Finishing School On Thursday

As I understand it, wrapping up school = I will be sent to Atlanta to begin an orientation. I am concerned. I have still never spoken with anyone from the company up to this point and I am not exactly thrilled by the prospect of being forced to team drive with another student for my first year on the road. Did choosing to attend school lock me into a debt of thousands of dollars?

Is a year of safe driving a bare minimum before I can consider looking for a company that would allow me to drive solo?

Choosing to attend school gave you the foundation you needed to build on for success as a trucker and you would have had the debt whether you went to a private school or to a company sponsored school. As far as teaming for a year, that's company specific. I'm not sure what company you will be starting with but, many of them only require teaming during training and that's generally less than a year.

It sounds like maybe you went with CRST?

Is a year of safe driving a bare minimum before I can consider looking for a company that would allow me to drive solo?

No, quite honestly it is not. You could go to school where you're at, work there for a few months or whatever, and land a job elsewhere. But I highly recommend staying with the company and working off the contract if at all possible. Here's why....

Say you go to school for the company, work there two months, and quit for another job. For starters, you'll have to pay back the tuition at a much higher rate than you would have if you had worked it off. So any raise you might be getting to jump ship will probably be lost in tuition. So you've gained nothing in that regard.

But the worst case scenario that worries me is one that's altogether too common I'm afraid. Say you get to your new company and three weeks later you get in a little fender bender. Many companies will fire a driver who has an incident in their first few months. If that were to happen, imagine what your job resume now looks like. You have less than three months of OTR experience which in itself is almost of no value. But you also left your first company right away without fulfilling the contract you signed and then promptly got in a wreck and got fired from your second job.

Now you're hoping that a strong, reputable company with good pay and great equipment will take a chance on you? The heck with that! Leaving your first job right away tells them you'll probably jump ship the first chance you get even if you don't wreck their truck right away like you did with the second company.

No thanks!

I think jumping around and trying to gain some sort of advantage early on in your career is a mistake. I think you're taking a lot of risk and in the end you're probably not going to do yourself any good.

Now let me say this for the sake of full disclosure. We do have people in this forum that did in fact jump ship once or twice right away and put themselves into a better job with better pay and home time. It has worked out well for them. So it's not that it can't be done, but it's certainly taking quite a risk early on in your career. Those jobs would have been available anyway to those drivers had they stayed where they were at and finished out that first year.

You are correct about the company I picked being Csrt. I am currently training and really wish this guy wanted miles as badly as I do. I lay here having just finished my 11 hours @ 12.5¢ per mile and have to wonder what all the hype was about. I like driving and take safety seriously, always have. I guess I am just too motivated because I am new to the game. The game plan is to keep my mouth shut and pretend I am satisfied with this situation until I have enough experience to leverage more miles and/or more cpm. I don't have a place other than the truck and have lived the nomad lifestyle too long to be hindered by it.

In conclusion, assuming I complete my contract in good standing, is there any path I should gear for? I am in this for the long haul and originally had my sights on becoming an O/O. After reading several threads here.....I get the feeling that's a huge gamble.

Crst pays split miles not split pay.. you should be making .25cpm... as for teaming with a new student you don't have to. you can find someone with experience but that is harder... I'm going to need a co driver in two weeks... hit me up if you need a co driver still... I've been with Crst for 5 months Now...

Crst pays split miles not split pay.. you should be making .25cpm... as for teaming with a new student you don't have to. you can find someone with experience but that is harder... I'm going to need a co driver in two weeks... hit me up if you need a co driver still... I've been with Crst for 5 months Now...

Crst splitting pay is the same as splitting miles. I ran a load, 611 miles and total earning for that day was $76.37. I am 7 weeks in and am on day 13 sitting at the terminal waiting on a load. 28 days of training = 17 days with miles and 11 without. I am sure it will get better.

I am 7 weeks in and am on day 13 sitting at the terminal waiting on a load. 28 days of training = 17 days with miles and 11 without. I am sure it will get better.

What??? Why in the world have you gone 11 days without a load out of 28? There isn't a trucking company in America that can survive on those numbers so I know that's not the case with most of their trucks. What can you tell us about what's going on that can give us more insight into this? Because nobody should be sitting that much. If you've been broken down a couple times for a few days each time I can understand. That happens. But it can't just be a matter of slow freight.

Training: Day 1-3, sat in trainer's truck waiting for a load. Day 4, get load from Florida to Texas. Day 6-8, wait for load. Day 9, get load from Tx to Az and another " city run " ( 32 miles ). Day 10 - 12, wait for load. ( Overhear trainer express concern about lack of miles with what I assume is the load manager. Day 13, get load to Tx. Days 14/15, wait for load.

Day 16, get load to NJ. Arrive at shipper , must wait 2 days for shipping to be open. Approx day 19, get load to CA, and instructions to stop while in CA for pm service. Arrive 4 hours early for pm service to find 6am appt was a farce. 2 days later, pm service is complete but no sleep at terminal. Have to run load to Ut.

Timing gets blurry for me here. Next load goes to Tx. Learn the road from Ut to Tx that runs through Co is scary.... Arrive in Tx and wait 2 days for load to Ks. Deadhead to Me for load, relay to terminal in Okc & wait 5 days...training complete. Assigned new truck and solol load, arrive at shipper to learn load was taken hours early by different shipper.

Now the learning curve.... Instructed to drive 30+ miles to drop empty, then wait 8 more days for next load. The empty move resets layover pay...where the story goes from here, I don't know yet. Total miles thus far, approx 5,750. Must be more frugal, money is getting low. Message on Qualcomm says freight is currently slow.

Timing gets blurry for me here. Next load goes to Tx. Learn the road from Ut to Tx that runs through Co is scary.... Arrive in Tx and wait 2 days for load to Ks. Deadhead to Ne for load, relay to terminal in Okc and wait 5 days...training complete. Assigned new truck and solol load, arrive at shipper to learn load was taken hours early by different shipper.

Now the learning curve.... Instructed to drive 30+ miles to drop empty, then wait 8 more days for next load. The empty move resets layover pay...where the story goes from here, I don't know yet. Total miles thus far, approx 5,750. Must be more frugal, money is getting low.

Is it common for rookie drivers to go out to team drive with other rookies? Is that generally company specific? That seems kind of backwards to me. I understand it's a learning experience but how are you supposed to learn from someone as green as you?