First Year Pay Totals With Prime

USMC AAV wrote:

On a side note, I did talk to Swift the other day also. They have a Walmart dedicated account that I could get into but they didn't seem to much information about it, or the recruiter was trying to steer me away from it. I mean he casually mentioned it and quickly left the subject alone. So I am not sure about that, but I hear G-Town talking about his route from time to time and I have to wonder.

Ask away...what would you like to know?

Search on my name and Walmart Dedicated, lots of info. Gladhand ran Walmart for a bit too, search on him as well.

I cant speak for swift but i ran ONE dedicated walmart day of 4 stores in Maine and HATED it!!!! couldnt pay me enough to run one.

The pros: tandems and weights are balanced for you, some QC work is already done for you, can fuel at the DC, can park at any walmart or the DC, so you can shutdown at the last store, virtually no trip planning because it is all "get there ASAP". easy paperwork and no BOL. Its all WM to WM so more like manifests. Prime has showers and lounge at the DC., plus personal car parking for drivers. Backing at stores was less pressure due to being the only truck (but VERY tight and often very dark)

The cons: WM trailers are old and suck! Tight curvy back roads and if your trailer goes over a line, that puppy is rolling. There is no "get ahead of the load". Im always hours early. Having a trailer loaded at 2330 and an appt 50 miles away at 2300 sent me in a panic. every appt after that was piggybacked. tough backing or manuevering. My 30 min break was taken while the dock ppl were on lunch, but that store had no access for me to shop (weird store--dock was down a side road with a ravine between it and the store). Night, ice and snow in hilly curvy Maine...NOT fun. Four stores and 179 miles took me like 7 hours. With stop pay it worked out to about 85cpm....but totally not worth it as i could have driven longer and made more money OTR while relaxing on an interstate and having the freedom to stop and eat or pee if i want.

Funny thing is....different strokes for different folks. G Town is quite happy with his gig. I would have gone insane by day 2.

Did i mention WM trailers are crap? hahahahaade me.appreciate our trailers so much more.

You ran one Wally load? Good grief Rainy, never knew that.

Okay you had an old trailer, some are, most aren't. Even the old ones are well maintained. The reefers; most are less than 5 yrs old.

Second; after completing a 179 mile 4-stop load and I am back at the D.C. grabbing a 1-2 stop short run to maximize my 14 hour clock and get the mileage over 300 total for the day. At my rate that's about $270 for the day.

You are right though different strokes; but it takes a lot more than one run to understand how the account works and how-to make money at it.

And the 46+k load I mentioned with the SLUF was pushing 47, I recall something like 46,700... My mistake.

You didnt know cause i did it last week hahaha. As OTR they have us do them to "help" whenever we deliver to the WM DC. So while i was doing the run, the normal dedicated people were soooo busy sitting in tbe lounge or at home watching the Patriots game. smh.

They tried to give me more and i was like "no way". Its enough to know i never want to do it again. I hope i screwed it up enough for them to never ask hahahhaha As far as pay, they get some sort of weekly flat rate as drivers so not really a "learn the account to make more money" involved. as OTR they pay us miles and stop pay when we run those loads, and we only have to do one.

The trailers there all appeared rather beat up, but could be the harsher winter weather. No one bothered to tell me the handles crank the opposite direction from ours. So "lefty loosey, rightie tighty" doesnt work. haha. i cranked that sucker on low forever and was fighting it, then realized it was going the wrong direction :(

Nope. Keep the dedicated thing. I'll stay OTR. I can't even stand Northeast regional. I wind up with that a few weeks at a time every now and then. Again, not worth my aggravation. I love my freedom OTR.

So Ironically enough, it looks like I may be going to a Swift dedicated Wal-mart account. I got the call the other day after I submitted an application on the Swift application site. The recruiter I talked was really nice, and explained everything. Hell I think we talked about an hour on the phone. Best part is I can get home 3 to 4 weekends a month, and maybe during the week. They (Walmart) have a DC in Hope Mills NC., which is about an hour door to door.

I did a lot of reading looking into G-Town's threads/postings and went into my phone conversation with lots of questions when I talked to the recruiter. Ironically enough almost everything that G-Town said is accurate to my situation. (Kudos to you G-Town).

Congrats USMC.

The fact you have experience is going to be a huge benefit for you.

Please let me know if you have any questions or additional information; happy to assist.

Good luck.

This topic went everywhere but I just thought of the LW vs the condo. I wanted a truck as close to the trainers truck as possible. Prime team trains in condos, so i felt safer in that truck than changing turn radiuses and wheel bases.

This was one of the things that brought me to company sponsored training...many local school have old equipment, but companies train you on what you will be driving. i dealt with enough changes at that point. lol i didnt want to go from a condo to a LW and feel the need to learn handling it all over again.

This topic went everywhere but I just thought of the LW vs the condo. I wanted a truck as close to the trainers truck as possible. Prime team trains in condos, so i felt safer in that truck than changing turn radiuses and wheel bases.

Hey! In back from lurking land to swoop in and make a comment! Hahahaha!

Actually, there NO difference between the condo and LW as far as wheel base is concerned. Prime buys all their trucks regardless of maker with the exact same wheel base. Don't believe me? Park next to a LW or a Pete and line up your drives with theirs and get out and look. Your steers will be lined up with theirs. The only difference is the actual size of the sleeper. That's it. That's where they save on the weight of the overall truck. Turning radius is also similar across the board. While I had to have my truck in the shop for a few days I had to recover 2 trucks, both full sized. One was a FL and one was an Int'l. I didn't notice any difference in turning at all. Just how they drove we're different. (I still maintain that Int'l have a much smoother, quieter ride than FL.) I would love to recover a Pete to see what that one is like.

Ok. I'm going back to being absent forever. Hahahahaha! Actually, I'm super active on Facebook. The Women in Trucking organization has a Facebook page, and I'm one of the admins on there. So my internet time is taken up by that a lot of the time. But I still get email notices for here and I peruse the threads on occasion.

Hope everyone is doing awesome!

Great to hear you're still alive Miss Miyoshi. One wonders from time to time.

Great to hear you're still alive Miss Miyoshi. One wonders from time to time.

She keeps escaping my dungeon!!! bad girl! hahhaha

I figured i would steal my own thread and mention that military veterans only need to do a 9 month contract with Prime. i just found that out.

Big difference from some company sponsored programs, and Prime does not deduct for schooling as long as you stay the year or 9 mos if a vet. some companies have you pay back a portion omce employed.

I have a friend who just returned back from the overseas military reasons he is considering trucking I suggested a few but he wants cold hard facts on what to expect and to be expected of him. I will recommend this to him and he will view later, I wish I could tell all my buddies who served who wished for a decent living career vs the quick cash of oil field and being broke when it ends while its great you never know when the number is up one my uncles did this my brother used to now is a surveyor with a close family, friend great for him good money and still keep in shape 5 miles a day like old times and will be like normal. I am not gonna say oil field is bad but one day your body just cannot continue same old same old and it is nice to have a backup plan in place for that day.