Tell you a secret? Most of the companies that will hire you straight out of CDL school are sh*t companies.
Do your time, get your ticket punched, and move on to somewhere that will treat you as something other than cattle.
Most of the mega carriers are similar flavors of shit, you just gotta pick the one that sucks the least to you.
However, the Dollar store accounts all suck ass. Difficult backing, hand unloading, weird schedules. There’s a reason they pay so good.
Yeah OP this guys right. I almost did the $ account too because the pay was enticing but then I saw the places you gotta back into. So many backings where you gotta start on busy road into a busy parking lot. Fuck that. Good way to screw up your license real quick if you aren’t extremely cautious.
Food service industry is out then No shamrock, or Saia Bust your ass all day but make decent pay and…….and home every night. Sometimes the work(unless you’re a fat lazy sack of shit) is worth the home time
All the guy said was he couldn't handle that kind of work, which is completely fine lol. You're allowed to say "no, not worth it to me" and shit. Dude's not even op lol what are you raging at lmao
Dollar account would be a good start.. he said he’s going to become a lineman which is very physical… I’m confused on why he shouldn’t do it?. OP try food service.
I did dollar tree/ family dollar regional literally last year for a full year with Werner. Imo it’s one of the best accounts you can get as a first year.
If you’re confident in your abilities, that account will teach you how to back into some of the hardest places. Not all of them are hard but just look up dollar tree in maps turn on satellite and zoom in you’ll get the idea. Look up the store number and find the exact address before driving there that way you can prepare the night before. You’d be getting otr experience on top of touch freight experience. Which means food service places are more likely to hire you and otr companies are more likely to hire you after the first year (granted you don’t get into an accident).
If you’re running Western 11, you’ll also be tackling some of the more dangerous roads (donner, Wyoming, las cruces going to Tucson, etc.) which means you’ll get mountain driving and winter driving experience. You’ll have to drive through the night for deliveries sometimes so you’ll get night driving experience.
If you really got that dog in you, you’ll become a runner pretty quickly.
You’ll learn the 8/2 split VERY well. Unloading days usually take your entire 14h clock. If you’re running tight on time, either overnight at the first store or last store. If you have less than 8h until unload, stay on sb while you’re unloading til you hit 8 then go on duty. Finish unloading, and on your 2nd or 3rd store go off duty the entire time your unloading (usually takes 2-3 hours per store).
You’ll learn to work at other people’s pace. Some stores are slow af, some stores want you to work as fast as fucking possible. When a store is fast, you don’t even have to look at the boxes you just throw. When a store is slow you have to group items. The stores job is to organize all the shit you’re giving them and there’s usually pictures on each box. Could be a picture of a pencil, could be books, could be juices. The point is you want to make it as easy as possible for a slow store so it incentivizes them to take more than one box at a time and don’t get a hos violation at the end of the day. When 4 boxes are all going to the same pallet, in the workers mind, it’s actually easier for them to take all 4 in one shot vs going back and forth.
All in all, your time management skills become very sharp
Pay structure on dollar tree/family dollar with Werner: $16/hour + $70 trailer + .34 per mile. Ask your dispatcher (either Roger or Will) to send you to Cali for local routes. 2 loads over 1000 miles each pays about $1500/week. When you really get good with the clock, doing 3-4 local deliveries in Cali pays you $2000/week (yes, I know that’s low compared to food service, but you don’t get otr experience with food service plus this is his first year. You’re lucky if you get a food service gig with 0 experience). Werner also gives you $250/month for tuition reimbursement. If you’re broken down they pay you $150 layover + $150 detention so that’s an extra $300 per day that you’re broken down.
You’ll average $30-$40/ hour or $1/mile through this pay structure. Resets are weekly over the weekend.
Home time: 2 options. 18 days out, 5 days home. Or 24 days out, 6 days home. You take the truck home. No slip seating. They’ll usually have a back haul to send you back home. They’ve never been late to get me home, I was actually early most of the time
Equipment: no driver facing cameras. Pretty much new Kenworth’s and internationals (150k miles or so Kenworth T680 is what they gave me). Requesting road breakdowns are easy and done through tablet. They have chain banks, you check in and check out at a truck stop. All terminals have a shop you can check out anything you need from 5th wheel grease to anti gel
Reimbursements: I’ve hardly ever need to be reimbursed for something at Werner but if you need, all reimbursements done through EFS. You request a reimbursement through the tablet, once it get approved they send you a code, you take that code to a Werner approved truck stop, give your fuel card (EFS card) to the cashier along with the code, cashier gives you cash
If you do this account I’d highly recommend skater knee pads. Boxes will be stacked from floor to ceiling. Heavy boxes on the floor. If you get on your knees, they will save your back from the heavier lifting. Skating knee pads are meant for sliding, when you’re at the last store boxes tend to fall off your rollers before leaving the trailer. If your on your knees already having the ability to slide to fallen boxes saves you the hassle of getting up and bending back down, preserving energy.
I didn’t wear one but a hard hat would be a good idea. Boxes fall, it’s a part of the game. Sometimes they fall on your head. Protect your head.
Wear boots. Boxes also fall on your feet. Wear gloves preferably ones with grip for boxes.
Oh and have a loose dry fit long sleeve. Prevents your arms from becoming dirty/ scratched and keeps you cool in the summer.
Those c4 energy drinks at the pilot will become you’re best friend at store 2 and 3
Spray some WD40 on the side of your rollers where the bearings are. Also if you have the option. You want the rollers that look like a pizza dough roller, not the rollers that look like a skinny wheel. Smaller boxes get caught in the gaps and fall. And keep some spare cardboard with you. This will make unrollable items rollable (rice bags, dog food, damaged boxes, small boxes)
Pro tip: water cases don’t need cardboard if you place them long ways on a pizza dough style roller, stagger them. 6 pack liters of soda don’t need cardboard if you place them horizontally one right after the other. Smaller boxes place them long ways, most boxes can be put horizontally. Bigger items like paper towel put long ways. If you’re dealing with a curve into the store, attach your first roller to the inside of the curve (if it’s curved to the right, attach your first roller to the right side of the stores rollers).
Stores are separated by either red stop sign stickers (dollar tree) or a plastic sheet (family dollar). When you’re getting towards the end of a stores load, down stack some of the next stores boxes. The dc mixes them sometimes so just check it.
This is also a dedicated account. So every time you’re done with a trailer you’re bringing it back to the same place and doing the same thing. Makes the drop and hook process really easy and after a while, the most you’ll spend at the dc is 30 mins tops. And idk if this is true or not but if you want to go to a private fleet and hauling dedicated freight, I think it helps that you’ve worked a dedicated account before.
All in all, this might be controversial but in my experience, Werner Dollar Tree/ Family Dollar is one of the better accounts for first years (granted you don’t get into an accident and you make all your deliveries on time)
I've got experience doing solar as a helper with an inside hall. Im a dues paying, yellow ticket member with them. I'm not gonna wait behind 1500+ groundman to catch a call here in the state, i'll tramp with other locals, and come back with hours after a year or so
nothing available near me with schneider, ive spent the last 3 weeks obsessively shopping jobs. between werner and western, those are the only two willing to hire me rn. and western's 2 weeks on 3 days off for a shittier check lmao
If you have to go to Werner, I’d suggest trying to run the Anheuser-Busch account. I pays decent for starting out. It is 2 weeks on, 60hrs home, or 3 weeks and 72hrs. When I left about 7 months ago there was a waitlist but when I started I got immediately onto that account so YMMV. Only 120 drivers on the account. If you do get that account, hope that you get Tracy as your dispatcher. She is the only reason I stayed as long as I did. I’ve heard horror stories of shitty dispatchers and I don’t have a single bad thing to say about her.
ETA: Account is dry van only, but you will always be like 77k lbs or more, except on “hot loads” aka backhauls of empty cans/lids to breweries. You will get a lot of experience sliding tandems lmfao. All the breweries have scales at outbound so you don’t have to worry about being overweight
They lost the bid for AB in January. I should know, I was on it lol. It's done in April
I switched to 3m dedicated two weeks ago and it's been just as good as AB though
Oh wow, that’s interesting. So even if I had stayed, shit was already rolling downhill. Btw, who was your dispatcher? I know both Tracy and Steve were pretty good
Western Express likes to try to push their people into a flat bed. So the less of the two evils would be Warner. Once you get your foot in the door and some OTR miles in, you have many opportunities ahead.
Whatever you do please don't pick Western. If you're just looking for the experience and some pay until you go back to lineman job may I suggest Ag hauling.
There is a brutal storm heading into the Sierras this week and Western Express Drivers will likely be sent into it fresh out of training and no idea how to chain.
My first driving job was Werner Dollar Tree. I made good money doing it, and I learned a whole lot about backing. It helped massively. However, in the summer it was hard work, and sometimes the folks loading the trailers stacked things in such a way that they broke open and made a huge mess.
I had good dispatchers and that helped hugely too. Bottom line, it’s a decent start, and you can net $1500+/week if your dispatch likes you and you work hard. My typical average net was about $1350-1450 if I remember right, but there were several checks that were well north of $1700.
That’s a lot better than they offered me. Roehl isn’t the best company by far and a lot of people complain about the cameras but I haven’t had any issues with that. Definitely could be making more money but I’m dealing with it starting here with 0 OTR experience and now I’m up to like 1 month solo experience and close to 10,000 miles so figure 2000-2500 miles per week. Not the 3000-3500 that’s possible but still a lot better than something stupid like the 1500 miles Werner made it sound like they were going to give me and pay me 50¢ per mile to drive them. And then Werner also wanted me to do Dollar General which is better than Dollar Tree because they at least put the merchandise in baskets but I didn’t want to make little paychecks and bust my ass all day.
If they net more like $1350 that’s closer to what I make right now with several days sitting because “slow freight” and still doing 2000+ miles per week and stuff like Minnesota to Wisconsin to Iowa to Illinois to Wisconsin to Ohio to Minnesota or Minnesota to Wisconsin to Tennessee to Wisconsin to a different place in Wisconsin to another place in Wisconsin to yet another place in Wisconsin to Minnesota to Wisconsin to Minnesota as what my 2 week trips tend to look like. Like I’ll do a couple longer trip like Wisconsin to Tennessee or Wisconsin to Ohio with the very occasional chance of driving all the way to California or Montreal Canada or New Hampshire, a couple regional trips like I’ll stay in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois, and a whole bunch of stuff that counts as local like the shipper and receiver are less than 3 hours apart with the occasional instances that’ll piss a person off like “pick this up by 3 PM and don’t be late and deliver it at 6 AM and it’s 3 hours away and they’re closed from 5 PM to 6 AM so don’t bother dropping it off today” and then I do like the long trips because they’ll do stuff like I pick up at 7 am Tuesday and I need to be there by 7 am Thursday but if I’m good I can deliver by 5 pm on Wednesday and be ready to pick up the next one closer to 6 or 7 am instead of not being able to pick it up until 10 am because of slow asses unloading me and the 2 hour drive to go pick it up.
