Trucking Company Job Choices

So if you have to pick up a load that's sitting in a trailer in downtown Chicago you don't have to try to push through rush hour traffic to arrive at a certain time. You can go in late at night when traffic is light. Or maybe you're gonna get there really early but you really would love to take a nap for an hour or two or sit down for a nice meal first. Go for it. As long as you arrive ahead of the deadline everyone is happy. Believe me you're gonna LOVE having this kind of flexibility.

To continue with this theme larger companies tend to have a long list of perks. I've worked for trucking companies that had things like free family counseling, large plush driver facilities with arcades, big screen TVs, and restaurants, free 24 hour medical phone lines where you can call and talk to nurses confidentially about any medical questions you might have, discounts on travel accommodations, top of the line health insurance, 401k and direct deposit, free high speed wireless networks, shower facilities, and on and on and on. I must say at times we'd wish they would just pay us more instead, but you know how that goes. The perks really are unbelievable though.

Ok so large companies must have some disadvantages right? Of course they do. At a large trucking company you are simply a number not a name. You hopefully will get to know a few people working in the offices like your dispatcher, his or her boss, and maybe one or two middle managers like a terminal manager or operations manager. If you get to know that many people... and by get to know I mean they actually recognize you by name or truck number, you've probably done either an excellent job or a terrible job over a period of many months or more likely a couple of years.

Because of this you will find it very difficult to get any special consideration for anything. Doing a great job for a couple of years is going to get you an automated thank you letter and maybe a patch for the company jacket you had to buy from your own company when you wanted one. On the other end of things you may find yourself in a situation that nobody will take the time to understand your side of. They don't have the time and frankly they really don't care. I'm going to go deeper into this subject later on with a few stories related to this theme.

Smaller companies in my opinion don't have too many advantages over the larger ones from a driver's perspective. You will definitely get to know everyone in the office and they will certainly know you. Often times if you live nearby your main office the people in your company will even get to know your family and the families of the other employees. This family atmosphere is nice in a way, but you also have to be aware of a couple things.

For one, just like in any tight group of people, everyone tends to know everyone else's business. Maybe you don't want everyone at work knowing about an operation you have to have, or the tough times you're having with your marriage, or the trouble your kid got into at school. Maybe you got a well deserved raise but now the other drivers are envious and raising a fuss. Or maybe your excellent performance is being rewarded with more miles and a nicer truck which again causes problems with the other drivers. As you can probably tell I've been in these type of situations before and I'm not really too fond of them.

The other concern with regard to company size is how much your company counts on you. At a large trucking company if you'd like to take some time off nobody really cares. I've taken MONTHS off at times and simply been told, “ok just turn your truck in to the terminal and let us know when you're ready to return and we'll get ya goin.” But at a really small company that's not likely to happen. You may be one of ten drivers so if you take time off they just lost 10% of their fleet!

The smaller companies rely on you much more ...Continued.....