Get a job driving in this economy

With all the bad economic news coupled with skyrocketing fuel prices I was beginning to believe that I might be forced to change my position that I espouse in this blog:

Demand Exceeds Supply

.

The truck driving company needs us drivers more than we need them.

This depends on what part of the trucking industry you choose.

Off Road construction
Daily city delivery
Freight (home every night)
Over the Road

Off Road or Construction was my entry into tandem trucks. The building boom of the 1980's led to a feeding frenzy of dump trucks, concrete mixers, roll off trucks, flat bed dumps (lumber trucks). And Overtime fueled my passion for construction.

Now, in 2008, with the housing market bubble burst, residential construction is no longer a buyers market, there are simply too many dump truck drivers available to fill too few openings. And the openings that there are don't last the entire season.

So,why stay in a dump truck? Because it's what you're used to???

Now since the presidential election, the price of fuel dropped dramatically (wonder why?) Now freight might be profitable again...

What does one do when one wants job security?

Do what nobody else wants to do.

There are plenty of disagreeable jobs, my very first tractor trailer job was hauling waste oil, it was dirty, slimy, and no one wanted my job... so I got all the overtime I could handle!!!

I made $1000 a week hauling what no one else wanted to haul, averaged over 13 weeks, and this was in downtown Baltimore, where the cost of living was about half of what it cost to live in Montgomery County Maryland at the time.

So if you want to change careers and get into driving CDL trucks do not let the oldtimers scare you away! You're a rookie, they've 'payed their dues'.
They aren't willing to do what's necessary to make the big bucks, and they're so pissed off that the status quo has changed that they're indignant.

Too indignant to hunt down what is in demand, preferring to wait and let the gravy come to them.

If I was a newbie driver and had the tanker endorsement on my new CDL licence, I'd look up a local company that hauls waste frying oil, that's right, old cooking oil.

Why?

Because that stuff will eventually be made into bio diesel, and the company that hauls and manages that stuff, well the first one with the foresight to process it into Bio Diesel is sitting on a gold mine!

I'd sure like to be a tenured, ranking old timer in an industry that's going to make a profit no matter what the economy is doing. I'd sure like to have seniority at a place like that!




This site is not responsible for libel, any driver who ever worked for a truck company is welcome to rate any company they worked for, of course if they got fired, they might not give an accurate description of what it was like to work there.