KEN'S KORNER - JANUARY 2004
GETTING OFF THE ROAD
By Author, Educator and Big City Driver Ken Skaggs

Let’s face it, the road gets old. Sure, it’s exciting for a while, seeing new places. It’s even more fun for couples. Some of my best memories took place when me and my wife were together on the road. It was downright romantic - watching the sunrise on a Florida beach; seeing a play in New York City; having a bread-bowl of chowder in San Francisco; fishing in Montana; or even drinking a great cup of coffee in Canada on a chilly winter morning. Yes, those were good times. But after a while, you begin to miss your family and you just want to go home. Today, many drivers are facing this dilemma. One of the options these folks often consider is getting off the road.

Of course, you still have to make a living, so now you’ll need to find a local driving job. This could be a real challenge for drivers who live in a small town, or in the country. I don’t profess to have the answer to that, other than to say that you will probably have to drive to work a little farther than you’d like. But, if you happen to live in or near a metropolitan area, there will be more opportunities.

Finding an over-the-road job is much easier than finding a local job. Especially if you want to make the kind of money you made on the road. Over-the-road companies are always hiring, and will even hire you over the phone, as long as you have a little experience. But local jobs are a completely different story. It’s not about experience as much as it is about personality. You really have to sell yourself. You have to wear a clean shirt, walk in smiling, and somehow convince them that hiring you would be beneficial to them. You may have to apply at many places before you get an offer. Even then, you may not like the offer, and you may decide to keep looking.

Most local jobs don’t pay all that well (compared to driving over-the-road). There are some good ones, but they’re not always hiring. The really good local driving jobs hardly ever advertise in the newspaper. They don’t have to. When the company gets an opening, usually some driver's brother-in-law, neighbor or friend will get the job before anyone else even knows it's available.

To find a good local driving job, you have to be creative in your job search. You can’t just look in a few magazines and newspapers and make a few calls. Although, you absolutely should do that first, that’s only the beginning. You have to face the fact that finding a (decent) job is a full-time job in itself. Set your mind to apply at forty places. If you do that, your phone will start ringing.

Check your phone book. If there is a Business-to-Business directory in your area, that’s a great source of leads. Don’t just look under trucking. Check out soda and beer distributors, snack and bread companies, asphalt and gravel haulers, city, county and state agencies, food service companies, and whatever else you can think of. However, for some strange reason, most of these kinds of companies, which are some of the best local jobs to get, aren’t even listed in the yellow pages. They are usually in the white pages, but you have to know their name in order to look them up there. That’s why I suggest that you look in a Business-to-Business directory. But, unfortunately, not every area has these types of directories available. If you can’t find one, then you’ll have to find them the hard way. You’ll have to go where they deliver. That's right - get off your bum and start pounding the pavement!

Start at the biggest grocery store in town. Go there early and see who is making deliveries. Talk to the potato chip driver, or any others you see, and find out where their office is located and if they might be hiring. Then go apply, whether they are or not. Some of the best jobs I’ve had called me a few days after they told me they weren’t hiring. So, even if you walk in and they tell you they aren’t hiring, ask to fill out an application anyway.

After you work the grocery stores for a few days, try the liquor stores. Those beer and wine drivers work hard, but they make pretty good money. You probably could use the exercise anyway, so just do it. Some of the healthiest old men you’ll ever meet are the old beer and soda drivers. All those years of hard work really keep you in good shape. Nowadays, many of these companies put two guys on a truck, so now they don’t have to work quite as hard.

You can also visit a local industrial park and do the same thing you did at the grocery and liquor stores. See what companies are delivering and then talk to the drivers. You can find out a lot from them. They may tell you what the starting pay is, or what kind of a butt-head the boss is. But don’t believe everything they tell you. Go apply anyway, and see for yourself. After all, another driver, from the same company, will probably tell you just the opposite.

Then there’s dump trucks (asphalt and gravel haulers). If you know where a gravel pit is, go there and talk to some of the drivers. It will help to use a CB radio with these guys, because you can’t just flag them down, and most gravel pits won’t let a car go in. Look on a map to find a gravel pit. They are usually indicated there.

City, county and state agencies are a little tougher to get hired at because they really get a lot of applications. They also take a long time to hire anyone. So go apply anyway. You might get a call a month after you took a job that you wished you hadn't.

It could take you a few weeks to do everything mentioned above, but more than likely, you won’t get that far. Somebody will hire you along the way, as long as you’re a likable person and have a good driving record. Good luck, and if this helped, let me know. Log on to www.bigcitydriver.com and shoot me an e-mail. Thanks.