I Survived My First 9 Months Trucking =D

Congrats on milestone. In all fairness what struck me within your post was saying "no" to a company direction.

Are you a dry van? Maybe go for reefer division to make up for slow dry van times of year.

JM, here is the skinny. Buying a truck is not going to make your troubles go away. It is only going to compound them. The policy of this forum is generally against recommending becoming a L/O or O/O. The simple reason is lack of experience and knowledge a new driver has. The reason we all quickly focused on your lack of miles is the simple fact that something is wrong. If you want to be running more, you need to figure out how that gets done. First thing is freight moves, generally, in triangles. You need to learn when certain receivers and shippers operate. Unless you can get this figured out as a company driver, your not going to magically figure this out as an O/O. Yes, there are certain areas of the country that has less freight. There are times of the year freight slows down in certain areas and for different types of freight. Learn when those times are and plan accordingly. If you know you will be heading to an area of slower freight, try to get preplanned out of there. If you're heading to an area where shippers and receivers are closed on weekends and you are delivering in the afternoon, try to deliver in the morning so you are available for freight before the shippers close up shop for the weekend. There are a LOT of tricks you still need to learn. IF you can't work the system to your advantage as a company driver you are just going to go broke as a O/O. These are just simple truths. You need to learn how to become an asset to the load planners. Scratch their back and they will scratch yours. Become the load planners best friend. What I mean by best friend is not drinking buddies. Be that guy the load planners trust to get them out of a jam. That guy they look for when someone else can't get it done. As Brett likes to use the pro athlete analogy, it fits. Don't be the reliable second string quarterback. Be that rock star Super Bowl MVP quarterback. freight does not get parceled out evenly, the work horses get the lion share.

Just restate the obvious. Unless you can get this figured out as a company driver, you are definitely not going to get it figured out as an O/O.

Drive Safe and God Speed