This is all true... if you enjoy driving trucks. I’m perfectly fine not spending 14 hours a day in a day cab. So I’ll suffer this ridiculous company because I’d rather be poor and at home than rich and at work.Another lie. My posts have dropped by about 90% in the last year. I look at the site 2 or 3 times per week...max. Here's the bottom line from a 25+ year RTD that knows the trucking business. 1.Get your CDL-A (not a B) and let Fred pay for it. 2. Obtain as much experience as possible while still at The Plantation. That means learning how to run a yard goat (great for backing practice BTW), do some Heavyweight, and whatever you can to broaden your experience. Learn to shift smoothly, back-up precisely both site side and blind side, WITH A TRAILER. Anyone can back a straight truck. Drive using SMITH System methods. In other words, be a professional, not a cowboy. Absolutely get some doubles experience if you can or at least get the endorsement. In some states, they run triples, so a doubles/triples endorsement is pure gold. Some companies like Tanker endorsements but tanker work is mainly at night, often in crappy areas, and you are exposed to a lot of chemicals and fumes. If you've ever seen one blow (I have), you'd probably think twice about doing it.Most major trucking companies are still doubles-centric, so if you can't get real experience, watch YouTube and learn how to break em' down and put them back together. Your drive test at a big union carrier will absolutely require you to break a set and put it back together...quickly. Deliver Heavyweight "downtown" or in your local city, and learn how to be safe in dense urban areas. If your area has a downtown station, make sure you do runs there if you can. Know how to chain-up and drive in snow and ice. 3. Do NOT have any accidents or deal killer tickets. A DWI is probably the end of your driving career, at least for Class A work. 4. Be willing to pay your dues. 5. Take your 2 years or so of experience and shop around with the "good" carriers. Old Dominion is an excellent non-union company, and you can do local PUD or short line-haul. The union trucking outfits are all straight seniority, so expect to come on the extra board. UPS is great, but expect to work nights until you get a lot of seniority. Walmart is also very good, but it's mostly OTR, and home time is not great. Local jobs that can pay very well and tend to be union are heavy construction like dirt haulers and mixer drivers. Most of those companies won't touch you until you've done similar work for an independent company that pays less. (paying those dues again) and have 3 years or more of experience. That means maybe driving for a landscape or recycling company first. Garbage truck jobs pay well but the pace is brutal.
Load securement means learning how to use E-Track, straps, ropes, and chains and binders, especially if you want flatbed work. Some of the best carriers want at least a year of flatbed experience, especially the specialty heavy haul and lowboy operations. Throwing the locks in a rollerbed trailer is NOT adequate experience.
You also need to know how to do a REAL pre-trip and understand electronic logs and DVIRs. Checking your tires with a gauge or understanding how to "thump" them is more than most RTDs ever do at FedEx. Many incidents of driving with flat tires and/or frozen trailer brakes. Know how to free them and check slack. No carrier likes having equipment abused.
Other plus factors are knowing how to drive a forklift (certification is best), and learn the HazMat regs inside and out. Be able to pass a 2-year DOT too. BMI is a big deal for some employers, as is sleep apnea, neck size, and your general physical condition. Be willing to do dock work to get your foot in the door or do a combo job where maybe you drive a forklift cross-dock and then spot trailers.
In short, extract everything you can from FredEx and then LEAVE and do not look back. Plus, ignore anything and everything from Dano, who knows squat about trucks/trucking and transportation as a whole. Running cans from the ramp to a station is great, but hitting a station dock is way different from hitting some crap dock in a tight, inaccessible area where you probably have to break your set somewhere else and then do your deliveries at some crap warehouse with lumpers or various other people. Know how to deal with people at warehouses, especially the union ones.
Whatever you do, don't waste your time at any FedEx division. Find a decent company.
Driver apprentice....Is FedEx in need of CDL drivers?
- Thread starter Rlm65
- Start date
This is all true... if you enjoy driving trucks. I’m perfectly fine not spending 14 hours a day in a day cab. So I’ll suffer this ridiculous company because I’d rather be poor and at home than rich and at work.
zeev
Well-Known Member
RTDs go home every night daycabs are great https://youtube.com/channel/UCmHMRNnKiyBiQ49M8frVakQ also you won’t have to put up with this ridiculous company much longer.
It all depends on freight levels. Where I’m at that’s probably the most hours a dock workers get. I’m sure at a bigger terminals or the hubs there is more opportunities to get hours.
AB831
Well-Known Member
For a guy as arrogant as you, you’re wrong just about 100% of the time
falcon back
Well-Known Member
For someone that doesn't work there, you are here 100% of the time.
McFeely
Huge Member
Says the guy that also doesn’t work there. Brilliant retort, jackhole.
falcon back
Well-Known Member
I am HAPPILY retired. AB left as an employee that hated everything about Fedex, yet he post constantly every day. He claims he has a GF and a job. Highly doubt full on either case.
Bite me McFeely, your loser. Isn't your shift at White Castle about to start. You are way too stupid to deliver packages.
McFeely
Huge Member
Did I hurt your feelers?
falcon back
Well-Known Member
Not at all. It is funny. You make fun of me because I don't work for the company and cactus accuses me of working for the company and not really being retired. You 2 idiots have no idea what you are talking about.
59 Dano
I just want to make friends!
The timing of the decline of your posts is amazing.
59 Dano
I just want to make friends!
And you know his lurking habits... how?
