The Weirdest Owner Driver Jobs Ever!

For most small business entrepreneurs, especially in the haulage and logistics industry, it is wise to choose a niche in the market for the sake of simplifying your business model. For example, focusing on one product type such as medical linens, office supplies or restaurant supplies helps you target customers and businesses and lets you choose the right vehicle that suits all your jobs.

However, the appeal for many drivers striking out on their own is the exact opposite of this advice. The freedom to choose whichever assignment comes your way certainly keeps it interesting. Here are a few recently reported owner driver jobs that are far, far from the norm!

Willing and Able

Some of the greatest companies have built their good reputations simply on the basis of flexibility. Being willing to go the distance and work with your customer to accommodate their needs (no matter how far-fetched!) leaves people impressed and grateful in this day and age of rigid, automated rules that we all generally encounter. An open-mind and a ‘can-do’ attitude are so refreshing that this alone exceeds most customers’ basic expectations. Becoming known as the company that can and will deliver is hugely empowering for any owner driver. Jobs in varying degrees of oddity might start flooding your way as word spreads of your willingness to take on any challenge!

It will take you Places

It is simply a rule of fate that people will need things while situated in far flung places where that item is completely inaccessible. Today’s customers are tenacious with their desires and will move heaven and earth to get what they want or need. Take for example the family enjoying their Christmas holiday in the sunny Caribbean found that they were lacking a key ingredient for their traditional turkey feast. Apparently cranberry sauce is not an item that can found on many tropical islands. So the family contacted a UK courier company who found the precious condiment and had it delivered from London the very next day. Some owner driver jobs will take you off the road but the challenge of pacing yourself with Father Christmas simply cannot be turned down!

Big Names Needing Little Things

Using your reputation for flexibility as a courier can get you known by some curious and famous names. When the BBC needed some vital camera equipment while filming a season of MasterChef in a remote corner of Tuscany, their options looked bleak. However, they found a courier service, known for dependability and resourcefulness, which understood that ‘the show must go on’ and delivered the necessary equipment without any muss or fuss.

Local owner driver jobs can be as weird and wonderful as you get if you are known for making things happen. Anything from time sensitive documents, to life-saving medicines, to warm homemade treats for homesick university students, will find you making a difference in peoples’ lives in some of the most unusual ways.

As an operation gets bigger and a company’s resources grow the requests can become even more exciting! Courier services have been relied upon by mountaineers needing supplies while attempting to scale Mount Everest! Celebrities rely on the care and discretion of delivery companies for any number of items ranging from football gifts to the White House, to sentimentally precious clothing items left behind in hotels such as custom-made bowties!

Superhero Tendencies

Owner driver jobs, like any other work within the service industry, can become mundane and routine driven. However, every once in a while a request may come in that makes you feel like throwing on your superhero cape and flying off into the sunset after saving the day! Keep an open mind and get creative with jobs that may seem logistically impossible. If anyone can make it happen, it will be you!

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world's largest neutral trading hub for same day owner driver jobs in the express freight exchange industry. Over 4,000 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading jobs and capacity in a safe 'wholesale' environment.

Writer and Online Marketing Manager in London.