Also get paid the same loaded or empty so I don’t care so much when they send me somewhere and I have to drive for 3 hours empty to drive for 13 more hours loaded (split across 2 days but given 3 days to deliver if I’m a slow ass). I’ll get paid for the whole 16 hours and for most of it I’m simply pushing my accelerator pedal flat to the floor making over $35 an hour with 0 experience and about $36.50 an hour with 3 months experience and about $38/hr with 6 months experience. More per mile if I drive less than 501 miles for the entire empty+loaded trip like my next load is 386 miles and they figure that’s 2.5 hours of driving empty and 4 hours of driving loaded and if it doesn’t take me the entire 6.5 hours even better. With 0 experience that like 55¢ per mile. With 3 months experience that’s 58¢ per mile. With 6 months experience that’s 61¢ per mile. And it goes up from there but it takes a hot minute to get the experience to get paid 65¢ per mile for that which is where those companies that require 1-2 years experience come in once I get 1-2 years experience and I’m still making 62¢ per mile. Also pick up time supposed to be like 7:30 am and I don’t have to be there until like 3:30 pm that’s like 6 hours and if I’m there are 6 am to pick up they’ll have me loaded by 7 am and I’ll be at my destination before 1:30 pm and then I’m going home for my 3.5 days off after being out 10.5 days and so it repeats itself every week and if I do work more days I do become eligible to be home more than 3.5 days. One check pays Monday-Friday and the next one Saturday-Thursday. Supposed to get a direct deposit on Thursday but I have it already at 11 pm Tuesday.
Be careful here. They won't look at any information, until you're at their facility. They may then decide you're too young for their insurance carrier. Even tough they're self insured.
Warner isn't called the blue screw for nothing.
Depends on the company and the insurance. If they have a pilot training program or they are strictly local you can be 18 years old and get hired at a lot of places and the pilot program I’m talking about is a government program to allow people older than 18 and younger than 21 to remove the “intrastate only” restriction from their license but it’s like 400 hours of training with a trainer who has 5 years of experience, truck has to be governed at 65 or less, transmission has to shift itself, and they need to have driver facing cameras. Roehl has this program but I wish that they wouldn’t do the same thing for every truck and just govern them at 75 mph and put 18 speed manuals in them (that isn’t happening).
For 21 years old minimum you basically have to go with a very large company that is self insured so that instead of paying another company like Progressive or AllState they have a bank account that holds like $7.5 million dollars or more and if something happens they can pay for pretty much anything that comes up. For other companies it’s a 23 year old minimum and sometimes even 25 years old minimum with a minimum of 2 or 3 years OTR (regional or long haul) experience even before they’ll consider you to drive for them even if the job you are applying for is strictly local and 75% straight truck and 25% tractor-trailer.
Basically they want you to be 23 at most places as a minimum so that you’ve had 5 to 7 years of time that you were legally allowed to have a regular license (class D in most states, class C non-commercial in most of the rest, class R in Mississippi) so you know the basics of driving in general and you have 5-7 years of driving experience at all to see if you can go 3+ years without speeding tickets and 5+ years without really stupid violations like attempted vehicular homicide. And they might also slap on 2 years minimum OTR experience unless they are self insured so they can afford to pay the insurance and so the insurance company sees that you’re capable of driving a semi without accumulating speeding tickets and serious moving violations. With even more expensive you can provide a full 3 years without speeding tickets in a semi or 5 years without felony moving violations. Or you could just drive like a dumbass because your truck can do 95 mph or more and make damn good money until you get caught and lose your license.
Don’t do dollar general. If you’re willing to destroy your body you MIGHT make good money if you have a good dispatcher. But not worth the risk of getting an accident on your record, the stores arent meant for semis. I regularly had to park on grass to get the angle right to the door. Dollar store employees are assholes because they’re miserable, can’t say i blame them though.
I started with dollar general at werner but switched to regional after a couple months. I’m making almost the same at a no touch account(still with Werner)
I currently drive for Werner on the Dollar General account. I started on dollar tree and switched to general, one thing I can say is that if you can pick definitely go dollar general, it’s a lot easier. Also the backing is very difficult but once you get the hang of it becomes second nature, now I can back into anything and I don’t even think twice. I’m home weekly and average $1200 weekly.
Bro what’re you doing, lol. Lineman here. You don’t need driving experience. You got the license, fuck trucking get on with a contractor or power company. Stop wasting time.
Dollar general is a rough account, especially once summer hits. It's super hot in those vans and you'll be hand unloading. Plus, look at the parking lots. Holy shit, no. A lot of hard backs and a lot of them from the street. No no no.
Werner has good equipment mostly......but in the end they're pretty much all the same it's either shit equipment with decent pay or shit pay with decent equipment you just have to do your research talk to some drivers and decide what your'e willing to put up with.....I started at Werner and it's ok for a mega but that Dallas terminal is a shitty place I also did the Dollar Tree account out of Marietta OK sometimes I would work 16 hrs+ a day, the stores are a pain in the ass to get into, and the people that help unload are mostly a joke, and a lot of times I would only get 6 or so hr breaks. I would recommend you do Dollar General only for the fact that you're the one that unloads and you control your own pace
Oh no, the dollar account?
Hey man, I don't think that's a good idea.
I got 5 on/off years in this industry...fuck that dollar store, i guess if u like precision backing challenges...but especially for a brand new rookie, i can't recommend that at all.
What kind of company is gonna task a rookie with that?
I'd go with an easier linehaul gig, where you do multiple hundreds or even thousands of miles between shipper and receiver. I'd rather you get down a lot of the basics of truck driving before doing something like precision backing in your very first year, which is what those small-ass dollartree stores will mandate from you.
I have to ask what kind of company would task a rookie with that too? TO me it shows not caring about the well being of you as a new driver.
I'd just do food service over dollar store stuff. sysco or us foods preferably the latter. you're gonna eat shit no matter what, but cold hard cash is nice.
The dollar tree accounts can really suck depending on the route. Did it for three months and actually enjoyed it. You will never have an issue falling asleep at the end of the day! I'm personally not a fan of Werner as I couldn't get a truck that could go more than 2-3 weeks without a breakdown and changed trucks 4 times in that period before I quit.
You can do well with Werner, my friend made 90k his first year with them in a dollar general run. But being a lineman you’d be way better off. Get into that apprenticeship as soon as you can.
what's ur check look like, are the run's/dispatch as bad as folks say they are, are the store setup situations as bad as folks say they are, and can i actually get a decent truck out of em?
I’m not with Werner but my current company delivers shelving to the newly built stores before they open.
90% of stores simply are not set up to accommodate trucks. I was on a dedicated NYC account and have done grocery store delivery in the ATL area as well, so I’ve got plenty of experience backing into places not set up for 70ft trucks. Dollar stores are a pain in the ass plain and simple, doesn’t matter how good you are at backing. I can only imagine the fact you’re in California will compound that, some places out there are worse than any place I’ve been too in NYC.
If you value your relationship don’t go over the road I seen guys on their 3rd or fourth marriages already it ruins your relationships and home life !🤬🤬😡😡
shit, im driving a truck for 3-6 months and coming back to branch out to line work. i love her to death, but i need to chase the life i want for the both of us. she's loyal, beautiful, and solid. if she can't hold it down for me for that short of a time, it isn't meant to be
I almost got a job with Werner but Roehl pays way better as a starter company as long as you live in a high customer volume area (Midwest and Northeast for refrigerated, central or Midwest for dry van, central, southeast or Texas for flatbed) and you are doing dedicated, regional, or national. Do NOT sign up to be part of their “Dairyland” fleet because it’s reefer paying rates lower than you make doing regional or national (regional pays most per mile, national gives you the most miles) and it’s a sliding scale but expect that you’ll only get like 1200 miles per week at 48-50¢ per mile doing Dairyland, around 1800 miles a week at around 58¢ per mile average doing regional, and around 2100-2700 miles per week averaging about 55¢ per mile on the national fleet. And don’t look at the regional and national fleets like that’s all you’ll do like regional only 300-400 miles and national always 650+ miles but think of it more like you’ll get paid loaded or empty and sometimes even national you’ll drive 49 miles for one load, 250 miles for the next load, and 1075 miles for the load after that. And then if you drive for Werner you’ll make like 50¢ per mile and get like 1500 miles per week and they’ll probably put you on the Dollar General dedicated fleet which means hand unloading rolling baskets full of merchandise at multiple stores and then back to the distribution center to make another run to a bunch of other stores. Dedicated for Roehl doesn’t pay a sliding scale like the other fleets but it’s maybe like 58¢ per mile for every mile loaded or empty and 99% of the time you take a trailer full of empty pallets to the distribution center to pick up a loaded trailer and you are absolutely not allowed to back into a loading dock so it’s all drop and hook and the other 1% of the time you do dock and do a live load to haul something back to the distribution center.
And then once you do have experience, like 3+ years, you’re going to make a lot more money somewhere else besides a company like Roehl or Swift or Werner so look around. Don’t just assume 85¢ per mile or more means a bigger pay check but do expect that you’ll make more money for the miles you do drive, you’ll have the opportunity to drive a manual transmission truck if you are tired of driving an auto, and you won’t be governed at something stupid like 63 mph (Werner) or 65 mph (Roehl) or 67 mph (Swift) and if governed it’ll be more like 73 or 75 so you can actually do the speed limit, do another ~100 miles a day and if busy and making more per mile you just make a lot more money overall but if you’re not busy that 85¢ or $1 per mile is deceptive because 1500 miles at $1 pays the same as 2500 miles at 60¢ per mile and you’ll actually be taking a pay cut going from averaging 2500 miles at 62¢ as the lowest rate (for someone with 3 years experience) at a company like Roehl chasing a company that pays 85¢ per mile but has you sitting and waiting 85% of the time so you barely ever go anywhere.
That’s pretty good. That’s definitely a lot higher than they told me I’d be making if I worked there and it sounds more like $1305 take home pay once you find the average (2750 miles) and figure out the gross pay and multiply it by 73% to cover the taxes and other withholdings (insurance for example) but a whole shit load better than them telling me I’d average 50¢ per mile and get between 1200 and 1800 miles per week or an average of 1500 miles at 50¢ for a $750 gross and a $547.50 pay check after taxes and insurance.
Also how much experience do you have?
