Employee/company drivers drive the company’s truck. The company pays for maintenance and fuel.
Owner Ops and Lease Ops own or lease their own truck and have to pay for fuel and other expenses.
Company drivers make anywhere from $60k-80k, maybe more on the top end of the bell curve depending on speciality, market, luck. Owners it varies wildly but usually in the 6 digits, but then they have expenses and usually end up around or a bit more than company drivers total. But they also assume all the risk.
But we also work 6+ days without break (some don’t ever have days off until they go home), are away from home weeks and months at a time, have super long days, and get no overtime or wait pay.
Somewhere in the middle. I certainly saw a lot of the landscape, spent some times in small towns around the country on my off days, and met some people.
But certainly didn’t get a great feel of the culture a lot of the time.
I had a similar experience traveling for work. My first job out of college required traveling to lots of customer locations. I was excited to see the country. Turns out I got to visit a lot of airports and conference rooms.
As a truck driver, kinda? But it gets damn old after a while. And pay is shit (when you calculate how much you work.)
But I did get to see 47 states.
Yeah, I hear the pay is like oh cool I made 100k last month and spent 90k on fuel.
Well see there’s multiple types of drivers.
Employee/company drivers drive the company’s truck. The company pays for maintenance and fuel.
Owner Ops and Lease Ops own or lease their own truck and have to pay for fuel and other expenses.
Company drivers make anywhere from $60k-80k, maybe more on the top end of the bell curve depending on speciality, market, luck. Owners it varies wildly but usually in the 6 digits, but then they have expenses and usually end up around or a bit more than company drivers total. But they also assume all the risk.
But we also work 6+ days without break (some don’t ever have days off until they go home), are away from home weeks and months at a time, have super long days, and get no overtime or wait pay.
So $10k/month and hookers every night? Still seems like a good deal.
I mean, that’s what practically any business is like.
10k leftover per month would be 120k per year, which is actually quite a bit above median income in the US
did you see 47 states, or just 47 states worth of truck stops?
Somewhere in the middle. I certainly saw a lot of the landscape, spent some times in small towns around the country on my off days, and met some people.
But certainly didn’t get a great feel of the culture a lot of the time.
I had a similar experience traveling for work. My first job out of college required traveling to lots of customer locations. I was excited to see the country. Turns out I got to visit a lot of airports and conference rooms.