Questions About Work Experience.

Howdy there. First off I want to thank the site and everyone on it for all the information so far. If this site had not existed, gathering any kind of information would be a nightmare... at least good information that I could use. I been a lurker for roughly a year and half. Started looking into OTR for a while but due to the age requirement and work experience, I decided to hold off pursuing it till later on.

Fast forward to the present and I have every requirement to get my self into a company sponsored CDL A training program.... Well everything but a decent 3 years of work... I have been improving this as the time goes on but, I only got 2 years of verifiable work. I spent a year working at a road course and have no way to verify it. Is the three year work experience a hard barrier getting into the trucking industry or can it be somewhat circumvented by having a ready CDL permit and/or going to a private CDL school, or should I just suck it up for another year at my current job.

Another question... I noticed some people who tend to be out for sometime will take a reset and treat that as a day off. But, then I'l see someone that will do anything within there power to not take a reset. I understand different people have different goals. But, from a company stand point are rests something frowned on and should be avoided?

Hi, James. Welcome to the forum. You have concerns about your work at a road course. Were you paid cash for that year? If you can contact the course operators, all you should need is a note from them describing your work, and, of course, that you were an excellent employee! :)

The Recap (no reset) and Reset methods are probably pretty much the same. They are both set in the regulations, so there's no preference by companies. I've done both methods at Swift, never heard a peep about one or the other.

Maybe some drivers want to be the macho type and drive "forever", which is really an average 8-9 hours a day. Others like to take some time off, maybe to visit a theme park or get some fishing in.

Currently I drive an account that has me on the road M-F, and I take a 34 hour break at home every weekend. So, in a way, I'm "forced" to do that.

It's your bologna, slice it how you like it.

Welcome aboard James!

In this job you'll manage your time the way you see fit to meet your own desires. Of course the way you manage it must include getting your loads delivered in a timely way. I may prefer to drive all night so I can arrive at my destination first thing in the morning for delivery - Errol may prefer to get to his destination in the night and get his ten hour break in before his delivery appointment.

A good dispatcher gets to know how his various drivers operate and will be able to keep them busy based on his knowledge of their past performance.

A top performing driver will not experience any of the micro-management you hear the whiners complain about in some places.

I take resets when it is convenient, or run on recaps when I need to just to "git er done."