortals had cell phones,) she told me Jerry had called with a job offer.

$350 a week to start at New Energy vs. Great Coastal was promising me $750. I had dollar signs in my eyes, and I was going to pass on that job, but some of the other drivers in the motel at orientation listened to my whole story, and talked sense into me. I called Jerry. He took the Virginia Beach run himself, and picked me up from Great Coastal orientation on the way back. My road test was driving the truck home from Virginia Beach.

Talk about putting everything on the line! If I had blown the road test, I would have wound up with no job at all, since I just walked out of the last bit of paper signing that would have put me on the road for Great Coastal, and I had been struggling for a month or so by that point to find a company willing to take somebody as green as I was. I was GREEN out of school. (I flunked the road test for two other companies before I wound up there at Great Coastal, and things were looking really grim.)

It was the best decision I ever made. New Energy was a great job for a family man, and in all likelihood, that "$750" to start as a rookie trainee at Great Coastal was unrealistic too. For somebody who didn't need to make a huge amount of money, and somebody with plenty of things to do at home, that was a fantastic job. I was making $650 a week at the end, which many would sneer at, but it was enough, and the balance between making enough and not working too much was excellent for me.

So what's the lesson in all of this for you?

What you want can happen, but it's going to be a really bizarre fluke if it actually does. You need to find yourself a New Energy somehow. Unfortunately, my New Energy let me go last February, and I haven't been able to find anything like that job either. The market forces that put them under would make it hard for anybody to make as little money with a truck as they used to. Case in point, where I'm at now I'm working harder and making more money, but I don't have the option to do less and earn less, because that wouldn't pay for the truck's expenses. I'm really kind of on the margin of the least this truck can run and still be worth keeping on the road, and that's 2,500 miles a week, which is big culture shock to me. I used to feel horribly put-upon and over-worked to pull a whopping 2,000. (Though 2,000 miles of making up to 18 stops a day unloading furniture really is a tough week.)

You can't follow my footsteps, but I wish you the best of luck finding a similar path. It's possible, just not very likely.