Job Advice Pepsi or Lowe's?

Trucking, is not an easy job. Sure, there is a low amount of actual labor involved in many types of driving jobs please don't make the mistake of thinking it's an easy job. If you are looking for easy then the Lowe's job would be the best bet, I deliver to a lot of Lowe's stores with flatbed and their lumber drivers do not work all that hard. As far as the class a combination jobs, the easiest would be dry van and plenty drivers quit that pretty fast thinking they would have an easy job. It's not. For one, 11 hours behind the wheel of a big truck is completely different from being kicked back and relaxing, grooving on tunes, driving your average four wheeler. Not paying attention in a truck can end you up in jail. Tight schedules, hard appointment times, regulations, regulations, regulations, rush hours you will have to drive through, short sleep, crappy treatment at shippers and receivers, truly the list of reasons why this job is hard is longer than I feel like typing. Making 70k is not easy, most drivers don't make that much, I do, and I do it by doing a longer haul of ltl. I will leave on sunday from IL. with anywhere between 12 to 20+ stops on a conastoga wagon and drive from anywhere between 6 to 11 hours to start delivery Monday morning. If stops are close, I might get 10, if their spread out maybe 5 or 6. The faster I get them off, the faster I get back and start all over. I leave on sunday, maybe home by Friday night. So, if you want easy, take the lowes job, with any kind of otr you will be disapointed.

 

Pepsi is obviously gonna be more physically demanding, but if you stick it out, you maybe able to advance to their linehaul division, where it's nothing but drop and hook. Also, job duties MAY vary, it depends on if you work at a union or nonunion plant.

 

I'd take Pepsi out the two. Better experience less burnout with the extra commute.

My local plant has Walmart and Sam club accounts where you drive there and they unload it. Pays per trip. Crap money at $50 so you make two stores $100 a day. (We don't make much here round Kentuckiana lol)
I'm sure that place would have something similar you could get into with a little experience.

I'm over the paid by trip/load/%/mile
crap. Too many variables and unsafe. You are right to go with an hourly company.

Current one I'm with is paid by hourly + hub mileage stop and profit sharing. Paid breaks.

Neither of those sound like "bad" first jobs though. Good for you getting a couple offers! Con-way always asked me if I wanted a job in Compton....(long beach...yeah right. Indy did to.
Starts out at $21 then goes to one of those 70k + jobs. They have a yard in Hayward and take newbies fwi.

 

I know a guy that went for an interview for a seasonal position as a Transport driver for Pepsi. Job paid about .50 cent a mile doing night time linehaul. All drop and hook. Thought he could turn fulltime, or HOPED he could, after seasonal was done, until he found out that there was no benefits, and everthing was promoted from within. Only Bay delivery drivers were allowed to move up to Transport linehaul. And this was at a union plant. He turned down the position for obvious reasons.

Coca Cola is probably better to work for than Pepsi. Their linehaul drivers get paid about $24 an hour and work about 10-12 hours a day. All drop and hook as well. Union gig too. I think their delivery drivers get paid hourly as well, not 100% sure on that part.

 

I was a bay delivery driver in Albuquerque about 8 years ago.

At that time, we were paid a salary of $500 per week. We also got a "bonus" of 10 cents per case and 50 cents per 5 gallon box of syrup (goes in the fountain drink machines). So if I had to unload 1200 cases, I would get a bonus of $120, then there would normally be about 20 boxes of syrup, so that's another $10. 1200 cases doesn't seem like a lot, however, my route had me loaded with between 10k lbs. - 13k lbs. of product and it was all hand unload.

Every.
Single.
Case.
Unloaded.
By.
Hand.

You get a two-wheel dolly (hand truck or whatever you want to call it) and that's it. No back support braces, no gloves, nada. I did it during a New Mexico summer which meant temps in the afternoon were near or over 100°. It was extremely physical work since you have to unload each item that the customer ordered, place it on the dolly, wheel it into the establishment, rotate stock, and then remove any expired or damaged product. I had the route that handled the SW part of Albuquerque (may as well be in Mexico by that point), all of Valencia county (Los Lunas, Belen, Veguita, Meadow Lake, etc.) and also Socorro, which is where New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology is. If you've seen Mythbusters, you've probably seen the rocket sled a few times...that's at NM Tech.

Anyway, the geographical area coupled with the amount of product I had to deliver and the amount of stops (normally 14 -18 but as high as 22) meant that I would start around 03:00 and wouldn't be done most days until 17:00 - 18:00. That meant I was pulling 14 or 15 hour days most of the time. If you figure an average of $125 per day in "bonuses", plus base salary, that worked out to about $1000 per week. But break that back down by the hours I was pulling in, about 65 - 70 in a given 5 day week, means I was making a little over $15 per hour. But I would be home in the afternoon long enough to shower, wolf down dinner, and then be in bed no later than 19:00.

Granted, that was several years ago in a totally different part of the country, so things may have changed since then. Just giving you a little heads up along the way.