Just can't wait to get on the road again...
December 4, 2011 2:25 PM Subscribe
What jobs involve spending most of the time driving across the country, that AREN'T truck driving?
A few years ago, I drove a car my dad was giving me from Texas to North Carolina. I really enjoyed the "on the road" experience, and got to wondering if there were any jobs that involved lots of cross-country, day-on-the-road driving other than long-haul truck driving.
This isn't a serious investigation - I like my job, and wouldn't be able to be away from my family like that. It's just a hypothetical, "what if" kind of question.
A few years ago, I drove a car my dad was giving me from Texas to North Carolina. I really enjoyed the "on the road" experience, and got to wondering if there were any jobs that involved lots of cross-country, day-on-the-road driving other than long-haul truck driving.
This isn't a serious investigation - I like my job, and wouldn't be able to be away from my family like that. It's just a hypothetical, "what if" kind of question.
If you are a medical equipment rep or similar with a large territory you spend a lot of time on the road. I know some of the guys that sell/maintain our equipment are based in Atlanta but cover territory from Jacksonville FL to Charlotte NC and Birmingham AL to Savannah GA. Not exactly cross-country but a lot of time on the road. Also I know a few physicians that have satellite clinics all over the southeast, but they tend to fly rather than drive if it will be more than a couple of hours.
posted by TedW at 2:37 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by TedW at 2:37 PM on December 4, 2011
You could drive a bus for Greyhound.
posted by AMSBoethius at 2:38 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by AMSBoethius at 2:38 PM on December 4, 2011
Somebody returns all those moving vans and rental cars that are left in the wrong city.
posted by rokusan at 2:48 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by rokusan at 2:48 PM on December 4, 2011
Sales rep for a specialty firm where you have a large territory. If you had the background, you could be a regional sales manager (think Jan/Ryan on The Office) and be responsible for checking up on all the local sales reps/offices.
Guy I know down the street works for the state as an auditor, so he gets sent to all these different vendors to check their books for fraudulent billing, week after week after week. Depending on distance, he commutes daily or lives out of motels.
This is campaign season, and a lot of Senatorial and Presidential candidates need advance men (again, experience important here).
posted by dhartung at 3:05 PM on December 4, 2011
Guy I know down the street works for the state as an auditor, so he gets sent to all these different vendors to check their books for fraudulent billing, week after week after week. Depending on distance, he commutes daily or lives out of motels.
This is campaign season, and a lot of Senatorial and Presidential candidates need advance men (again, experience important here).
posted by dhartung at 3:05 PM on December 4, 2011
My stepdad's a software consultant with assignments all over the place (I usually start text messages with "What state are you in right now?") He only drives if it's going to be less time than flying, but with having to get to the airport two hours early, and having to drive almost forty minutes to the airport, and then baggage claim and all that, it means he drives up to something like 500 miles away, depending on interstate configurations and the like. He got started as a database administrator, but he's branched out a LOT since then.
He says that in not too many more years the main people who will be doing that kind of work are going to be subject matter experts (someone who understands HR or manufacturing or whatever) who do the interfacing between the client and the technical team. Many of the people he supervises basically never leave home anymore; the need for physical access to the equipment is greatly reduced compared to how things were a few years ago. The subject matter expert who was helping train people at my job on our new GIS system is based out of New York, I believe, and the legislation system representative is from Chicago (we're in Ohio,) and they were basically the only people who ever showed up on-site, so that matches with my experience.
posted by SMPA at 3:13 PM on December 4, 2011
He says that in not too many more years the main people who will be doing that kind of work are going to be subject matter experts (someone who understands HR or manufacturing or whatever) who do the interfacing between the client and the technical team. Many of the people he supervises basically never leave home anymore; the need for physical access to the equipment is greatly reduced compared to how things were a few years ago. The subject matter expert who was helping train people at my job on our new GIS system is based out of New York, I believe, and the legislation system representative is from Chicago (we're in Ohio,) and they were basically the only people who ever showed up on-site, so that matches with my experience.
