Did I Post In Wrong Forum?

I put some startup questions in post last night and now see that I did it in the CDL training diaries. Even though I do need to go through all that I would consider many of the questions more general about the industries and the companies so it should have been on this forum. Can or should that be moved or copied to this forum, I don't know how that works.

Here is Malcolm's post from the CDL section:

Like many newbies on this site, I have many hours looking on this site, youtube and other trucker forums, the safer web site. But to me it boils down to trying to figure out if the management runs a good operation and is fair to the employees.

I really got excited thinking about driving and was worried that at 61 I was too old, but this site convinced me it's not a problem if you are relatively healthy. This is certainly not a planned career change, but one brought about by this COVID mess. I am in the process of closing down a 70 year old business my parents started, and I've been leading for almost 35 years. I had planned on doing that for a long time yet.

Now to the trucking stuff. I did so many 180’s in my thought process as to whether it was smarter to do private school vs company paid. what to pull, or going with a big medium, or small company.

Companies I always seemed to be pulled back to Millis. So as of right now Millis is at the top of the list.

A couple of these below would require private school but I agree with others on this site that it seems smart to do the company training.

Next tier on my list, HO Wolding, Prime and Roehl - I do like prime a lot in that you have choices of which things to pull and leasing is pretty easy etc. But I don’t like the Team driving during training.

Third tier maybe WEL Companies, Veriha, or Nussbaum. The only reason I didn't look harder into Nussbaum is they seem to kind of hide the fact that if you have a cdl with no experience they will train you.

A couple others that were strictly flatbed, but I felt that I would be stuck if there was no other options.

What Division -- Dry Van -- Reefer - Even though I have heard people talk about not even noticing the refrigeration unit making noise all night I think that it would be quite annoying, maybe one could get used to it pretty easily -- Flatbed – I think I would like the challenge, and regularly lift and throw heavier things around but mixing that with cold, snow and rain does not necessarily sound that great sometimes.

Also in flatbeds how slow can it get at certain times of the year, I have read that the winter can slow down. But how cyclical is it?

Solo vs Team – I have no desire to do Team Driving, not even during training. Especially for training makes no sense to me, how does it help make me a better driver if the trainer is sleeping in the back, or worse yet being paired with another student. I am used to figuring things out on the fly but this makes about as much sense as solo driving after a week! I seems that pairing 2 students together is going to help the student that struggles more and not help the one that picks things up easier. But this is rant for someone that is only looking form the outside-in. Plus the other thing about team driving is that my whole life I could never sleep at all in a moving vehicle be it cars or airplanes.

Company vs Owner Operator/Lease – my thought is now I am only considering Company driver. If things go well and I think I want to go the next step I can consider it then. To me it seems like the Lease or O/O would only just be if I wanted more flexibility with running my own pace and goofing off more, but I also know that there are lots of expenses with being on your own.

Free Time If a driver was established a bit, and the company knows they can count on them, what are the chances of being more flexible with scheduling? By this I mean if say I got a load to somewhere right next to the Smokey Mountains in October could I ask to hold off on a return trip out of there for 2 or 3 days and enjoy some of the sites that are not truck routes, or is that only going to be were you work for a smaller company?

Millis Driver Specific Questions - Due to the business stuff I have to wrap up I have no idea how long that will take. I want to get started with school right after that, typically if accepted how long before you can get into the school? - Is Millis 100% dry vans? Like I said above it would be great to be able to get a taste of flatbed - Are things still pretty stable after the Heartland buyout - I would enjoy a quick tour of the headquarters and possibly a quick intro with some of the people, do you think that is something done much in these social distancing times. I was also assuming there would be drivers around I can chat with a bit about the company, you know, get the real story. I am a little more than 2 hours east of there so just a quick trip. - Do you think there is any chance they would expand the area served to the western states, or since Heartland seems to go there already is that not likely? Or is it just kind of a sales thing, if you can find the customers somewhere on a regular basis they would do it.

I have just played with the first few chapters of the CDL Training Guide, it seems very good, about the only questions I got wrong is when I read the question too fast and skipped an important word in the question, otherwise it seems pretty easy so far.

