So another redditor a while back posted about quitting English teaching to be a trucker.
That post inspired me to apply for driving jobs
Despite many jobs claiming to help you get your truck license, I didn’t find any to even interview me.
So I got my medium truck license on my own and have started applying.
The good: there are loads of jobs out there. I only have N3 and companies seem pretty fine with it since you’d mostly be by yourself. Tons of medium truck jobs but even more big truck jobs 大型.
The bad: I’m a bit countryside with a house so I can’t really move. Most jobs are well over an hour away from me. Many are within 30 minutes EXCEPT that city requires I either pay ¥2000 round trip in tolls to drive there, or a 2 hour drive through dense city. So if you’re near some port cities like Funabashi, Kawasaki, Yokosuka, Ichikawa etc then there are tons of jobs.
The very bad: despite every job claiming ¥350k or more in salary, driving jobs tend to have a shit “base pay” of like ¥220k a month. The “real” money comes from working 10 to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.
One company was super friendly, offered me a job on the spot, and claimed the salary would be around ¥390k a month. BUT, that was a base pay of ¥220k then 70 hours of over time, working 23 days a month. And the commuting costs were way above what they were willing to pay for.
Edit: to clarify, I did not chose to accept this job
So if anyone else is interested in driving jobs, keep these in mind. Personally, I don’t like working from the middle of the afternoon until night because I never see my kid. I wanna spend as much time with my kid as possible.
Some driving jobs do have the hours to support this, but have crap pay or are too far.
Edit: I’m still job hunting. I’m hoping to find some that’s 5 days a week, matches or exceeds my current salary, and is fine with me being about an hour drive away.
If any other drivers here have any tips or info, that would be great to share!
by Hiremepleasejapan