posted by SMPA at 3:13 PM on December 4, 2011
I know someone who drives around the US every summer to film interviews with people from all over the country who are competing in an event that is held at the end of the summer. The rest of the year, he drives and flies to places to do more interviews of people who are training for the event or just participating in related things. It's sort of a niche profession and perfectly matches his skillsets in particular, but I would imagine that there are a lot of different versions of essentially the same thing out there.
posted by so_gracefully at 3:18 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by so_gracefully at 3:18 PM on December 4, 2011
I'm an environmental consultant, and it involves a fair bit of driving, especially at the entry level. My company more than most. I've done a fair number of road trips, including wacky ones where I, say, fly into Chicago, drive to Memphis, and fly home from there. I'd say our junior staff are on the road about half the time, and most of it involves driving, sometimes a lot of driving.
posted by pie ninja at 3:41 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by pie ninja at 3:41 PM on December 4, 2011
One of my siblings used to take photographs for Sears: on the road pretty much all the time.
posted by easily confused at 3:53 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by easily confused at 3:53 PM on December 4, 2011
Delivery RV's to dealerships and other locations around the country. Notwithstanding the "get-rich--quick" nature of this book's title, I've met a few people who in fact do this. Can't vouch for how much it pays, availability of vehicles, etc.... obviously.
posted by webhund at 4:20 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by webhund at 4:20 PM on December 4, 2011
Any job with multiple worksites spread out over a region. I'm an environmental consultant as well, but my fieldsites are in NJ, so they can only be so far from each other. If you had the same situation in, say, Ohio, or Wyoming, you could be going pretty far from one to the next.
posted by Strudel at 4:35 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by Strudel at 4:35 PM on December 4, 2011
There are lots of extreme niche maintenance jobs that end up this way. For an outdated example: I used to do IT support for an optical stereo photogrammetry system. We had a guy come in once a year to tune and maintain the physical part of the device. All he did 40 weeks out of the year was drive between clients and spend half a day or so per unit doing maintenance. He didn't fly because of all the specialty equipment the job required.
Also you occasionally run into this in not so niche jobs if you are very good trouble shooter or the company prefers to keep maintenance in house. My Dad once worked for one of the big discount motel chains in the states doing repairs on the refrigeration side of HVAC. He spent all his time driving a company pickup loaded with tools from motel to motel across California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico fixing massive swamp coolers and commercial refrigeration.
The travelling salesman gig isn't dead yet. For example many of items like sunglasses you see in non-chain convenience stores or gas stations get there via an independent travelling salesman.
Also: Roady or similar for mobile entertainment (bands, circus, mobile amusements, etc.). Especially the front man.
Finally I'll squeek this one in here on a technicality: Pilot car driver for over size loads. You go everywhere highway tractors go and pretty well on the same schedule but you get to do it driving a pickup or van. And for the most part you won't be driving at night or have to mess around with any of the back breaking labour that makes truck driving such a hard job.
posted by Mitheral at 4:37 PM on December 4, 2011
Also you occasionally run into this in not so niche jobs if you are very good trouble shooter or the company prefers to keep maintenance in house. My Dad once worked for one of the big discount motel chains in the states doing repairs on the refrigeration side of HVAC. He spent all his time driving a company pickup loaded with tools from motel to motel across California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico fixing massive swamp coolers and commercial refrigeration.
The travelling salesman gig isn't dead yet. For example many of items like sunglasses you see in non-chain convenience stores or gas stations get there via an independent travelling salesman.
Also: Roady or similar for mobile entertainment (bands, circus, mobile amusements, etc.). Especially the front man.
Finally I'll squeek this one in here on a technicality: Pilot car driver for over size loads. You go everywhere highway tractors go and pretty well on the same schedule but you get to do it driving a pickup or van. And for the most part you won't be driving at night or have to mess around with any of the back breaking labour that makes truck driving such a hard job.
posted by Mitheral at 4:37 PM on December 4, 2011
What webhund said about RVs goes for cars, too: I don't know much about the mechanics of the job, but I knew a guy who did very part-time work in this. He said you have to have a *spotless* driving record.
posted by Ys at 5:57 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by Ys at 5:57 PM on December 4, 2011
A friend works for a children's cancer research hospital in town that depends on financial donations. A quarter of her job is at-home, the rest is driving around to visit donors and pretty much check in and make sure they're still feeling supportive. She spends on average 5 days a week on the road, driving all over the midwest and the south, to larger cities and tiny little rural towns.
