Profile For Andy M.

Hello all,

I hope you are having a safe day.

Looking at signing on with Hogan doing dedicated Big Lots. Covers Indiana, Michigan and Illinois. Was wondering if anyone has any experience with Hogan, good or bad? I am currently working for a company I have been with for 21+ years, but just the last 4 as a driver so I have the luxury of being picky. Any insight is appreciated.

I am a local drive and have been for all my driving career, a little over 2 years, and with the same company for nearly 20 years. We are a building material wholesale distributor. We drive a route each day monday thru friday and are off weekends and home daily. We have had a few otr drivers come drive for us,but they never last, at least not at my company. Reason being is that the pay is way less than what they made otr. Drivers would tell me they cleared $800-1000 per week otr, and liked the idea of being home daily and off weekends, but can't survive on $400-500 per week at a local job. And I completely understand that. The paycheck shock is something to be ready for if you make that switch. The second reason is that when we make a delivery, there is some physical labor involved. It's not just open back doors and bump a dock. We run curtain side 48' trailers that need to be opened and closed at each stop, which on a slow day may be 5-6 stops or during the busy time of year can be 15-20 stops. Now on a calm warm day, opening curtains isn't so bad, but on a windy day the curtains act like a sail and when its cold out, the rollers freeze. Many of our deliveries are made to places without docks and some, not all, but some are hand unload only. A small box of screws or a carton of flooring is not a big deal. But when you have to hand unload 20 squares of vinyl siding by hand, that can be grueling. I'm not in my 20ies anymore, and it can take a toll. Another issue is that we check off all material being delivered to a customer which can take some time. And when a new driver tries to check off material they have no idea what it is, well, that is another story all its own.

I am looking at going to an otr job personally. I would like to see more of the country and being out for 4-6 days and home maybe weekends is ok with me although my wife is not crazy about it. You just don't know unless you try, and life is too short not to take a chance. I hate the idea of leaving a company after 20 years, but the fact that I am topped out in pay ($21/hr), and if things are slow and they don't have enough work we are given the day off and can use vacation time or take it without pay, or can work the warehouse or in my case the office, but that gets old fast. I did not get my CDL to go from one desk job to another. I have come to the conclusion that the true reason I have stayed is the 5 weeks of vacation time. That seems to be the only thing keeping me here at least for now.

From other responses on this thread, it sounds like there are some good opportunities out there for local, you just have to look for them. I fully understand that no job is perfect, but each job is what you make out of it. Just something to think about...

+1 on stopping to get out and walk around if possible. Otherwise stopping and doing some jumping jacks or something to get the blood flowing is a big help. But of course a good sleep is what really recharges you.

Thank you for posting this. Although I will not be a help to answer, I would like to add to it. In previous threads some of the terminology used may be obvious to some but not to me or others, so if its ok this might be a good thread to add those terms to.

Someone said about a MAC22 or MAC34. Huh? what's is that.

Are employee owned? (ESOP). I did see that TMC is but am wondering if any others are.