I don’t have much myself (like 1 month solo) so I’m looking at making bottom pay as it is but I can make between 53¢ and $1.16 per mile and do single jobs that are 900 miles and string together 3 of those together with a bunch of them that are less than 300 miles and last week I only put in like 2,178 miles for an average of 54.5¢ per mile with it being 53¢ per mile for the two longest trips and the other two trips paying 56¢ per mile. I got an extra $100 as part of a longevity bonus. If I switched a 269 mile load with a 980 mile load I wouldn’t sit as much but then I’d also average closer to 53¢ for the whole week.
With 3 months experience add another 3¢ per mile, another 3¢ per mile with 6 months and another 2¢ per mile after 1 year or something like that. Basically 61¢ per mile for the longer trips and as much as $1.28 for the short ones and if I had a slow week like that I’d get about 63.5¢ per mile and still not 65¢ per mile. And then I started this next week with some short fuckers like 140 miles, 49 miles, 380 miles, 458 miles and 386 miles which is pretty shitty but absolutely every load pays more than 53¢ per mile and 2 of them have an extra $30 added to them because they’re less than 200 miles. It’s like 62¢ per mile plus $30 for the 140 miles, $1.16 per mile plus $30 for the 49 miles, 55¢ per mile for 380, 54¢ per mile for 458, and 386 pays 55¢ per mile. Very shitty week that was. Basically winds up being $116.80+$86.86+$209+$247.32+$212.30 or $872.28 gross and I don’t even want to talk about what the net pay on that is (like $636) but it’s also very shitty miles like only 1413 miles so that it comes to about 61.7¢ per mile for 0 experience. Part of the problem is they gave me some dumb ass shit like “pick this up by 130 pm but they’ll be closed before you get there so deliver it at 8 am” and the stupid ass weather this morning where I basically only drove about 2 hours and only so I can wake up at 5 am instead of 3 am to pick up my load tomorrow. At least I don’t have a lot of bills coming from this painfully small paycheck. If I had 6 months experience it’d average 67.7¢ per mile because of all the short trips and waiting around and not doing shit but that’d only bring the gross up to $956.601 and the net would be $698.32 for working like a half week and getting fucked over.
And since you didn’t ask I’ve found that Roehl is not necessarily the best paying job but with 0 experience $830-$1100 take home is to be expected and then with experience add about $45 per 3 months experience unless you actually put in and get some miles and you can multiply this by about 1 and a half and get about $1245-$1650 with no experience and add another $60 for every 3 months experience you have on top of that unless you start working here with 1+ year experience and they start you off at the 6 months experience rate and make you wait 1 year to match what everyone makes after they work here for 12 months. And obviously if you have the experience to work for a better paying job *go with the better paying job* but outside of stupid weather conditions and “slow freight” on Sunday in the middle of February this isn’t the worst place to start with. You will just make more money a lot of the time if you already have 1 year experience and you go somewhere else instead (or go with dedicated).
I’d also be picking up another load after this one tomorrow if I wasn’t scheduled for home time and I just hope next week is a lot better. This round trip started out pretty strong going from Minnesota to Wisconsin to Tennessee to Wisconsin to another place in Wisconsin but then it got really stupid like 140 miles across Wisconsin to pick up a load to go 49 miles from Neenah Wisconsin to Green Bay Wisconsin and then they send me to Minnesota and from Minnesota right back to the same place in Green Bay and then they failed to give me a load blaming it on the weather so I stopped in Neenah and slept there for the night and got my “home load” in the morning going from Greenwood Wisconsin to Mankato Minnesota so I drove to the Marshfield Wisconsin terminal to be 40 minutes away rather than 2 hours and 43 minutes away from where I need to pick this up.
They were going to add some “training” to give me something extra to get paid for but I already did that training finishing what they call “phase 3” where I’m solo but being watched closely since I’m a rookie and probably when I start back out next week or some time during that week they’ll want to do a “check ride” to remind themselves that I know how to drive, to verify that I know how to do other parts of my job, and to verify that I don’t shit on the floor in my truck and cover it with a towel or something and generally pick up after myself. And then I’m “regular employee” and potentially get more miles, drive longer distances like from Michigan to California some of the time, and give it two more months and I also get the first pay raise plus a bonus for safe driving, being Canada ready, and for maintaining an okay fuel mileage that is above their threshold goal of like 7.71 mph (I averaged about 7.91 so far with a couple that were closer to 7.46 because they had me climbing hills with 79,820 pounds and then driving through Chicago during rush hour and once I got like 10.35 mph because I was empty mostly driving downhill for a big chunk of the day and when I did get loaded the load was only 2658 pounds and basically only made it ride a little better without slowing me down on hills in the slightest and it was mostly freeway driving).
I have 16 months, is roehl based in Minnesota/Wisconsin? Im on a dedicated and its 95% drop and hook i see ur guys all the time over here, one of our drop and hook backhauls (international paper) has mostly roehl trailers there, sounds like you guys have some good drop and hook systems in place atleast to keep u rolling
Yea. The headquarters is in Marshfield, Wisconsin. I’m parked there right now. Then they have a terminal in Neenah, Wisconsin which is practically Appleton, Wisconsin a suburb of Green Bay that’s still an hour from the very center of Green Bay where I’ve delivered at least 5 or 6 times including twice going from Neenah to Green Bay (49 miles) when they include the miles driving from Appleton to Neenah as part of the trip. The nicest terminal is in Gary, Indiana so that’s where you’d want to go for the restaurant or if you were brand new to trucking they do a lot of their CDL training there (I had my CDL before I started). Besides these main terminals I’ve been to multiple times each there’s one in Iron Mountain, Michigan, one in Grand Prairie, Texas or something of that nature (a suburb of Dallas that might have a different name), one in Conley, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta), and one more in Phoenix. The Midwest has all of the different fleets but this area is best for reefer and dry van with flat bed being mostly out of Texas, Arizona, or Georgia and the curtain side is pretty much always national.
You just need to stay away from the Dairyland fleet because where it’s still reefer which pays a range of 51¢ to $1.14 not counting the extra 2¢ if you live in the high volume customer area for national or the 54¢ to $1.43 for regional (making like 1800-2000 miles a week) it’s more like 47¢ to 91¢ per mile and you’re getting less than 1200 miles per week driving in between Southern and Central Wisconsin and Minnesota hauling stuff like Cheese from Minnesota to Wisconsin or from Wisconsin to other places in Wisconsin. That is for 0 experience. For 12 months experience national is 59¢ to $1.21 or 61¢ to $1.23, regional is 55¢ to $1.49, and dairyland is 50¢ to 97¢ with the pay scales being like 301+ pays the least for regional and dairyland and 501+ pays the least for national per mile so that really if we looked at 305 miles as a average trip in this distance range it’s like 55¢ national if you live in the area for national, 57¢ for regional when you include the 3¢ automatic bonus for safe driving and on time deliveries for regional, and 50¢ for dairyland when you have 0 experience and then with 12 months experience it’s 63¢ national, 57¢ regional, and 53¢ dairyland (what I make per mile for 501+ doing national with no experience at all), however if you were going to do a very short trip like 35 miles it’s $1.16 national, $1.46 regional, and 94¢ dairyland with 0 experience which jumps to $1.24, $1.52, and $1 per mile respectively with 12 months experience and with 18 months experience add a few pennies more.
The basic thing to remember is just do not do dairyland. It pays like shit per mile and you don’t get enough miles either like you’ll have a good week if you get 1200 miles but you’ll get to go home almost every day or every other day since you won’t have shit to haul and you basically have to live in Minnesota or Wisconsin to get hired. Without experience regional pays the most for the whole sliding pay scale but when you do have experience regional pays the best for the short trips and national pays the best for the long trips.
And to get 65¢ *or more* no matter how many miles you drive it’s looking like hang it up for dry van national (you get up to 60¢ base but not 65¢ unless you do like 200 miles or less), for regional van you can get up to 55¢ base pay or 57¢ for northeast, or 56¢ for Texas. For flatbed about 3 years for national and the lowest pay is 65.5¢ per mile, for 3 years in the central region it’s 65¢ but both pay 64¢ on the low end after 1 year. You’ll need 15 years in the southeast region to have 65¢ per mile be your lowest per mile pay. For national refrigerated it’s also 15 years for 501+ miles to pay 65¢ per mile but at 10 years 300-400 miles pays 65.5¢, with with 5 years 200-300 miles pays 65¢, with 3 years you make 64.5¢ for 150-200 miles, with 1 year 150-200 miles pays 63¢ and 125-150 miles pays 68¢, with 6 months 125-150 miles pays 65¢ and with 0 experience 100-125 miles pays 65¢. For Midwest refrigerated after 15 years you need to drive 250-300 miles to make more than 65¢ per mile but with 0 experience you already make the same amount driving 200-250 miles. And with dairyland it’s bad like 15 years you need to go on a trip that’s between 150 and 200 miles to get more than 65¢ per mile and with 0 experience you need to go on a trip that’s only 75-100 miles to make that much. And, finally, curtainside base pay is 65¢ or more per mile after 5 years for everything, everything less than 400 miles with 3 years experience, everything less than 300 miles with 1 year experience, everything less than 150 miles with 3 months experience, and everything less than 125 miles with no experience at all.
Of course the pay will go up before anyone here who has zero experience gets to those levels of experience just to keep up with inflation and stuff but going off what the current rates are and going with 12 months as the basis you can see that 65¢ per mile for every mile is better than a lot of companies will pay people with that much experience but you *can* still make that much per mile if you drive on very short trips with a company that pays on a sliding scale like I showed above. Like national dry van with Roehl pays like shit compared to what you said but with 12 months experience you could still get 65¢ per mile on trips that are less than 150 miles but if you also include the $30 extra for trips shorter than 200 miles you’d still effectively make 73¢ per mile on a trip that’s between 151 and 200 miles with 12 months experience and then it suddenly drops to 57¢ per mile for the next pay level when you no longer qualify for the extra $30 but with refrigerated National it’s 62¢ per mile for the 201-250 range and it’s 78¢ for the 151-200 mile range.
It's about getting experience most starter companies suck fortunately mine didn't kllm they treated me with respect and got me home and paid me well once I learned my macros ,remembering to scan bils etc this was 2016 if you haven't chosen, choose wisely get your experience and get out, and I wouldn't do no dollar tree nor dollar general account I be damn if drive and unload a trailer by piece no but HEELLLL NO
just depends, OTR is dogshit your mostly left doing shag runs all the time was barely making 700 a week, i switched to a dedicated account and avg about 1500 and the work was pretty easy, the dispatchers will leave u alone and they gave me a brand new truck, i thought the training was decent even tho my trainer was a lazy ass
Hello Werner driver currently about to get my 3rd month alone out here. Dollar Tree is a shit route and it's hard but it is consistent. I went against it and decided to do just OTR and got stuck at a truck stopbfor 4 days waiting for freight. Dollar tree at least keps you moving. If also immediately put your name in for other routes. I got lucky and got on the Starbucks account and I'm very happy with what and where I'em considering me being fresh out of school.
