Comments By TruckingMama

Yeah that’s very true, I’m looking at warehouse and yard hockey positions and hopefully working my way up to driving. Definitely rethinking things and trying to think outside of the box. Thank you for your input, greatly appreciated

All that admiration of you being a dedicate mother is crap and was probably an easy way to let you down easy. Mother's have a tough gig and kids are the number one reason there are so few women in trucking. Women enter when the kids are grown.

Get a job in a local.warehouse for money and keep applying to companie in the mean time. If there is an internodal in your area that may be a good option. A warehouse may have their own trucks so you may be able to move later if hired for a warehouse job.

Good luck

Discretion is the better part of valor. Have you noticed two common threads in the replies you have received?

1) everyone admires your determination and attitude

2) everyone is urging caution about the commute.

Kersey’s advice is sound wisdom. Forget any job with that brutal schedule. Get something local until you can get a job without a 3 hour commute. Have you noticed that no experienced driver is saying “Great job opportunity! Go for it!” ????????)

Remember, a live dog is better than a dead lion.

Thank you so much for all of that insight. I just got notified that I didn’t get the job, so I’ll be looking at a yard jockey position with either OD or AFW to get my foot in the door with a company and hopefully work my way up to driving for them. Thank you for the link, I’ll definitely read that to get a better understanding of those positions

That’s good to know, so you stayed with PFG for 1 year then? I know it’ll be physically demanding but if I can just make it through my 1st year then a lot of doors start opening up for me.

Did you like working for the company though? Just want to know your thoughts about the company in general. What the benefits were like, did they take care of you as a driver?

I stayed with PFG for about a year and a half. They sent me to driving school and I signed a 1 year contract (now 2 years). The experience you have will vary greatly at each terminal. At first I really enjoyed it. As time went on I started to get burned out, allowed minor things to irritate me and cause me to hate it. I ended up leaving because I felt the beating my body was taking wasn't worth the money when I could make more but do less work. I averaged 60 hours a week M-F. This type of work is difficult because the faster you work the more they'll expect out of you. That's not to badmouth the company by any means. Their main concern is customers getting their orders in a timely manner. Many complaints of how trucks were loaded were met with "it couldn't be that bad, you got it all unloaded". Whenever we had new hires they wanted to take it easy on them so my route grew because they knew I could handle it. A couple weeks in a row I busted my ass on Friday to finish my 12 hour route in 8 hours. What ended up happening is i had more stops added to me from others that struggled. The warehouse builds pallets with sometimes 6 stops on them depending on the order sizes. You need to downstack that entire pallet to find the cases you're looking for but also organize as you go to minimize the wasted movements since time is money. You're also going to climb up steps from the side door in the nose of the trailer and downstack cases. Many restaurants also have stairs you may need to push/pull your loaded 2 wheeler (sometimes several hundred pounds) to get to where the customer wants it. Injuries are very common in this line of work. At my drop yard I ran out of in Des Moines we had 2 guys out with back injuries, another tore his ACL falling out of the trailer. We only had a 4 or 5 person group of drivers out of there. A sysco driver fell out of the trailer and caused damage to his spleen. If you look at the guys(and gals) that have been doing this work they're all hunched over, walk with a limp and have had numerous knee replacements. Fortunately I got out without being injured more than just being sore, pulled muscles and skin on my hands cracking from the temp changes.

I'm not going to touch on benefits because they've since gotten a new union contract and things may have changed but they offered the typical medical/dental, 1 week vacation after a year etc.

I'm going to add a link to my diary again because this is exactly what you'd be doing, just different region and customers. PFG as a rookie

I hadn’t even thought of that G town, he did mention keeping me local but that was kind of a thought that crossed my mind and not having seniority there’s actually no way to guarantee a completely local position.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and advise, very helpful. A lot of good insight and different points of view

Something else to keep in mind, there will be times you will need to spend the night in a hotel if you are unable to complete your run. It happens frequently.

I'm glad you brought that up Gtown. That's one element I hadn't even considered. With PFG it's all seniority based and they DO have some runs that are scheduled as overnight and sometimes due to weather, traffic, or being held up for God knows what reasons it's possible you'd lay over. With foodservice companies they may take out a contract with a Healthcare group, nursing homes, or chain restaurants that requires them to deliver to all locations in a certain geographic area. Our warehouse was in Rock Island Illinois (just east of Davenport IA) and contracts they had required drivers to take overnight runs to Sioux Falls SD, Kansas City and St Louis MO, Lincoln NE among others. Some of those ended up being 3 days out because it was nearly an entire days drive to get there and do a couple stops. 2nd day was unloading usually a 48 or 53 foot trailer by hand and the 3rd day driving back.

Thank you for your input, I’ve applied for intermodal positions and not had any luck yet. I kind of figured I didn’t get the job, because of the commute and being a mom. Thank you for the warehouse idea, I’ll look into that as well. I applied for a gas station job but it’sa better idea to get on with a company that has trucks but just work in the warehouse and possibly work my way up

From a woman*s stand point... I want you to truly think about this

You are talking 3 hours of driving after your 14 hour work day. That leaves 7 hours to eat, sleep, shower, laundry clean the house and spend with the kids. By the time you get home you would be going to bed to leave again. This will leave very little time for the children at all. And it would be an excellent argument for the father to claim neglect. "She's never home so they should be with me".

That is in good weather. In bad weather you would be lucky to be home a few hours.