I really appreciate this website, it is packed with information. Plus the decorum on the site is far better than any of the other ones I have come across. I don’t like all the negativity people show on some forums. My thought is that the majority of time they bring all their problems upon themselves. If there is one problem with it is that there is too much information!! But that is the best problem to have.

Typically you'll receive more answers posting to this portion of the forum as more people read this section. Due to the holiday it's pretty quiet around here today but give it a couple hours or until tomorrow and you'll start getting some advice thrown your way. I do not have first hand experience with most of what you're asking about but I can relay the information others have posted in the past a little later. We've had a few drivers work for Millis that will be able to answer specific questions you may have. However, most companies do not offer tours of the facility until orientation because really there's no need to. The likelihood is much smaller given Covid. The perks some terminals have such as free laundry, spas, gyms, etc. Really don't affect your day to day dealings at the company. This industry is far different than almost any other career/job. Nearly everything is done over the phone or email. Only when it comes to local jobs is a face to face meeting or even seeing inside the facility common.

Hey Malcom you should take a look at these Millis diaries done by Noob Driver and Pete E Pothole to give you an idea of what to expect. As far as I know both drivers are still there nearly 2 years later but unfortunately they don't stop by too often. I'd definitely go through a Paid CDL Training Programs as you embark on this new journey.

Every division has what every driver feels are pros and cons. Reefer you're likely to get coast to coast runs more frequently. In general you will also be kept busy in the worst of times. People always need to eat. For example in the winter months you may be pulling more produce loads out of California and taking out to the east coast where it's too cold to grow. The downside is you're more frequently having appointments to grocery distribution centers in the middle of the night. You also may periodically get stuck for excessive wait times at meat plants (a post a couple days ago mentioned 15 hours!).

Dry van you'll likely see more drop and hooks which minimizes any delay time sitting in a dock. A downside to that is many drivers don't properly inspect equipment they drop or simply don't care. Packrat can share his experiences with that, I believe he said he had 4 trailers in 1 week that he needed repaired before he could take off due to a lazy driver dropping it without reporting it unsafe. You may also more frequently experience shorter runs in the 500-600 mile range, though that's possible in every division. From my understanding when you're doing a drop and hook many times you have a wide open window that will allow you to drop that trailer anytime from 6am to 6pm, though each load and receiver will vary.

Flatbed is more physical than just swinging doors. You're often times going to open yards or construction sites that they'll use forklifts to unload you from the side. Many people give the flatbedders a tough time for not needing to back but that's far from the truth. Rob D and Old School could share some of their experiences about backing into a building that has only a foot or so of space on each side. You'll be out in the elements trying to tarp including rain/snow and high winds. Look at Old Schools profile picture. As a reefer driver that looks brutal but many flatbedders like that. It makes one think that those flatbedders aren't right in the head

I prefer the idea of solo driving. I also have trouble sleeping knowing my life is in somehow else's hands. When you're team driving that truck rarely stops. If I'm driving solo and I stop for the day in a touristy area I can always spend part of my 10 hour break catching the sites or catching an uber to a nice restaurant. Some drivers here are happy operating as a team but it often takes quite a while to find a team member that shares your same work ethic. Most companies split the miles evenly. Say you drove 3,000 miles but your co-driver only drove 2,000. You'd have essentially driven 500 miles that your co-driver gets paid for instead of you. He may have spent much more time sitting in docks on his clock or fueling. Teams will come to an agreement on what their shift is. I've heard of some do 12-12 to share night driving, others do a 6-6 or any other combination.

Avoid O/O or leasing. You're doing the same job as a company driver but you have the hassle of making truck, insurance, maintenance payments and if you overcome the odds of not going bankrupt from unplanned repairs you MAY make about 3% more than a company driver. We have many company drivers here that are in the $70k a year range or more that have all the benefits large companies are able to offer such as 401k, medical, dental, paid time off etc. As a O/O if you take time off those bills are still due so the idea of being able to goof off more isnt a reality.

As an OTR driver you're able to take hometime wherever you want. If you want to see old friends in NC simply put in a hometime request for that zipcode and they'll get you a load going there or routed through there to take a few days off. Always wanted to see the Grand Canyon? Find a place nearby you could get a rental car and have a small vacation.