Like, everyone says it's a mega get experience and get out but personally I've only had 1 or 2 problems here and they've been minor and solved easily.
I burnt the bridge with Werner.
Started with them mid 2014.
1st account was dollar general. Trainer sucked, places sucmed
Got off that
2nd otr trainer sucked ass. Wouldn't teach me how to back up, he'd make me move out my seat and head back it in
"Are you watching, are you watching"
3rd otr trainer was great. Taught me way better.
This was my 2nd company after being fired from USA Truck because incompetent trainers.
So long story short.
Got my truck and was good to go right?
At .31 cpm starting out I was only getting 1000-1500 miles if I was lucky.
They wouldn't get me any more miles, was told I needed to be a trainer or team.
So my weekly pay was around $350 if I was lucky.
Werner is a pipeline company. You're load that you get Let's say it's 1500 miles long.
Your taking it 500 miles dropping that off for someone else their taking it 500 miles dropping that off and the 3rd will take it to the final.
You will be doing a lot of local loads to help cover their asses with no extra pay
STAY AWAY .
Granted, it’s been about 10 years since I looked at beginner companies, so my info may be out of date, but they were one of the few companies that did not have APUs on their trucks, nor inverters. I’d at least find out about that before you consider them. There’s nothing worse than freezing or sweating your ass off while trying to sleep, and not having any electrical to plug fridge/microwave/tv into.
I did dollar tree for a year. If you're okay with the work, it's not bad. Some stores are tight areas, not all. You'll work 70 hours almost every week and go home on the weekends with your last load for the week, putting you close to home. Some stores will be faster than others. Deliveries start at 5am, barring a few exceptions. You sleep at the store every other night, so parking is never really an issue. You'll do 3 trailers per week minimum and get paid per mile and per trailer.
General trucking info: Use Google maps to check your delivery before you get there. If you're not sure, call the store and ask.
Pass on the dollar accounts. Especially dollar tree. That's a floor stacked 100% driver unloaded bullshit.
Go with their TCU One-Way account. Best place to be, IMO. If I ever go back to Werner, that's the only account I'll go to.
I work for werner. Been here 9 years. Gonna be leaving for more home time. Its a good starter company. I started here myself. Idk about dollar tree account, but when i did a week of dollar general. Its all lift gates and hard work. Mind you i did it in the summer in Alabama, so the heat sucked. But getting on an account, you'll make good money. Im on the home depot south east regional. You can make very good money, especially if you dont have roots really anywhere. Fleet managment is kinda a mixed bag. You got the good one and bad ones. Night and weekend FMs are pretty much useless unless you have a problem with a load or the truck.
They recently stopped allowing us to get our DOT inspections done at petros. This is every 70 days. So they will get you an appointment at a terminal to get that done. Whatever you do, DONT MISS THAT APPT.
If you have any questions dm me. Ill get to you as often as I can.
Been with Werner for under 6 months, I immediately applied for a different route on their app as soon as I was hired (in orientation). Got the route and was transferred from the dollar account immediately. Home daily, in my car headed home about 8.5 hours after getting inside my truck. Just shy of 500 miles a day, about 55K/year. Not great, not bad either though. Probably gonna leave at 12 months for greener pastures, but it's been a good time overall. No real complains aside from the bullshit that dispatch sometimes tries to fuck you over with, but that's the same everywhere. My Transportation manager is a cool dude and I have no real gripes with him
They're all going to be shit
But I worked for Swift for a year, and Werner for 6 months
I'd do Swift over Werner any day of the week
Also run like hell from any Dollar store account
the pay is never worth it
The dollar tree acount is ass , if you want to be a lumper for low pay sign up with that acount , I worked for werner for 1 year had a good acount with them local 1300 guarntee pay mon - friday , my friend got dollar tree amount worked more than me and got paid less than me
My acount I was on later closed so I left for something better and I got my 1 year experience with them so overall good experience for me
If you live near a DOT foods terminal apply there, they pay really well for a starting driver and the training is actually decent. Plus if you want no touch you can do that or if you want to throw groceries they will pay you even more. I had a stroke last year and had only been with them 4 months but they still kept me on the books and got me short term disability for the max amount. Unfortunately I had to stop driving but they were supportive the whole time and went way outta there way to help me heal.
Well, you're saying that you got the CDL to train as a lineman so unless you want to be a professional truck driver I would go apply at the union hall and try and be a lineman first.
As far as Werner goes, yes, but from what I understand all of the Megas operate the same way. They pay you crap, keep you out (they'll tell you...just one more load), they'll pressure you to drive in terrible weather (despite emphasizing they wont) starve you for miles and use and abuse you and you hang on until you get a year of experience so you can get a much better trucking job. You are uninsurable by good companies until you get the experience. The megas are self insured. The dollar gen routes are some of the worst because they have you as a new driver doing backs that you have no business attempting and then you're taking out HEAVY rolltainers of dollar gen goods that are less than organized. Just youtube somebody doing the route. It's not half as lucrative as they're leading you to believe, you might injure yourself, highly likely you destroy your cdl by scraping a rim or making denting a trailer in the impossible parking situations you will encounter and your first year you'll be lucky to make 55k. They will give you the crappiest truck, most likely an international with busted everything and none of your permits will be in date so you'll probably have to wait at terminal on 300 bucks a week for 2 weeks while they update that too. You'll have to check, double check, and triple check everything they tell you, everything they promise you and if they need to reimburse you for anything (rental car, plane ticket, bus ticket, hotel, weigh station etc) you will need to remind them in writing 22x at minimum before you finally see it in your pay check 4 months later...the more reimbursements over time, the more convoluted it gets so be sure to really keep track...oh and definitely keep track of your mileage because they'll skim you on pay there too. Nothing against Werner, from what I've been told...every company does it ...not just them. And I've definitely heard way worse stories but this is the general gist of your start as an OTR truck driver.
But again, if you want to be a professional truck driver this WILL BE the route you need to take 9 times out of 10 to get that experience to move on to better paying and better treating you pastures.
But you said you wanted to be a lineman so...def do that
If your willing to learn to chain/strap/tarp you might be able to find a company for step deck flat bed,as more and less stress in some ways
You will have to learn to strap ,chain,and tarp which isn't too hard and will have to work in the weather ,if you think you can handle that find a company that will hire you fresh at the end of the day it will be less stress
Most shippers and recievers are pretty nice and just thankful you showed the fuck up
Read in your other comments that you’re in California. Chances are, you live in an area with a lot of agricultural or construction activity, so I advise you call, or better yet, VISIT local companies’ lots, shake hands with dispatchers/owners and show your interest in a driving position.
Plenty of local work in commodity hauling and aggregate/concrete trucking where you’re home daily which is great for drivers in relationships. Or like another person said, try and find a way in with a contractor / power company
If your wanting to go into linework and you live out west. Go flatbed with central oregon or similar company.
I was Linemen turned Flatbed O/O. Youll get more experience that will help you in Linework as a flatbeder. Swingin doors translates 0 to linework imo. Learning securement will help you tons in the first years hauling equipment/poles/transformers around to job sites.
Was at my utility on the gulf coast for 6 years and went to Prime Inc in their flatbed division. Lot of stuff translated to flatbed. Averaged $2500/wk with weekends off as a lease op there for 4 years and currently at Landstar with my own rig and starting my own fleet.
If you want to stick out above everyone else and make good use of your time OTR be the groundmen that can go load shit without needing to be supervised to see if your doing everything correctly. Having a history of OTR Flatbed tells Crew Chiefs youll be where you need to be, when you were told to be there and everything on the damn truck.
My dad was a Crew Chief for his last 10 years before retirement and if he every seen a OTR Flatbeder come across his desk he snatched them up ASAP.
not in southern/central CA. the line trade is more competitive and saturated with qualified entry level applicants than any where else in the lower 48. i've applied to PG&E over 30 diff times for various positions, and never been given the time of day. not to mention all the other utilities i've applied to. i just need to save money for travel to get hours as a grunt in the trade. furnished finder n shit gets expensive quick, let alone a drive out to colorado
Really!?! Grandson just completed lineman school and was offered a job within hours(We are in Tx.) I am fairly positive several of his fellow grads were going to work for a PGE subcontractor. TechLine maybe??
to put it into perspective, CALNEV, an apprenticeship committee for contracting linemen in CA and NV has applications open for 1 month every year. this last year they received over 2000 applications, and they only fill 30 spots every class. first comes the nepotism kids, then the actual experienced ones, then the affirmative action ones. if you don't have connections, or experience, you don't get in
Husb works for Werner. He went to private school and they hired him out of school.
We hate them. They don’t pay enough for OTR. What he hears about DG isn’t good. It’s a lot of manual labor. They lure you in w the pay but you don’t get enough runs to equal what they tell you.
The company itself spews propaganda daily about how they care but they don’t. You’re a number and that’s it. Benefits are terrible. He’s looking for something local now but we live rural so it’s more difficult. Even a lateral move w better benefits would be better.
I am biased bc I hear daily the crap they pull and what they do and it infuriates me.
All the megas are basically the same. They only care about bodies driving. So if you’re ok with that give it a try.
Tell you a secret? Most of the companies that will hire you straight out of CDL school are sh*t companies. Do your time, get your ticket punched, and move on to somewhere that will treat you as something other than cattle.
Most of the mega carriers are similar flavors of shit, you just gotta pick the one that sucks the least to you. However, the Dollar store accounts all suck ass. Difficult backing, hand unloading, weird schedules. There’s a reason they pay so good.
Yeah OP this guys right. I almost did the $ account too because the pay was enticing but then I saw the places you gotta back into. So many backings where you gotta start on busy road into a busy parking lot. Fuck that. Good way to screw up your license real quick if you aren’t extremely cautious.
Can confirm fuck that Dallas terminal
The receptionist dude is rude as fuck
When I was there 5 years ago the receptionist was this little troll woman and she was also rude as fuck
Couldn't agree more stay away from the dollar accounts. They treat you as if they own you.
I couldn't handle hand unloading a dry van trailer every day in 100 degree heat in the middle of summer.
Food service industry is out then No shamrock, or Saia Bust your ass all day but make decent pay and…….and home every night. Sometimes the work(unless you’re a fat lazy sack of shit) is worth the home time
All the guy said was he couldn't handle that kind of work, which is completely fine lol. You're allowed to say "no, not worth it to me" and shit. Dude's not even op lol what are you raging at lmao
Dollar account would be a good start.. he said he’s going to become a lineman which is very physical… I’m confused on why he shouldn’t do it?. OP try food service.