All that admiration of you being a dedicate mother is crap and was probably an easy way to let you down easy. Mother's have a tough gig and kids are the number one reason there are so few women in trucking. Women enter when the kids are grown.

Get a job in a local.warehouse for money and keep applying to companie in the mean time. If there is an internodal in your area that may be a good option. A warehouse may have their own trucks so you may be able to move later if hired for a warehouse job.

Good luck.

I have actually applied for positions to all of those companies you mentioned. That’s good to know, so you stayed with PFG for 1 year then? I know it’ll be physically demanding but if I can just make it through my 1st year then a lot of doors start opening up for me.

Did you like working for the company though? Just want to know your thoughts about the company in general. What the benefits were like, did they take care of you as a driver?

PFG job will be what I highlighted in my diary I previously linked. Very physically demanding and you'll be out there 2 wheeling groceries whether it's 100 degrees or -20. Rain, snow, freezing rain etc. Add in the frustrations of traffic, upset customers (they're never happy with when they get their order you're always too early or too late) and it's easy to get burned out. My first full year with them I made around $85,000 and ultimately wanted to find something less physical. I completely understand doing what you need to do to provide for your kids.

I know you tried OD but I see Saia, Fed Ex Freight, YRC, XPO, UPS Freight (now T-force I believe), Estes and ABF are all in Colorado Springs as well, perhaps it's worth checking them out if you haven't already.

I know I will struggle a lot with this job, but I’ve been without actual good paying work since I started my journey into the trucking field… that was in November. Honestly I’m on the verge of losing everything. Car, apartment, custody. I need to provide for my kids more than it matters to me that my body is going to get beat up everyday. I’ve dealt with my hips since I was little and honestly my drive to provide always outweighs my pain. I totally get what you mean though, doctors themselves don’t even understand how I’m still able to walk but what else is a mother to do?

Shantiwa, I'm just throwing out my opinion. PFG is going to be a tough gig. Really tough. I hope something else turns up for you. I know you once mentioned something about bone chips in your hips or something along that line. That job is going to be extremely physical. Most strong young men don't even last long in food service. It is not that I don't think you are capable. I see a lot of grit in you, and I think that is great. I just don't think you really comprehend the level of fatigue that job is going to put on you.

Yeah that’s exactly what the interviewer mentioned, because he did reference this case during the interview. I personally don’t want to be putting myself in a position like that and the interviewer didn’t want to be putting me in a possibly dangerous situation either. If he does hire me I’ll be transferred to my town as soon as he can. I just really think his concern for the commute is going to outweigh him wanting to hire me. But who knows, he might just give me a chance to prove myself.

I'll point out the Tracy Morgan accident. Driver was out driving all night, according to you in off duty. Started the job fatigued. Caused a 6 car accident and killed someone. Vehicular manslaughter. So you go ahead and log it however you want.

There was just a study done by fmcsa about commuting in which they found the average commute time to be around 25 min and with that data concluded that commute time wasn't an issue.

I don't see any regulations that say what the commute time should be logged as, on or off duty but I didn't do a deep search. If there is one let me know.

In the Tracy Morgan cases, the driver pleaded guilty to avoid jail time. He was awake for 24 hours. An employer can not tell you what to do on your off time, including sleep. It's common knowledge that you need to be well rested in order to drive safely. It's covered in the manual, on the test, during training and a bunch of times after. This was an experienced driver, considering Walmarts hiring standards so he knew better, he chose to ignore it.

Thank you for your input, I did make that exact drive when I was attending cdl school for a month. My school is just down the street from PFG lol But I would actually leave around 4:30am just to get to school an hour early to get extra time with the trucks. Then spend the day driving/backing and then head home most nights. There were nights that I slept in my car so I didn’t have to commute (my kids were with their dad) and slept in a friend’s rig. But when I did get home, I was tired as could be so I understand your view point and it is important for drivers to stay safe and companies to help keep drivers safe

I'll point out the Tracy Morgan accident. Driver was out driving all night, according to you in off duty. Started the job fatigued. Caused a 6 car accident and killed someone. Vehicular manslaughter. So you go ahead and log it however you want.

There was just a study done by fmcsa about commuting in which they found the average commute time to be around 25 min and with that data concluded that commute time wasn't an issue.

I don't see any regulations that say what the commute time should be logged as, on or off duty but I didn't do a deep search. If there is one let me know.

It’s 1.5 one way without traffic, it’s a very physically demanding job. I’ll be using dollies, electric/manual pallet jacks, ramps and stuff like that. So it’s all over the place. I’d be hauling all different types of produce, frozen goods, fresh veggies/fruits to restaurants and I think small grocery stores?? He said there could be up to 20 stops a day but mostly around 10-15. They’d keep me local so I think my stops would be 10-15 a day. If anything, if he hires me he’ll have me do my training 8-12 weeks up in Henderson and then send me back to Colorado Springs once there’s an opening in my town for this position is what he mentioned. So who knows, I do hope I get it

Not true Sid.

1.5 hours round trip or one-way?

What exactly will you be doing?

Yeah that’s what the guy had mentioned, although they have a possible opening down in my town so he mentioned transferring me once that spot is available, if I get this job

Commute drive time counts as off duty time and thats why it's a concern. Most local companies won't hire outside of a 45 minute radius for that reason. It leads to fatigue that gets worse over time and that leads to poor work performance and/or accidents.