After you and your dispatcher get on the same page and become what we call a Top Tier Driver you'll find them doing favors or allowing you to extend your home time a couple days even if company policy has a limit. Being a top tier driver is being one that they can rely on to get the loads there on time safely every time, or communicating a delay as soon as its apparent. The best way to quickly work your way up to that is become knowledgeable about Hours Of Service how to work them to your advantage. This can be done by parking at shippers/receivers and learning how to use the 8/2 splits.

You've come to the right place, I hope you stick around and let us know how it goes at Millis or any other place you feel is a better fit.

I ran out of characters in my last post so I wanted to touch on one more thing.

You mention slow downs and flatbed getting slower during certain times of the year. Overall freight may slow down but if you're a top tier driver you won't personally notice a slowdown. Dispatchers want to keep their best drivers moving all the time. If you're not making money neither are they. If you have 2 drivers sitting near Chicago and only 1 load coming out of the area who will you give it to? The guy always safely delivering loads without complaint, doing whatever he can to deliver loads early when possible and running 3000 miles a week. Or would you give it to a guy that is constantly running late due to sleeping in or not managing hour of service efficiently (2000 miles and running out their 70 clock), complaining about every minor issue and complaints from receivers due to the drivers unprofessionalism. The first guy will get that load. Believe it or not the latter is quite common in this industry and by doing simple things like just being respectful, showering daily (or every other) and not getting all bent out of shape over delays at a shipper/receiver will set you miles ahead of many of your peers.

Hello Malcolm, and welcome to our forum!

You put a lot of questions in your post, but I just want to take a stab at one of them. It sounds like you are thinking and working your way through a lot of your concerns, but this one is something you've probably read somewhere on the internet and I think I can help you understand it a little better than the person who caused you to have this concern. Here's what you asked...

Also in flatbeds how slow can it get at certain times of the year, I have read that the winter can slow down. But how cyclical is it?

Actually all freight is cyclical. Markets fluctuate, seasons have effects on freight, even our crazy response to this years politicized "flu" had some crazy effects on freight and how it was handled. So, don't get too uptight or overly concerned about flatbed freight being cyclical. I've been doing flatbed freight my entire career. I've had other drivers in my fleet tell me their driver manager is complaining, "Freight is a little slow, you may have to park and wait until I can find yo a decent load." I can only recall one time sitting any length of time waiting for a load because flatbed freight was a little slow. I only sat a few extra hours over my ten hour break, which was a welcome break to my hectic week.

Here's the thing that drivers have to figure out. There's a lot of freight that needs to be moved all throughout the year. There's a lot of miles to be had. As drivers, we need to know how to make ourselves into key players. Most people don't realize how incredibly important it is to stand head and shoulders above your peers in this endeavor. Drivers create their own demand by being trustworthy, efficient, productive, safe, and easy to work with. There are plenty of drivers who never experience slow downs even when freight might be a little slow. I actually made more money during this "pandemic" than at any other time in my career. Flatbed freight was a little slow, but I was not. I knew another driver on the same account with me who quit during that time period because he claimed, "I just can't get the miles to survive."

I'm pointing all this out to you because I don't want you to believe all the stuff you read on the internet that might discourage you one way or the other. There are a lot of drivers out here who say things with no understanding of how loads are distributed to drivers. Top Tier Drivers will always come out on top. Guys and gals who make great things happen out here will always have great things happening for them. If you like the idea of being a flat-bedder don't let a driver who doesn't even understand why they are being overlooked dissuade you from trying your own hand at it. Trucking is, and always will be, a performance based enterprise. Unfortunately many of us think we should just be handed great loads and kept busy just because we are on the payroll. It just doesn't work that way.

Thanks Rob - I think I read both of those already, I think in the past week or 2 I most have read about 20,000 web. pages blogs, diaries, youtube videos, etc., the better ones seem to come from this site but also on the truckersreport.com. That site definitely has a lot of people that seem to make their life own unhappy. But as I am picking up more bits of wisdom hear and there I will read them again.

Couldn't agree more with you about just doing a good job, make the bosses happy and doing what they expect and more. I've been doing that since 1977 in the family business and our long time clients can attest to the fact we I would go above and beyond what they expected, there were several clients with or company for over 40 years, even when we made the transition from doing commercial photography to designing and selling trade show displays. I would still be doing the display business if it wasn't for COVID, we lost about 80-90% of our business since March.

