Day 2 Of CDL School At Chattahoochee Tech

Second day of class complete! more fun, videos, test prep, etc...but we had a couple of folks come in from a local poultry company here in Marietta Georgia, that's looking for drivers. I was intrigued and visited their website, and they are a small Christian-based, family owned company! They have excellent benefits, hourly pay and I'm home EVERY weekend! (FOOTBALL on MY BIG SCREEN and in my RECLINER!)-They are reefer/flatbed as they deliver and pick up poultry.They deliver/pickup as far away as Illinois and regionally here in the south. At MOST I'll be gone overnight 2-3 days-perfect!!! maybe 5 hours of driving ( on average) per day, and they PAY you hourly while waiting to be loaded/unloaded, averaging about 84 hours per week, including bunk time!! They will PAY me to sleep!!! No big company,corporate crap to deal with, Fairly small fleet, and mostly side roads, no expressways as I will be picking up and delivering to poultry farms across the region. I'm sold!! Already sent them my contact info and will be in touch with them as soon as I get my CDL..

SO being a big rig driver does NOT mean you have to be gone for weeks at a time. Another recruiter came in and talked to us and their drivers are home EVERY DAY. they pay 53 cents per mile. We added it up in class, that's approximately $85,000.00/year.....The recruiter said a lot of companies were starting to hire folks right out of school for local drivers, something that used to not happen until you had at least a year of OTR driving..Because of demand and competition, the demand is getting out of hand. They had 20, yep TWENTY driver positions available as of TODAY....

Gary, I don't want to dampen your spirits, but be careful what you believe from those recruiters, you're best bet is to go talk to some of their current drivers if you want the real scoop on things like hours and take home pay.

One guy gave you chicken feathers, and the other one gave you horse feathers. I came into this business with a lot of what it takes to succeed already established due to being self employed for thirty years prior to this. I can tell you that I made a lot more during my rookie year than most rookies will, but there is no way a rookie truck driver is going to make 85,000 dollars, very few veterans are pulling down that kind of money.

I have to agree with Old School. Most owner ops don't even clear 85k a year. Most company drivers, even in the best jobs in the industry, make about 50k to 55k a year.

Now I am not saying that it's impossible and you might have been in the right place at the right time but in my experience companies that offer extremely high pay, especially to rookies, are making up for all the waiting time you will be doing. I truly hope what they said pans out for you. That would be great but I also want you to keep your feet on the ground and head out of the clouds.

Thanks guys, We had a guy come in today and he was spewing rainbows and roses. After he left, we (our class) kinda dissected what he was saying. so yeah, we take what they tell us now with a grain of salt (even our instructor confirmed what we were saying). I've spoken highly of you two guys in particular and pointed this site out to several classmates, so maybe you'll see some posts from them.