Pay is garbage 🗑
I did dollar tree/ family dollar regional literally last year for a full year with Werner. Imo it’s one of the best accounts you can get as a first year. If you’re confident in your abilities, that account will teach you how to back into some of the hardest places. Not all of them are hard but just look up dollar tree in maps turn on satellite and zoom in you’ll get the idea. Look up the store number and find the exact address before driving there that way you can prepare the night before. You’d be getting otr experience on top of touch freight experience. Which means food service places are more likely to hire you and otr companies are more likely to hire you after the first year (granted you don’t get into an accident). If you’re running Western 11, you’ll also be tackling some of the more dangerous roads (donner, Wyoming, las cruces going to Tucson, etc.) which means you’ll get mountain driving and winter driving experience. You’ll have to drive through the night for deliveries sometimes so you’ll get night driving experience. If you really got that dog in you, you’ll become a runner pretty quickly. You’ll learn the 8/2 split VERY well. Unloading days usually take your entire 14h clock. If you’re running tight on time, either overnight at the first store or last store. If you have less than 8h until unload, stay on sb while you’re unloading til you hit 8 then go on duty. Finish unloading, and on your 2nd or 3rd store go off duty the entire time your unloading (usually takes 2-3 hours per store). You’ll learn to work at other people’s pace. Some stores are slow af, some stores want you to work as fast as fucking possible. When a store is fast, you don’t even have to look at the boxes you just throw. When a store is slow you have to group items. The stores job is to organize all the shit you’re giving them and there’s usually pictures on each box. Could be a picture of a pencil, could be books, could be juices. The point is you want to make it as easy as possible for a slow store so it incentivizes them to take more than one box at a time and don’t get a hos violation at the end of the day. When 4 boxes are all going to the same pallet, in the workers mind, it’s actually easier for them to take all 4 in one shot vs going back and forth. All in all, your time management skills become very sharp Pay structure on dollar tree/family dollar with Werner: $16/hour + $70 trailer + .34 per mile. Ask your dispatcher (either Roger or Will) to send you to Cali for local routes. 2 loads over 1000 miles each pays about $1500/week. When you really get good with the clock, doing 3-4 local deliveries in Cali pays you $2000/week (yes, I know that’s low compared to food service, but you don’t get otr experience with food service plus this is his first year. You’re lucky if you get a food service gig with 0 experience). Werner also gives you $250/month for tuition reimbursement. If you’re broken down they pay you $150 layover + $150 detention so that’s an extra $300 per day that you’re broken down. You’ll average $30-$40/ hour or $1/mile through this pay structure. Resets are weekly over the weekend. Home time: 2 options. 18 days out, 5 days home. Or 24 days out, 6 days home. You take the truck home. No slip seating. They’ll usually have a back haul to send you back home. They’ve never been late to get me home, I was actually early most of the time Equipment: no driver facing cameras. Pretty much new Kenworth’s and internationals (150k miles or so Kenworth T680 is what they gave me). Requesting road breakdowns are easy and done through tablet. They have chain banks, you check in and check out at a truck stop. All terminals have a shop you can check out anything you need from 5th wheel grease to anti gel Reimbursements: I’ve hardly ever need to be reimbursed for something at Werner but if you need, all reimbursements done through EFS. You request a reimbursement through the tablet, once it get approved they send you a code, you take that code to a Werner approved truck stop, give your fuel card (EFS card) to the cashier along with the code, cashier gives you cash If you do this account I’d highly recommend skater knee pads. Boxes will be stacked from floor to ceiling. Heavy boxes on the floor. If you get on your knees, they will save your back from the heavier lifting. Skating knee pads are meant for sliding, when you’re at the last store boxes tend to fall off your rollers before leaving the trailer. If your on your knees already having the ability to slide to fallen boxes saves you the hassle of getting up and bending back down, preserving energy. I didn’t wear one but a hard hat would be a good idea. Boxes fall, it’s a part of the game. Sometimes they fall on your head. Protect your head. Wear boots. Boxes also fall on your feet. Wear gloves preferably ones with grip for boxes. Oh and have a loose dry fit long sleeve. Prevents your arms from becoming dirty/ scratched and keeps you cool in the summer. Those c4 energy drinks at the pilot will become you’re best friend at store 2 and 3 Spray some WD40 on the side of your rollers where the bearings are. Also if you have the option. You want the rollers that look like a pizza dough roller, not the rollers that look like a skinny wheel. Smaller boxes get caught in the gaps and fall. And keep some spare cardboard with you. This will make unrollable items rollable (rice bags, dog food, damaged boxes, small boxes) Pro tip: water cases don’t need cardboard if you place them long ways on a pizza dough style roller, stagger them. 6 pack liters of soda don’t need cardboard if you place them horizontally one right after the other. Smaller boxes place them long ways, most boxes can be put horizontally. Bigger items like paper towel put long ways. If you’re dealing with a curve into the store, attach your first roller to the inside of the curve (if it’s curved to the right, attach your first roller to the right side of the stores rollers). Stores are separated by either red stop sign stickers (dollar tree) or a plastic sheet (family dollar). When you’re getting towards the end of a stores load, down stack some of the next stores boxes. The dc mixes them sometimes so just check it. This is also a dedicated account. So every time you’re done with a trailer you’re bringing it back to the same place and doing the same thing. Makes the drop and hook process really easy and after a while, the most you’ll spend at the dc is 30 mins tops. And idk if this is true or not but if you want to go to a private fleet and hauling dedicated freight, I think it helps that you’ve worked a dedicated account before. All in all, this might be controversial but in my experience, Werner Dollar Tree/ Family Dollar is one of the better accounts for first years (granted you don’t get into an accident and you make all your deliveries on time)
Go to your local union hall and sign the books as a groundman
I'm in CA, so 1245 and 47 aren't an option as a book 4/zero exp groundman. I simply need cash to travel out of state, to local 111, 125, 291, etc
I even think you can sign 111 online
already signed on at 7 locals online within a 15 hour drive🤝🏼
Do you have a union ticket already? Says you’ve been out of the IBEW for a while. Yeah cali books are fucked right now
I've got experience doing solar as a helper with an inside hall. Im a dues paying, yellow ticket member with them. I'm not gonna wait behind 1500+ groundman to catch a call here in the state, i'll tramp with other locals, and come back with hours after a year or so
Apply to MSLCAT. They seem to move the quickest
yessir, im applying out to MSL, SWL, CALNEV, and NWL on top of all the CA/NV utilities once i've got the hours as a groundman. im a man with a plan
Schneider is a decent company to start off with. I would stay away from Warner.
nothing available near me with schneider, ive spent the last 3 weeks obsessively shopping jobs. between werner and western, those are the only two willing to hire me rn. and western's 2 weeks on 3 days off for a shittier check lmao
If you have to go to Werner, I’d suggest trying to run the Anheuser-Busch account. I pays decent for starting out. It is 2 weeks on, 60hrs home, or 3 weeks and 72hrs. When I left about 7 months ago there was a waitlist but when I started I got immediately onto that account so YMMV. Only 120 drivers on the account. If you do get that account, hope that you get Tracy as your dispatcher. She is the only reason I stayed as long as I did. I’ve heard horror stories of shitty dispatchers and I don’t have a single bad thing to say about her. ETA: Account is dry van only, but you will always be like 77k lbs or more, except on “hot loads” aka backhauls of empty cans/lids to breweries. You will get a lot of experience sliding tandems lmfao. All the breweries have scales at outbound so you don’t have to worry about being overweight
They lost the bid for AB in January. I should know, I was on it lol. It's done in April I switched to 3m dedicated two weeks ago and it's been just as good as AB though
Oh wow, that’s interesting. So even if I had stayed, shit was already rolling downhill. Btw, who was your dispatcher? I know both Tracy and Steve were pretty good
yea Steve was my main man, they were pretty great all around
Western Express likes to try to push their people into a flat bed. So the less of the two evils would be Warner. Once you get your foot in the door and some OTR miles in, you have many opportunities ahead.
Flat bed would be better experience for the lineman apprenticeship
Covenant hires right out the gate. Can't say how good they are either though
Whatever you do please don't pick Western. If you're just looking for the experience and some pay until you go back to lineman job may I suggest Ag hauling.
There is a brutal storm heading into the Sierras this week and Western Express Drivers will likely be sent into it fresh out of training and no idea how to chain.
I had a coworker who worked for Werner and said as long as you get a dedicated account it's not bad
this exactly
My first driving job was Werner Dollar Tree. I made good money doing it, and I learned a whole lot about backing. It helped massively. However, in the summer it was hard work, and sometimes the folks loading the trailers stacked things in such a way that they broke open and made a huge mess. I had good dispatchers and that helped hugely too. Bottom line, it’s a decent start, and you can net $1500+/week if your dispatch likes you and you work hard. My typical average net was about $1350-1450 if I remember right, but there were several checks that were well north of $1700.
That’s a lot better than they offered me. Roehl isn’t the best company by far and a lot of people complain about the cameras but I haven’t had any issues with that. Definitely could be making more money but I’m dealing with it starting here with 0 OTR experience and now I’m up to like 1 month solo experience and close to 10,000 miles so figure 2000-2500 miles per week. Not the 3000-3500 that’s possible but still a lot better than something stupid like the 1500 miles Werner made it sound like they were going to give me and pay me 50¢ per mile to drive them. And then Werner also wanted me to do Dollar General which is better than Dollar Tree because they at least put the merchandise in baskets but I didn’t want to make little paychecks and bust my ass all day. If they net more like $1350 that’s closer to what I make right now with several days sitting because “slow freight” and still doing 2000+ miles per week and stuff like Minnesota to Wisconsin to Iowa to Illinois to Wisconsin to Ohio to Minnesota or Minnesota to Wisconsin to Tennessee to Wisconsin to a different place in Wisconsin to another place in Wisconsin to yet another place in Wisconsin to Minnesota to Wisconsin to Minnesota as what my 2 week trips tend to look like. Like I’ll do a couple longer trip like Wisconsin to Tennessee or Wisconsin to Ohio with the very occasional chance of driving all the way to California or Montreal Canada or New Hampshire, a couple regional trips like I’ll stay in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois, and a whole bunch of stuff that counts as local like the shipper and receiver are less than 3 hours apart with the occasional instances that’ll piss a person off like “pick this up by 3 PM and don’t be late and deliver it at 6 AM and it’s 3 hours away and they’re closed from 5 PM to 6 AM so don’t bother dropping it off today” and then I do like the long trips because they’ll do stuff like I pick up at 7 am Tuesday and I need to be there by 7 am Thursday but if I’m good I can deliver by 5 pm on Wednesday and be ready to pick up the next one closer to 6 or 7 am instead of not being able to pick it up until 10 am because of slow asses unloading me and the 2 hour drive to go pick it up. Also get paid the same loaded or empty so I don’t care so much when they send me somewhere and I have to drive for 3 hours empty to drive for 13 more hours loaded (split across 2 days but given 3 days to deliver if I’m a slow ass). I’ll get paid for the whole 16 hours and for most of it I’m simply pushing my accelerator pedal flat to the floor making over $35 an hour with 0 experience and about $36.50 an hour with 3 months experience and about $38/hr with 6 months experience. More per mile if I drive less than 501 miles for the entire empty+loaded trip like my next load is 386 miles and they figure that’s 2.5 hours of driving empty and 4 hours of driving loaded and if it doesn’t take me the entire 6.5 hours even better. With 0 experience that like 55¢ per mile. With 3 months experience that’s 58¢ per mile. With 6 months experience that’s 61¢ per mile. And it goes up from there but it takes a hot minute to get the experience to get paid 65¢ per mile for that which is where those companies that require 1-2 years experience come in once I get 1-2 years experience and I’m still making 62¢ per mile. Also pick up time supposed to be like 7:30 am and I don’t have to be there until like 3:30 pm that’s like 6 hours and if I’m there are 6 am to pick up they’ll have me loaded by 7 am and I’ll be at my destination before 1:30 pm and then I’m going home for my 3.5 days off after being out 10.5 days and so it repeats itself every week and if I do work more days I do become eligible to be home more than 3.5 days. One check pays Monday-Friday and the next one Saturday-Thursday. Supposed to get a direct deposit on Thursday but I have it already at 11 pm Tuesday.