One of the reasons I am asking some of the question is a bad experience with the only trucking company I ever had dealings with the management and I was extrapolating that out to all the industry I guess. I think it was 1 of 2 clients that I ever "Fired" when we were doing photography. The management was not obnoxious or rude when I was over at their place doing photography for a day, but how he treated his drivers was absurd, I wonder what his driver retention rate was!

It will definitely take awhile to understand the work schedule jargon with the 12/12, 6/6 you mention and a couple dozen others I have seen talked about in posts. Talk about jargon I am starting to grasp the hours of driving and service a little bit.

Oh, and just while remembering, I heard someone say that they would do their paperwork, route planning and maybe the safety check while off duty, but I thought I remembered that by law isn't that all suppose to be on-duty time?

The money is somewhat secondary to me, I have never made over $50k except for maybe a year or 2 owning my own business for other reasons we can talk about later, so it might be possible to make more than I made last year in my 1st year trucking. This year with the COVID crap I will probably make only half of that.

I guess I might be getting crazy in the head because the more I am looking around watching stuff on Youtube and reading things like Old Schools posts, I am getting more excited about doing that. I will work on some more questions for his response after this one. I will have to look up Rob D's posts I sure I must have read some already, but do plan or reading those front to back for both. I just think I want the challenge, bring it on kind of mentality. Cold and snow doesn't bother me all that much but wet cold rain I could do without.

When you mention Packrat's experiences I think I just read some of that last night, where he would open up the back door and stuff wouldn't be strapped or anything, and the trailers be broken.

I see what you mean that the home time would work good to see some areas a little more, I am not sure if a 10 hour break would do too much since you still would need to sleep, but I get it you just work together with your dispatcher and figure out what works once they trust you.

Team driving and Owner Operator were just kind of a passing question and I think deep down I have had enough of running a company and figuring out if we can make the next payroll. Let someone else figure that part out for a while.

I am sure I will be asking more and hearing more from you as this process goes on, I just wish I could get this my business close quickly and get started trucking, I am just afraid it might not happen fast with all the legal crap nowadays. I have a building that must be sold also which is complicating it more, but luckily I might have that part figured out.

Thanks for all your help.

Hey Old School, thanks for the reply!

I just came across your very trying times these past months, I hope the eye is getting better every day. Just a dumb question about the future of driving, would you still be able to be a trainer even if you couldn't drive? Best thing is just to beat this thing and get back out driving, I am wishing the best for that.

Now back to the conversation if you don't mind: As to the slower times, I was figuring a rookie driver is not going to be near the top of the list for a little while, but if you say that you might be down for less than a day waiting for a load, if I have to wait double that I am ok, paying my dues until I become more valuable.

I am no stranger to hard work and the git'r done attitude. Running a small business for decades you have to do that, even changing the entire market we were in at one time from commercial photography to Trade show displays, in 2001. I just picked the wrong industry to be in this year!

I see that you drive for Knight so you must think they are a great company and they certainly seem to be as they stood behind you these past month which is a testament to a great company. If you had to give someone the top 5 companies to check into for getting a CDL and moving into the Flatbed arena what would you say? I reading you old posts that you started with TMC, but on TMC website they don't show any openings in Central Wisconsin. I don't know if they have any leeway for that or not.

On another personal note on some of your posts I was thinking that this guy sounds a lot like me,

Get well man!

Don't believe much on the TR.com.

Terminal rats, trolls, basement dwellers, and super truckers.

HO Wolding. I’ll have been there two years in January and love it. As far as slow downs, slowed down slightly for a couple of months during covid. Got 55-60 hours instead of 65-70 (I’m hourly regional , our OTR guys are paid mileage).

Great company, focused on safety. Equipment is fixed immediately, no question.

They do require your own school, but reimburse up to 10,000 at 200/month at a school they approve of. Check with recruiting.

Unless you really want to work at Wolding (or any company requiring private school) though, I recommend company schools, they have more at stake to keep you if you need a little extra help.

I looked at Molly’s first, but they had no regional program in my area, and my wife liked the idea of me being home weekly. Being northeast regional, I can run out my 70 in 5-6 days.

I can take whatever time off I want, no questions asked, which is worth a lot to me.

If you have any questions about Wolding, let me know.