Hi there, Marty here, Thanks for joining us today at Warehouse and Operations as a Career. We\u2019ve mentioned Transportation several times in other Episodes and I\u2019ve had a few questions about the opportunities to move from warehousing into a Driver position so I thought today we\u2019d visit on a few of those positions. I\u2019m really excited about today\u2019s show, here in a bit we\u2019ll be visiting with an Over The Road Driver and hear how she joined the industry and a few of her thoughts about the profession!
\nIn the world of Distribution I feel there\u2019s really two different jobs to talk about in regards to driving, one being the Delivery Driver, Outbound if you will, & another being the Freight Driver or Long haul driver, let\u2019s call that the Inbound Driver. A Distribution Center brings product into the facility to ship it out individually to its many Customers or end users.
\nLet\u2019s start with the Outbound Delivery Drivers today as that\u2019s where many of us will have the quickest opportunity to move into Driving and delivering our companies own products. The quick advantage here is we\u2019re learning every item the company carries, we see every customers name they sell to & the Company learns us as an employee, that we\u2019re motivated, trust worthy and dependable AND they know what our goal is, they have an opportunity to groom us into a Driver Position.
\nA Driver position can pay very well, especially these days with activity based compensation, case pay or whatever you want to call it. Again, there are few if any short cuts to making that money though. Experience is what your company is looking for, miles, time behind the wheel or in our case, what I\u2019d like to talk about here is product knowledge and time with the company. I\u2019ve known several people that knew they wanted to be a Driver, only to find that it\u2019s tough to break into the field if you want to stay home every night. There\u2019s some great opportunities with trucking schools and over the road companies, really some good deals to be had, but as with any pay to learn experiences, wither by time or money, make sure you know what you\u2019re getting, what\u2019s expected and what the overall or real cost is, and to get the experience needed to make that good money you may have to be away from home quite a bit and or ride as a Team for a while. More about that in a few minutes, I got side tracked, let\u2019s get focused back to the Delivery Driver.
\nLike I was saying, I\u2019ve known of several people that set their goal as being a delivery driver only to find that companies were looking for experience. I mean were asking them to put us out on the road in their Tractor and Trailer loaded with their product making maybe 20 stops to their customers and we have no experience doing it. I think we\u2019d all admit that\u2019s a lot of faith.
\nHowever, and I\u2019ve seen this approach be very successful many times, if we reply to a warehouse position ad, and are willing to start at the bottom if necessary and work our way through a few positions we may just be able to get that education AND get paid for it while we\u2019re doing it.
\nI actually had this very conversation with a young gentleman once, He had checked into a driving school, it was reasonably priced and came with an internship to help defray some of that cost but he was puzzled by the contract that said he\u2019d need to do some team driving, across state lines for a period of one year but a good job was in the foreseeable future. We talked about how it sounded like a great opportunity, I sensed he was a bit hesitant and found that he didn\u2019t really want to be away from the family every day, maybe only being home a couple nights a week. He really wanted more of a local route or delivery position, a 8 to 10 hour job kind of thing. I pointed out that you had to put your time in to settle into something like that. I suggested getting a warehouse position with a local D/C, do a great job for them & maybe he could Drive for them even...