posted by ifjuly at 6:25 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by ifjuly at 6:25 PM on December 4, 2011
I know guys who own or work for "hotshot" delivery services. It's basically long-haul trucking but in a pickup truck or cargo van with only one destination.
posted by raisingsand at 7:41 PM on December 4, 2011
posted by raisingsand at 7:41 PM on December 4, 2011
Driving cars cross country for people who are moving cities is a steady job.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:29 AM on December 5, 2011
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:29 AM on December 5, 2011
Centralized used car dealers (think Carmax) often have to move a vehicle 500-1500 miles for a customer. Far enough to be interesting, but not away for weeks at a time.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 4:52 AM on December 5, 2011
posted by halfbuckaroo at 4:52 AM on December 5, 2011
I used to drive a delivery van that transported food (mainly cold cuts) between various restaurants, distribution centers, delis, and small food stores. I guess it's kind of like truck driving, but a lot more one-on-one interaction with the customers; you're actually selling them the product off of your truck, rather than simply acting as a delivery man.
(Oh, and seriously, don't go into this industry. It's seriously one of the sketchiest and sleaziest businesses I've ever worked in. I had more than my fair share of dealings with people who were probably in the Mob, actual Nazis, people who were just unpleasant in general, and the customer who didn't own a freezer who would only buy raw chicken from us every other month. I quit, and took a huge pay cut to work part-time for UPS, who were also fairly sketchy and needlessly adversarial to their employees, and it was nevertheless a massive improvement in my life.)
posted by schmod at 6:47 AM on December 5, 2011
(Oh, and seriously, don't go into this industry. It's seriously one of the sketchiest and sleaziest businesses I've ever worked in. I had more than my fair share of dealings with people who were probably in the Mob, actual Nazis, people who were just unpleasant in general, and the customer who didn't own a freezer who would only buy raw chicken from us every other month. I quit, and took a huge pay cut to work part-time for UPS, who were also fairly sketchy and needlessly adversarial to their employees, and it was nevertheless a massive improvement in my life.)
posted by schmod at 6:47 AM on December 5, 2011
Somebody returns all those moving vans and rental cars that are left in the wrong city.
Really? I'd imagine one-way trips would even out after a while, and manual intervention would need to be taken only in exceptional cases. On the other hand, that could explain why one-way car rentals are so expensive — higher costs for the company, not just that they gouge you because they can.
posted by cardioid at 7:46 AM on December 5, 2011
Net migration rates mean some places end up with a surplus and other places with a deficit.
posted by Mitheral at 4:56 PM on December 5, 2011
posted by Mitheral at 4:56 PM on December 5, 2011
I just thought of a couple more. Just the other day I closed on a refinance of my house done through an online lender. At closing there was a lot of stuf that has to be done in person, so they sent an attorney to my house with the papers. It turns out he is from Atlanta and they send him all over Georgia to do closings. He evidently has some pretty late days, though. He left my house at 7 pm and had one more closing in the area to do before he began the 2-3 hour drive back to Atlanta.
The most interesting traveling job that I have come across is a guy I met a couple of years ago who owns a company that places condom machines in gas stations all over the southeast. He has a couple of employees to help him, but most of his time is spent on the road restocking and emptying money from the machines and looking for new locations. Each machine doesn't earn a lot of money, but with hundreds, perhaps thousands of them from North Carolina to Louisiana he claimed to make a good amount of money.
posted by TedW at 4:42 AM on December 7, 2011
The most interesting traveling job that I have come across is a guy I met a couple of years ago who owns a company that places condom machines in gas stations all over the southeast. He has a couple of employees to help him, but most of his time is spent on the road restocking and emptying money from the machines and looking for new locations. Each machine doesn't earn a lot of money, but with hundreds, perhaps thousands of them from North Carolina to Louisiana he claimed to make a good amount of money.
posted by TedW at 4:42 AM on December 7, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
Also, you could be a driver for a band that is touring across the country. You'd drive one of those huge buses. Seems like that would be quite fun.
posted by fuzzysoft at 2:28 PM on December 4, 2011