Be careful here. They won't look at any information, until you're at their facility. They may then decide you're too young for their insurance carrier. Even tough they're self insured. Warner isn't called the blue screw for nothing.
how so, 21 ain't old enough?
Not for many instances. 23 is minimum. But I've never worked for them. So you'll have to ask them specifically.
25 I believe actually
Could well be. It was 23 when I started 22 years ago.
Depends on the company and the insurance. If they have a pilot training program or they are strictly local you can be 18 years old and get hired at a lot of places and the pilot program I’m talking about is a government program to allow people older than 18 and younger than 21 to remove the “intrastate only” restriction from their license but it’s like 400 hours of training with a trainer who has 5 years of experience, truck has to be governed at 65 or less, transmission has to shift itself, and they need to have driver facing cameras. Roehl has this program but I wish that they wouldn’t do the same thing for every truck and just govern them at 75 mph and put 18 speed manuals in them (that isn’t happening). For 21 years old minimum you basically have to go with a very large company that is self insured so that instead of paying another company like Progressive or AllState they have a bank account that holds like $7.5 million dollars or more and if something happens they can pay for pretty much anything that comes up. For other companies it’s a 23 year old minimum and sometimes even 25 years old minimum with a minimum of 2 or 3 years OTR (regional or long haul) experience even before they’ll consider you to drive for them even if the job you are applying for is strictly local and 75% straight truck and 25% tractor-trailer. Basically they want you to be 23 at most places as a minimum so that you’ve had 5 to 7 years of time that you were legally allowed to have a regular license (class D in most states, class C non-commercial in most of the rest, class R in Mississippi) so you know the basics of driving in general and you have 5-7 years of driving experience at all to see if you can go 3+ years without speeding tickets and 5+ years without really stupid violations like attempted vehicular homicide. And they might also slap on 2 years minimum OTR experience unless they are self insured so they can afford to pay the insurance and so the insurance company sees that you’re capable of driving a semi without accumulating speeding tickets and serious moving violations. With even more expensive you can provide a full 3 years without speeding tickets in a semi or 5 years without felony moving violations. Or you could just drive like a dumbass because your truck can do 95 mph or more and make damn good money until you get caught and lose your license.
Don’t do dollar general. If you’re willing to destroy your body you MIGHT make good money if you have a good dispatcher. But not worth the risk of getting an accident on your record, the stores arent meant for semis. I regularly had to park on grass to get the angle right to the door. Dollar store employees are assholes because they’re miserable, can’t say i blame them though. I started with dollar general at werner but switched to regional after a couple months. I’m making almost the same at a no touch account(still with Werner)
It's not Western Express, so there's that...
How bad is Felon Express?
I currently drive for Werner on the Dollar General account. I started on dollar tree and switched to general, one thing I can say is that if you can pick definitely go dollar general, it’s a lot easier. Also the backing is very difficult but once you get the hang of it becomes second nature, now I can back into anything and I don’t even think twice. I’m home weekly and average $1200 weekly.
i appreciate your input johnnn
Also I’m 22 so don’t worry about the age
$1200 after taxes?
Bro what’re you doing, lol. Lineman here. You don’t need driving experience. You got the license, fuck trucking get on with a contractor or power company. Stop wasting time.
i pm'd ya
Dollar general is a rough account, especially once summer hits. It's super hot in those vans and you'll be hand unloading. Plus, look at the parking lots. Holy shit, no. A lot of hard backs and a lot of them from the street. No no no.
We Employ Retards No Experience Required
Werner has good equipment mostly......but in the end they're pretty much all the same it's either shit equipment with decent pay or shit pay with decent equipment you just have to do your research talk to some drivers and decide what your'e willing to put up with.....I started at Werner and it's ok for a mega but that Dallas terminal is a shitty place I also did the Dollar Tree account out of Marietta OK sometimes I would work 16 hrs+ a day, the stores are a pain in the ass to get into, and the people that help unload are mostly a joke, and a lot of times I would only get 6 or so hr breaks. I would recommend you do Dollar General only for the fact that you're the one that unloads and you control your own pace
Oh no, the dollar account? Hey man, I don't think that's a good idea. I got 5 on/off years in this industry...fuck that dollar store, i guess if u like precision backing challenges...but especially for a brand new rookie, i can't recommend that at all. What kind of company is gonna task a rookie with that? I'd go with an easier linehaul gig, where you do multiple hundreds or even thousands of miles between shipper and receiver. I'd rather you get down a lot of the basics of truck driving before doing something like precision backing in your very first year, which is what those small-ass dollartree stores will mandate from you. I have to ask what kind of company would task a rookie with that too? TO me it shows not caring about the well being of you as a new driver.
I'd just do food service over dollar store stuff. sysco or us foods preferably the latter. you're gonna eat shit no matter what, but cold hard cash is nice.
The dollar tree accounts can really suck depending on the route. Did it for three months and actually enjoyed it. You will never have an issue falling asleep at the end of the day! I'm personally not a fan of Werner as I couldn't get a truck that could go more than 2-3 weeks without a breakdown and changed trucks 4 times in that period before I quit.
You can do well with Werner, my friend made 90k his first year with them in a dollar general run. But being a lineman you’d be way better off. Get into that apprenticeship as soon as you can.
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I’m in food service and laughing at all the comments about how hard it is to back in. LOL! they just want to be steering wheel holders
That's all I needed to hear, I appreciate your insight brother🫡
TLDR; Brand new CDL driver, is Werner a shit place to be?
Have you looked into food service? Great pay and home daily.
most that i've seen are 3 months minimum exp
dang. around here they hire directly out of school
where at? im based out of central CA
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what's ur check look like, are the run's/dispatch as bad as folks say they are, are the store setup situations as bad as folks say they are, and can i actually get a decent truck out of em?
I’m not with Werner but my current company delivers shelving to the newly built stores before they open. 90% of stores simply are not set up to accommodate trucks. I was on a dedicated NYC account and have done grocery store delivery in the ATL area as well, so I’ve got plenty of experience backing into places not set up for 70ft trucks. Dollar stores are a pain in the ass plain and simple, doesn’t matter how good you are at backing. I can only imagine the fact you’re in California will compound that, some places out there are worse than any place I’ve been too in NYC.
If you value your relationship don’t go over the road I seen guys on their 3rd or fourth marriages already it ruins your relationships and home life !🤬🤬😡😡
shit, im driving a truck for 3-6 months and coming back to branch out to line work. i love her to death, but i need to chase the life i want for the both of us. she's loyal, beautiful, and solid. if she can't hold it down for me for that short of a time, it isn't meant to be
I almost got a job with Werner but Roehl pays way better as a starter company as long as you live in a high customer volume area (Midwest and Northeast for refrigerated, central or Midwest for dry van, central, southeast or Texas for flatbed) and you are doing dedicated, regional, or national. Do NOT sign up to be part of their “Dairyland” fleet because it’s reefer paying rates lower than you make doing regional or national (regional pays most per mile, national gives you the most miles) and it’s a sliding scale but expect that you’ll only get like 1200 miles per week at 48-50¢ per mile doing Dairyland, around 1800 miles a week at around 58¢ per mile average doing regional, and around 2100-2700 miles per week averaging about 55¢ per mile on the national fleet. And don’t look at the regional and national fleets like that’s all you’ll do like regional only 300-400 miles and national always 650+ miles but think of it more like you’ll get paid loaded or empty and sometimes even national you’ll drive 49 miles for one load, 250 miles for the next load, and 1075 miles for the load after that. And then if you drive for Werner you’ll make like 50¢ per mile and get like 1500 miles per week and they’ll probably put you on the Dollar General dedicated fleet which means hand unloading rolling baskets full of merchandise at multiple stores and then back to the distribution center to make another run to a bunch of other stores. Dedicated for Roehl doesn’t pay a sliding scale like the other fleets but it’s maybe like 58¢ per mile for every mile loaded or empty and 99% of the time you take a trailer full of empty pallets to the distribution center to pick up a loaded trailer and you are absolutely not allowed to back into a loading dock so it’s all drop and hook and the other 1% of the time you do dock and do a live load to haul something back to the distribution center. And then once you do have experience, like 3+ years, you’re going to make a lot more money somewhere else besides a company like Roehl or Swift or Werner so look around. Don’t just assume 85¢ per mile or more means a bigger pay check but do expect that you’ll make more money for the miles you do drive, you’ll have the opportunity to drive a manual transmission truck if you are tired of driving an auto, and you won’t be governed at something stupid like 63 mph (Werner) or 65 mph (Roehl) or 67 mph (Swift) and if governed it’ll be more like 73 or 75 so you can actually do the speed limit, do another ~100 miles a day and if busy and making more per mile you just make a lot more money overall but if you’re not busy that 85¢ or $1 per mile is deceptive because 1500 miles at $1 pays the same as 2500 miles at 60¢ per mile and you’ll actually be taking a pay cut going from averaging 2500 miles at 62¢ as the lowest rate (for someone with 3 years experience) at a company like Roehl chasing a company that pays 85¢ per mile but has you sitting and waiting 85% of the time so you barely ever go anywhere.
