In the beginning…
We have been trucking for 11 years and counting. Back when we were first starting to look for a trucking job, J.B. Hunt and Schneider had a reputation for hiring anyone. They were a sure thing if you wanted to get stared with a job in trucking. Both companies ran cab over trucks. You could hear all kinds of drivers yelling at the newbie in the J.B. Hunt truck or telling Schneider to get it in gear.
Nowadays, J.B. Hunt has re-vamped their hiring policies and now pays for experienced drivers. Neither J.B. nor Schneider uses cab over trucks- you’ll see them using Freightliner Century class trucks. Nowadays, you are as likely to see seasoned drivers working for them as drivers with little or no experience. But, back then it was a different story.
We figured that getting into trucking as a husband and wife team would be easy, especially if we applied to these new-driver friendly companies. Surely ONE of them would hire us. We interviewed with both of them and found out that, after reviewing our applications and interviews, neither of them would give us a job.
I don’t know what we did or said that got us on the outs with two companies that were known to hire anything with a pulse, but we didn’t let the rejection stop us. My husband started looking around in earnest for a trucking job.
He ended up having to pay for school with a loan from a family member. That was something we had hoped to avoid by hiring on to a company that paid for schooling in exchange for working for them for a set period of time. It worked out in the end because his first job paid more than what J.B. Hunt or Schneider were paying at the time- enough so to make up the difference between paying for school and being locked into a low-paying job.
My husband got a job with a regional trucking company in Ohio that delivered refrigerated goods around the Midwest. He worked like a dog for them for just under 6 months. They allowed him to train me and help me get my CDL. We did them wrong by quitting without notice once I had my license and we were going to work for an LTL trucking outfit- but once they realized that I had no verifiable experience they cut our careers with them short.
We worked for Emerson Express out of St. Louis for a while and then spent nearly 3 years at Digby Truck Lines (green) before buying a truck of our own.
Those years as company drivers really helped us learn the ropes in trucking and I am thankful for every step along the way. Whatever J.B. Hunt and Schneider thought about their investment in us and our longevity, they were wrong. We’ve been trucking for more than a decade. Guess they should have tried to grab us when they had the chance.
