Game: Rookie Unrealistic Expectations

"I was told I was gonna get a new truck"

I saw this in action last Friday. A recently upgraded driver was assigned his truck, a 2016 Freightliner. He gets on the phone with his mentor and the mentor gasses him up to ask for a new truck. I saw him a bit later pulling out of the yard with a 2015 Volvo.

Now I really want a Volvo when I go solo but if they had thrown me the keys to a truck barely a year old as a rookie, I would have been gone before they realized what they did

With the question posed as what are the false expectations out of CDL school; What are the true expectations coming out of School?

what are some realistic expectations?

Rainy, I'm confused with your very first itemized "unrealistic expectation." Going local right out of CDL school is certainly not an unrealistic expectation. Rookie drivers do it all the time in the greater Harrisburg, York, and Carlisle area of Pennsylvania. I did. It's quite common here.

Awesome you have those opportunities in your area. Some areas aren't like that. In my area even if you do find a local job, without the one year OTR experience, you make about half what an experienced driver would make which isnt enough to live on here. Plus, NJ has really high insurance. Even my friend who owns his own fleet of ten trucks told me to wait the year OTR then come work for him. He could still only guarantee three days a week home. He said the home every a night isn't as profitable for smaller companies due to bureaucratic BS costs.

The USPS contracts out their routes. I knew the schedules due to working at the processing center and thought I'd give a try at those.companies.

For regional home every other night I'd get $15 per hour. For a box truck home every night I'd get $12.50 an hour. I made $26-40 per hour in the processing center. So why spend thousands to get the CDL to make half? Aldi's cashiers are making $11.50 per hour in my area.

That amount in WV or AL might be great. But not here. Not for a single person.

Rainy, I know of ODFL terminals in Jersey that hire without OTR experience and drivers do well with their pay. LTL and food service (as another poster mentioned) pays quite well for local work. Getting hired as a local driver without experience is more common than you might think. The key is location. But frankly, the locations that offer these opportunities are in heavy freight areas where there's a greater population. So opportunities are common for these areas.

My point is that it's not an unrealistic expectation at all if you live in the right area.

Rainy, I'm confused with your very first itemized "unrealistic expectation." Going local right out of CDL school is certainly not an unrealistic expectation. Rookie drivers do it all the time in the greater Harrisburg, York, and Carlisle area of Pennsylvania. I did. It's quite common here.

I'm not in same area you are, but here in Iowa there's local companies hiring you and then sending you to school on their dime, that you're home every night and make great money. I actually just had my first day of class today. They are paying for my schooling with a 1 year contract, but also paying me 15 an hr while in class (40 hours a week for 4 weeks), then goes up to nearly 23 an hr once CDL in hand and going through 12 weeks 1 on 1 training with the company. Also being paid a meal allowance per day of 50 dollars, they're paying my lodging as school is 200 miles from home, and paying me 87 cents per mile driven in personal vehicle from time I left home til I return after week of class ( 47 cents per mile is company rate when travelling for work, and 40 cents depreciation on vehicle).

This is foodservice delivery as opposed to the LTL gig you landed, But this is exactly the kind of agreement I've needed to finally jump in. Its only 1 year, which I know it's gonna be difficult backs and very labor intensive but after the 1 year I'll re evaluate how I feel physically and decide what I want to do. I've wanted to do this for quite some time but having young kids (year and a half, and a 4 month old), and making nearly 60k a year at my warehouse job made me put it on hold.

To anybody reading this that may feel this is how they want to join the industry as well.....keep in mind I have over 5 years foodservice warehouse experience and what I was offered was, in my opinion, a way of luring me away from Sysco (previous company) and switch over to PFG (current company) as they felt I'd be a perfect match knowing the physicality involved as well as knowing the product as it's very similar between the two.

We have a few Sysco drivers that became linehaul drivers at my barn. Food service pays well if you don't mind the labor. Congrats on your opportunity.

Jeez. Now you really might think I'm picking on you, but as a linehaul driver your company will indeed pay for your hotel every night. I just realized that other point you made. It's not true, neither is your first point. Perhaps it should be clarified that LTL and other local sectors are different from truckload. I believe that's the key here. I stick around this forum mainly to be a voice for trucking opportunities besides truckload or OTR.

I had the unrealistic expectation that I was going to be busy, that I was going to work. Two 34++ hr resets in same week, waiting on a relay trailer and given three days to get to an appointment 8 hrs away is just one recent example. I have many.

We don't turn in our trucks when we take time off like that.. just park it at/near our home as usual. Now if I were to take extended time off, remove my belongings and park it at a terminal , my truck *could* get loaned to another driver as a spinner, if their truck broke down and needed repairs that took longer to complete.

Technically, I'm only taking 5 days of vacation. I'm temporarily switching to regional home every weekend for a month until she and the baby are settled. I'm being allowed to keep my same dispatcher since this is strictly temporary and I want to return to Network Fleet (OTR) fairly soon.

James asks:

what are some realistic expectations?

Welcome James...these links will help:

• Truck Driver's Career Guide
• Brett's Book: The Raw Truth About Trucking (free online version)
• High Road Training Program

Top bunk really shouldn't be used when the truck is rolling. It's not safe to sleep in and the quality of sleep makes for an unsafe driving shift.

As a rookie myself, I just did my first "drive all night". My unrealistic expectation was that when my partner and I swapped this morning, that I'd get in the bunk and sleep my whole 10 hours. That top bunk is NOT the place to get any sleep. Tips from any team drivers here on how to best sleep while rolling will be much appreciated. I think I slept 2 hours, at least I can sleep in my bed tonight.