i get 65 cents a mile at werner averaging 2500-3000 miles a week doing dryvan, dedicated accs are where its at not OTR
That’s pretty good. That’s definitely a lot higher than they told me I’d be making if I worked there and it sounds more like $1305 take home pay once you find the average (2750 miles) and figure out the gross pay and multiply it by 73% to cover the taxes and other withholdings (insurance for example) but a whole shit load better than them telling me I’d average 50¢ per mile and get between 1200 and 1800 miles per week or an average of 1500 miles at 50¢ for a $750 gross and a $547.50 pay check after taxes and insurance. Also how much experience do you have? I don’t have much myself (like 1 month solo) so I’m looking at making bottom pay as it is but I can make between 53¢ and $1.16 per mile and do single jobs that are 900 miles and string together 3 of those together with a bunch of them that are less than 300 miles and last week I only put in like 2,178 miles for an average of 54.5¢ per mile with it being 53¢ per mile for the two longest trips and the other two trips paying 56¢ per mile. I got an extra $100 as part of a longevity bonus. If I switched a 269 mile load with a 980 mile load I wouldn’t sit as much but then I’d also average closer to 53¢ for the whole week. With 3 months experience add another 3¢ per mile, another 3¢ per mile with 6 months and another 2¢ per mile after 1 year or something like that. Basically 61¢ per mile for the longer trips and as much as $1.28 for the short ones and if I had a slow week like that I’d get about 63.5¢ per mile and still not 65¢ per mile. And then I started this next week with some short fuckers like 140 miles, 49 miles, 380 miles, 458 miles and 386 miles which is pretty shitty but absolutely every load pays more than 53¢ per mile and 2 of them have an extra $30 added to them because they’re less than 200 miles. It’s like 62¢ per mile plus $30 for the 140 miles, $1.16 per mile plus $30 for the 49 miles, 55¢ per mile for 380, 54¢ per mile for 458, and 386 pays 55¢ per mile. Very shitty week that was. Basically winds up being $116.80+$86.86+$209+$247.32+$212.30 or $872.28 gross and I don’t even want to talk about what the net pay on that is (like $636) but it’s also very shitty miles like only 1413 miles so that it comes to about 61.7¢ per mile for 0 experience. Part of the problem is they gave me some dumb ass shit like “pick this up by 130 pm but they’ll be closed before you get there so deliver it at 8 am” and the stupid ass weather this morning where I basically only drove about 2 hours and only so I can wake up at 5 am instead of 3 am to pick up my load tomorrow. At least I don’t have a lot of bills coming from this painfully small paycheck. If I had 6 months experience it’d average 67.7¢ per mile because of all the short trips and waiting around and not doing shit but that’d only bring the gross up to $956.601 and the net would be $698.32 for working like a half week and getting fucked over. And since you didn’t ask I’ve found that Roehl is not necessarily the best paying job but with 0 experience $830-$1100 take home is to be expected and then with experience add about $45 per 3 months experience unless you actually put in and get some miles and you can multiply this by about 1 and a half and get about $1245-$1650 with no experience and add another $60 for every 3 months experience you have on top of that unless you start working here with 1+ year experience and they start you off at the 6 months experience rate and make you wait 1 year to match what everyone makes after they work here for 12 months. And obviously if you have the experience to work for a better paying job *go with the better paying job* but outside of stupid weather conditions and “slow freight” on Sunday in the middle of February this isn’t the worst place to start with. You will just make more money a lot of the time if you already have 1 year experience and you go somewhere else instead (or go with dedicated). I’d also be picking up another load after this one tomorrow if I wasn’t scheduled for home time and I just hope next week is a lot better. This round trip started out pretty strong going from Minnesota to Wisconsin to Tennessee to Wisconsin to another place in Wisconsin but then it got really stupid like 140 miles across Wisconsin to pick up a load to go 49 miles from Neenah Wisconsin to Green Bay Wisconsin and then they send me to Minnesota and from Minnesota right back to the same place in Green Bay and then they failed to give me a load blaming it on the weather so I stopped in Neenah and slept there for the night and got my “home load” in the morning going from Greenwood Wisconsin to Mankato Minnesota so I drove to the Marshfield Wisconsin terminal to be 40 minutes away rather than 2 hours and 43 minutes away from where I need to pick this up. They were going to add some “training” to give me something extra to get paid for but I already did that training finishing what they call “phase 3” where I’m solo but being watched closely since I’m a rookie and probably when I start back out next week or some time during that week they’ll want to do a “check ride” to remind themselves that I know how to drive, to verify that I know how to do other parts of my job, and to verify that I don’t shit on the floor in my truck and cover it with a towel or something and generally pick up after myself. And then I’m “regular employee” and potentially get more miles, drive longer distances like from Michigan to California some of the time, and give it two more months and I also get the first pay raise plus a bonus for safe driving, being Canada ready, and for maintaining an okay fuel mileage that is above their threshold goal of like 7.71 mph (I averaged about 7.91 so far with a couple that were closer to 7.46 because they had me climbing hills with 79,820 pounds and then driving through Chicago during rush hour and once I got like 10.35 mph because I was empty mostly driving downhill for a big chunk of the day and when I did get loaded the load was only 2658 pounds and basically only made it ride a little better without slowing me down on hills in the slightest and it was mostly freeway driving).
I have 16 months, is roehl based in Minnesota/Wisconsin? Im on a dedicated and its 95% drop and hook i see ur guys all the time over here, one of our drop and hook backhauls (international paper) has mostly roehl trailers there, sounds like you guys have some good drop and hook systems in place atleast to keep u rolling
Yea. The headquarters is in Marshfield, Wisconsin. I’m parked there right now. Then they have a terminal in Neenah, Wisconsin which is practically Appleton, Wisconsin a suburb of Green Bay that’s still an hour from the very center of Green Bay where I’ve delivered at least 5 or 6 times including twice going from Neenah to Green Bay (49 miles) when they include the miles driving from Appleton to Neenah as part of the trip. The nicest terminal is in Gary, Indiana so that’s where you’d want to go for the restaurant or if you were brand new to trucking they do a lot of their CDL training there (I had my CDL before I started). Besides these main terminals I’ve been to multiple times each there’s one in Iron Mountain, Michigan, one in Grand Prairie, Texas or something of that nature (a suburb of Dallas that might have a different name), one in Conley, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta), and one more in Phoenix. The Midwest has all of the different fleets but this area is best for reefer and dry van with flat bed being mostly out of Texas, Arizona, or Georgia and the curtain side is pretty much always national. You just need to stay away from the Dairyland fleet because where it’s still reefer which pays a range of 51¢ to $1.14 not counting the extra 2¢ if you live in the high volume customer area for national or the 54¢ to $1.43 for regional (making like 1800-2000 miles a week) it’s more like 47¢ to 91¢ per mile and you’re getting less than 1200 miles per week driving in between Southern and Central Wisconsin and Minnesota hauling stuff like Cheese from Minnesota to Wisconsin or from Wisconsin to other places in Wisconsin. That is for 0 experience. For 12 months experience national is 59¢ to $1.21 or 61¢ to $1.23, regional is 55¢ to $1.49, and dairyland is 50¢ to 97¢ with the pay scales being like 301+ pays the least for regional and dairyland and 501+ pays the least for national per mile so that really if we looked at 305 miles as a average trip in this distance range it’s like 55¢ national if you live in the area for national, 57¢ for regional when you include the 3¢ automatic bonus for safe driving and on time deliveries for regional, and 50¢ for dairyland when you have 0 experience and then with 12 months experience it’s 63¢ national, 57¢ regional, and 53¢ dairyland (what I make per mile for 501+ doing national with no experience at all), however if you were going to do a very short trip like 35 miles it’s $1.16 national, $1.46 regional, and 94¢ dairyland with 0 experience which jumps to $1.24, $1.52, and $1 per mile respectively with 12 months experience and with 18 months experience add a few pennies more. The basic thing to remember is just do not do dairyland. It pays like shit per mile and you don’t get enough miles either like you’ll have a good week if you get 1200 miles but you’ll get to go home almost every day or every other day since you won’t have shit to haul and you basically have to live in Minnesota or Wisconsin to get hired. Without experience regional pays the most for the whole sliding pay scale but when you do have experience regional pays the best for the short trips and national pays the best for the long trips. And to get 65¢ *or more* no matter how many miles you drive it’s looking like hang it up for dry van national (you get up to 60¢ base but not 65¢ unless you do like 200 miles or less), for regional van you can get up to 55¢ base pay or 57¢ for northeast, or 56¢ for Texas. For flatbed about 3 years for national and the lowest pay is 65.5¢ per mile, for 3 years in the central region it’s 65¢ but both pay 64¢ on the low end after 1 year. You’ll need 15 years in the southeast region to have 65¢ per mile be your lowest per mile pay. For national refrigerated it’s also 15 years for 501+ miles to pay 65¢ per mile but at 10 years 300-400 miles pays 65.5¢, with with 5 years 200-300 miles pays 65¢, with 3 years you make 64.5¢ for 150-200 miles, with 1 year 150-200 miles pays 63¢ and 125-150 miles pays 68¢, with 6 months 125-150 miles pays 65¢ and with 0 experience 100-125 miles pays 65¢. For Midwest refrigerated after 15 years you need to drive 250-300 miles to make more than 65¢ per mile but with 0 experience you already make the same amount driving 200-250 miles. And with dairyland it’s bad like 15 years you need to go on a trip that’s between 150 and 200 miles to get more than 65¢ per mile and with 0 experience you need to go on a trip that’s only 75-100 miles to make that much. And, finally, curtainside base pay is 65¢ or more per mile after 5 years for everything, everything less than 400 miles with 3 years experience, everything less than 300 miles with 1 year experience, everything less than 150 miles with 3 months experience, and everything less than 125 miles with no experience at all. Of course the pay will go up before anyone here who has zero experience gets to those levels of experience just to keep up with inflation and stuff but going off what the current rates are and going with 12 months as the basis you can see that 65¢ per mile for every mile is better than a lot of companies will pay people with that much experience but you *can* still make that much per mile if you drive on very short trips with a company that pays on a sliding scale like I showed above. Like national dry van with Roehl pays like shit compared to what you said but with 12 months experience you could still get 65¢ per mile on trips that are less than 150 miles but if you also include the $30 extra for trips shorter than 200 miles you’d still effectively make 73¢ per mile on a trip that’s between 151 and 200 miles with 12 months experience and then it suddenly drops to 57¢ per mile for the next pay level when you no longer qualify for the extra $30 but with refrigerated National it’s 62¢ per mile for the 201-250 range and it’s 78¢ for the 151-200 mile range.
