Considering Employment

Jonesboro, Georgia. I'm picking up a load going to Hope Mills, North Carolina. It's a load that picks up and delivers today. 395 total paid miles. I'm none too happy about it. Mostly because The Company made me sit all day yesterday. I drove down to Austell and made my delivery at 08:00 like I was supposed to. It's now 07:38 the next morning and I'm 37 miles from yesterday's delivery. Anyone see why I'm a little annoyed with The Company right now?

If I find myself 300 miles from home on a Saturday morning again this week, that might be all she wrote for my relationship with The Company. I'm tired of hearing “Sorry. Freight is slow. Should pick up in the next couple of weeks.” I've been hearing that since last October. It's a cop-out, like “We can't control how out customers ship” (no, but you can control which trucks you assign to which loads).

Of course, I bitch and moan and groan, but everything is fine once my miles pick up again. I came back into this company with minimal expectations. All I really ask is an average of 2,000 miles per week. There are drivers who say they couldn't live on that. I can. I have very little overhead. So my point is, I don't think I'm asking an awful lot of The Company to begin with. That's why I get so mad when they don't even reach my very reasonable expectations.

I got an offer from another company. I've really been chewing on it this morning, and probably will be for the next couple of days. It would be around 2,200 miles per week on a dedicated account, eleven days on and three days off. So essentially every other week I would get a long weekend. Man, I'm really thinking about it.

There are benefits to switching. A more stable work week for one thing. By switching I could get Mara off of my insurance (something I can't do at my current employer until I have separation papers; this is costing me about $200 a month). Better insurance. I'd be in different freight lanes than with my current employer, and might actually see some other parts of the country. And there's that three days off. That doesn't sound like much after eleven days on the road, but it beats what I've been getting, between Saturday deliveries, Sunday pick-ups and being on the road on Saturday afternoon.

There are cons, as well. I don't know a lot about this other company. I've heard good and bad. They're a larger carrier, so I guess that's to be expected. But I guess that equates to the great unknown. I would take a small pay cut. And I'd be giving up a new truck (Rayne would be furious). I've been sitting here trying to come up with more negatives, but that's about it.

I'll have to make up my mind soon. A lot depends on what The Company does to me after I deliver this load. If I sit all day tomorrow? Huh. I dunno. In the end, I guess it will all come down to whether or not I'm willing to leave my comfort zone and take a leap.

By the way, I got a compliment when I backed into the dock here at the shipper. After I popped my brakes, I started in to see if my trailer was clean enough to load. The dock worker met me at the door and said “I'll tell you what. You're a truck driver. I've seen people take thirty minutes to back into that dock. Yo udid it with just one pull-up.”

Not a bad way to start a day, being complimented on being a good driver.