Help Me I Just Wanted A Job

Pat, I agree that the driving skills are the same or even tougher for local vs OTR. I think the main difference between OTR and local is the amount of time you're away from home. You live in the truck all day every day without any of those conveniences. You don't get home every night, or even every week, or sometimes even every month running OTR.

The other difference is that you run a wider area so you're more likely to get way out of your comfort zone. It's one thing for me to get lost in Colorado. It's an entirely different thing to get turned around in some city I've never been to and that I would never choose to visit.

I think the local guys get tougher driving on a regular basis, especially doing P&D in cities or always driving in places where there's snow six months out of the year and you can't just get a load down south to get away from it. But I'm sure there are some drivers who have done local and absolutely have the driving skills to go OTR that can't handle being away from him for weeks at a time, so it's no wonder that companies would require some training period to make the switch. It's not to see if you can do the job, it's to see whether you can live the lifestyle.

Andy, the biggest mistake you made was thinking you were too good for Prime's training program. As Daniel said, sacrifices have to be made. You should have just sucked it up, swallowed your pride and jumped through their hoops, all while keeping your eye on the prize. If you would have done that, you would probably be in a much better position now.

Now don't make that same mistake again. Find a company and do what they require of you, no questions asked. These companies don't owe you a thing, man. Not a single, solitary thing. If you show even a hint of self-centered entitlement, they'll sniff it out and your situation will rapidly deteriorate. If you humble yourself, you will be exalted. If you exalt yourself, you will be humbled.

Andy, Youasked thatno-onepost"negative"comments, butwhenyou describeyour situation,I'm sorry,but that's about all you will get.

Soyougoto Prime,butyou#1don't wantto wasteyourtime for their training program, and#2thinkthey makemoney offyour70 hour clocksomehow. No they INVESTintrainees, expecting them2B gooddrivers.

Sonow you'rehavingtolook onCraigslist forwork B/C you can'ttake anothertrainingclass.

Here's a secret: take all the training classes you can. You never know when you might mean something new!

Idon'tknow if you expected pity for your story, but we want to helpyou beabetter, evenasuccessful trucker. Get in there, do the stuff, and you'll soon be bringing down $900/week.

..... and please write so it's easier to read your story.

Andy, Youasked thatno-onepost"negative"comments, butwhenyou describeyour situation,I'm sorry,but that's about all you will get.

Soyougoto Prime,butyou#1don't wantto wasteyourtime for their training program, and#2thinkthey makemoney offyour70 hour clocksomehow. No they INVESTintrainees, expecting them2B gooddrivers.

Sonow you'rehavingtolook onCraigslist forwork B/C you can'ttake anothertrainingclass.

Here's a secret: take all the training classes you can. You never know when you might mean something new!

Idon'tknow if you expected pity for your story, but we want to helpyou beabetter, evenasuccessful trucker. Get in there, do the stuff, and you'll soon be bringing down $900/week.

..... and please write so it's easier to read your story.

Funny, I didn't notice a difference between how you just wrote and your usual, typical ramblings.

Thanks I'll give it a shot

Andy, the biggest mistake you made was thinking you were too good for Prime's training program. As Daniel said, sacrifices have to be made. You should have just sucked it up, swallowed your pride and jumped through their hoops, all while keeping your eye on the prize. If you would have done that, you would probably be in a much better position now.

Now don't make that same mistake again. Find a company and do what they require of you, no questions asked. These companies don't owe you a thing, man. Not a single, solitary thing. If you show even a hint of self-centered entitlement, they'll sniff it out and your situation will rapidly deteriorate. If you humble yourself, you will be exalted. If you exalt yourself, you will be humbled.

I can guarantee you, you'd make better money in training with prime, than you are right now.

I would use this as a valuable learnin experience, because you do not know it all. Never, ever stop learning.

Celadon pays 41 cpm to run east coast,out of columbus. Refresher course would be 5 days.Friend of mine averages 2500-3000 k mileage.

lol

There are a couple threads here about starting salaries. Sounds like you were making about what any first year driver would, sadly your local experience is not OTR experience, and there is a little more to OTR than there is to local. So I'm going to say, no, you wont make more than that your first year.

Phil

There is nothing more to deal with OTR than there is local until you get into oversized loads. You still need to find the delivery or pickup location in either case.

Please enlighten everyone about how you have to do more OTR than you do local? I still have to run a log book, I still have the same hours of service, I have to deal with traffic, city driving, mountain driving, high winds, snow and ice etc. I can put in 600 miles in a day or I can put in 60. All that means is that on the short mile day I was out of the truck more than in it and I moved more pieces of equipment or preloaded more trailers.

I get directions that are much worse than you get. You at least get an address. My very first load the directions were to go to a small town and drive around and I would find it. Turned out that the site was 14 miles south of town and 2 miles out through a wheat field.