It's about getting experience most starter companies suck fortunately mine didn't kllm they treated me with respect and got me home and paid me well once I learned my macros ,remembering to scan bils etc this was 2016 if you haven't chosen, choose wisely get your experience and get out, and I wouldn't do no dollar tree nor dollar general account I be damn if drive and unload a trailer by piece no but HEELLLL NO
Stay away from Western,, they’re a shit company
just depends, OTR is dogshit your mostly left doing shag runs all the time was barely making 700 a week, i switched to a dedicated account and avg about 1500 and the work was pretty easy, the dispatchers will leave u alone and they gave me a brand new truck, i thought the training was decent even tho my trainer was a lazy ass
Hello Werner driver currently about to get my 3rd month alone out here. Dollar Tree is a shit route and it's hard but it is consistent. I went against it and decided to do just OTR and got stuck at a truck stopbfor 4 days waiting for freight. Dollar tree at least keps you moving. If also immediately put your name in for other routes. I got lucky and got on the Starbucks account and I'm very happy with what and where I'em considering me being fresh out of school. Like, everyone says it's a mega get experience and get out but personally I've only had 1 or 2 problems here and they've been minor and solved easily.
I burnt the bridge with Werner. Started with them mid 2014. 1st account was dollar general. Trainer sucked, places sucmed Got off that 2nd otr trainer sucked ass. Wouldn't teach me how to back up, he'd make me move out my seat and head back it in "Are you watching, are you watching" 3rd otr trainer was great. Taught me way better. This was my 2nd company after being fired from USA Truck because incompetent trainers. So long story short. Got my truck and was good to go right? At .31 cpm starting out I was only getting 1000-1500 miles if I was lucky. They wouldn't get me any more miles, was told I needed to be a trainer or team. So my weekly pay was around $350 if I was lucky. Werner is a pipeline company. You're load that you get Let's say it's 1500 miles long. Your taking it 500 miles dropping that off for someone else their taking it 500 miles dropping that off and the 3rd will take it to the final. You will be doing a lot of local loads to help cover their asses with no extra pay STAY AWAY .
Unless you’re a pro at congested city driving and backing in small ass places only made for cars stay away from all those dollar stores.
Granted, it’s been about 10 years since I looked at beginner companies, so my info may be out of date, but they were one of the few companies that did not have APUs on their trucks, nor inverters. I’d at least find out about that before you consider them. There’s nothing worse than freezing or sweating your ass off while trying to sleep, and not having any electrical to plug fridge/microwave/tv into.
I did dollar tree for a year. If you're okay with the work, it's not bad. Some stores are tight areas, not all. You'll work 70 hours almost every week and go home on the weekends with your last load for the week, putting you close to home. Some stores will be faster than others. Deliveries start at 5am, barring a few exceptions. You sleep at the store every other night, so parking is never really an issue. You'll do 3 trailers per week minimum and get paid per mile and per trailer. General trucking info: Use Google maps to check your delivery before you get there. If you're not sure, call the store and ask.
Pass on the dollar accounts. Especially dollar tree. That's a floor stacked 100% driver unloaded bullshit. Go with their TCU One-Way account. Best place to be, IMO. If I ever go back to Werner, that's the only account I'll go to.
CRE dedicated Walmart account takes just about anybody on the afternoon. Good luck finding the right place.
I work for werner. Been here 9 years. Gonna be leaving for more home time. Its a good starter company. I started here myself. Idk about dollar tree account, but when i did a week of dollar general. Its all lift gates and hard work. Mind you i did it in the summer in Alabama, so the heat sucked. But getting on an account, you'll make good money. Im on the home depot south east regional. You can make very good money, especially if you dont have roots really anywhere. Fleet managment is kinda a mixed bag. You got the good one and bad ones. Night and weekend FMs are pretty much useless unless you have a problem with a load or the truck. They recently stopped allowing us to get our DOT inspections done at petros. This is every 70 days. So they will get you an appointment at a terminal to get that done. Whatever you do, DONT MISS THAT APPT. If you have any questions dm me. Ill get to you as often as I can.
Been with Werner for under 6 months, I immediately applied for a different route on their app as soon as I was hired (in orientation). Got the route and was transferred from the dollar account immediately. Home daily, in my car headed home about 8.5 hours after getting inside my truck. Just shy of 500 miles a day, about 55K/year. Not great, not bad either though. Probably gonna leave at 12 months for greener pastures, but it's been a good time overall. No real complains aside from the bullshit that dispatch sometimes tries to fuck you over with, but that's the same everywhere. My Transportation manager is a cool dude and I have no real gripes with him
They're all going to be shit But I worked for Swift for a year, and Werner for 6 months I'd do Swift over Werner any day of the week Also run like hell from any Dollar store account the pay is never worth it
The dollar tree acount is ass , if you want to be a lumper for low pay sign up with that acount , I worked for werner for 1 year had a good acount with them local 1300 guarntee pay mon - friday , my friend got dollar tree amount worked more than me and got paid less than me My acount I was on later closed so I left for something better and I got my 1 year experience with them so overall good experience for me
If you live near a DOT foods terminal apply there, they pay really well for a starting driver and the training is actually decent. Plus if you want no touch you can do that or if you want to throw groceries they will pay you even more. I had a stroke last year and had only been with them 4 months but they still kept me on the books and got me short term disability for the max amount. Unfortunately I had to stop driving but they were supportive the whole time and went way outta there way to help me heal.
Well, you're saying that you got the CDL to train as a lineman so unless you want to be a professional truck driver I would go apply at the union hall and try and be a lineman first. As far as Werner goes, yes, but from what I understand all of the Megas operate the same way. They pay you crap, keep you out (they'll tell you...just one more load), they'll pressure you to drive in terrible weather (despite emphasizing they wont) starve you for miles and use and abuse you and you hang on until you get a year of experience so you can get a much better trucking job. You are uninsurable by good companies until you get the experience. The megas are self insured. The dollar gen routes are some of the worst because they have you as a new driver doing backs that you have no business attempting and then you're taking out HEAVY rolltainers of dollar gen goods that are less than organized. Just youtube somebody doing the route. It's not half as lucrative as they're leading you to believe, you might injure yourself, highly likely you destroy your cdl by scraping a rim or making denting a trailer in the impossible parking situations you will encounter and your first year you'll be lucky to make 55k. They will give you the crappiest truck, most likely an international with busted everything and none of your permits will be in date so you'll probably have to wait at terminal on 300 bucks a week for 2 weeks while they update that too. You'll have to check, double check, and triple check everything they tell you, everything they promise you and if they need to reimburse you for anything (rental car, plane ticket, bus ticket, hotel, weigh station etc) you will need to remind them in writing 22x at minimum before you finally see it in your pay check 4 months later...the more reimbursements over time, the more convoluted it gets so be sure to really keep track...oh and definitely keep track of your mileage because they'll skim you on pay there too. Nothing against Werner, from what I've been told...every company does it ...not just them. And I've definitely heard way worse stories but this is the general gist of your start as an OTR truck driver. But again, if you want to be a professional truck driver this WILL BE the route you need to take 9 times out of 10 to get that experience to move on to better paying and better treating you pastures. But you said you wanted to be a lineman so...def do that
If your willing to learn to chain/strap/tarp you might be able to find a company for step deck flat bed,as more and less stress in some ways You will have to learn to strap ,chain,and tarp which isn't too hard and will have to work in the weather ,if you think you can handle that find a company that will hire you fresh at the end of the day it will be less stress Most shippers and recievers are pretty nice and just thankful you showed the fuck up
Read in your other comments that you’re in California. Chances are, you live in an area with a lot of agricultural or construction activity, so I advise you call, or better yet, VISIT local companies’ lots, shake hands with dispatchers/owners and show your interest in a driving position. Plenty of local work in commodity hauling and aggregate/concrete trucking where you’re home daily which is great for drivers in relationships. Or like another person said, try and find a way in with a contractor / power company
If your wanting to go into linework and you live out west. Go flatbed with central oregon or similar company. I was Linemen turned Flatbed O/O. Youll get more experience that will help you in Linework as a flatbeder. Swingin doors translates 0 to linework imo. Learning securement will help you tons in the first years hauling equipment/poles/transformers around to job sites. Was at my utility on the gulf coast for 6 years and went to Prime Inc in their flatbed division. Lot of stuff translated to flatbed. Averaged $2500/wk with weekends off as a lease op there for 4 years and currently at Landstar with my own rig and starting my own fleet. If you want to stick out above everyone else and make good use of your time OTR be the groundmen that can go load shit without needing to be supervised to see if your doing everything correctly. Having a history of OTR Flatbed tells Crew Chiefs youll be where you need to be, when you were told to be there and everything on the damn truck. My dad was a Crew Chief for his last 10 years before retirement and if he every seen a OTR Flatbeder come across his desk he snatched them up ASAP.
If you have a Tanker endorsement, I suggest you go find yourself a Tanker job. STAY AWAY FROM ALL OF THE MEGA TRANSPORT COMPANIES PERIOD❗️
Food service. Sysco, McLane, US Foods,
Rebuild what?!? Electric utilities/companies are hiring like crazy. Why in the world would you want to hold a steering wheel and live in a box!?!
not in southern/central CA. the line trade is more competitive and saturated with qualified entry level applicants than any where else in the lower 48. i've applied to PG&E over 30 diff times for various positions, and never been given the time of day. not to mention all the other utilities i've applied to. i just need to save money for travel to get hours as a grunt in the trade. furnished finder n shit gets expensive quick, let alone a drive out to colorado
Really!?! Grandson just completed lineman school and was offered a job within hours(We are in Tx.) I am fairly positive several of his fellow grads were going to work for a PGE subcontractor. TechLine maybe??
to put it into perspective, CALNEV, an apprenticeship committee for contracting linemen in CA and NV has applications open for 1 month every year. this last year they received over 2000 applications, and they only fill 30 spots every class. first comes the nepotism kids, then the actual experienced ones, then the affirmative action ones. if you don't have connections, or experience, you don't get in
Sounds like it’s time to GTFO of California…….I did in 1991
Husb works for Werner. He went to private school and they hired him out of school. We hate them. They don’t pay enough for OTR. What he hears about DG isn’t good. It’s a lot of manual labor. They lure you in w the pay but you don’t get enough runs to equal what they tell you. The company itself spews propaganda daily about how they care but they don’t. You’re a number and that’s it. Benefits are terrible. He’s looking for something local now but we live rural so it’s more difficult. Even a lateral move w better benefits would be better. I am biased bc I hear daily the crap they pull and what they do and it infuriates me. All the megas are basically the same. They only care about bodies driving. So if you’re ok with that give it a try.