i am making over 2 times more than i have ever made in my life...

Eh, this country was built on cheap (and at times slave) labor and continues to run on it to a certain extent. Mileage-paid OTR and regional truck drivers are a prime example. By typical standards it's a tough, thankless, high-risk occupation for borderline crap pay, considering the lifestyle sacrifices it demands of you + high level of responsibility and direct danger it places you in. There has been upward pressure lately on wages and working conditions as federal regulations continue to tighten and the pool of qualified applicants shrinks, but it will always be a fleabaggy industry IMO.

 

Yet.. the job is in demand.. someone's gotta do it

 

While we all feel we "deserve" more, one bottom line you seem to be experiencing is that if you are running OTR it is possible to "stack up the money". Other folks on this thread have noted they've bought a home and paid cash. How many other professions earning about $1000 per week could possible allow you to save up that kind of money? Normally someone needs to be paying rent, have car payments, utilities, insurance on the car, gas, etc. etc. so their $1000 per week disappears in a hurry. Then you get stuck on the "paying interest" treadmill of debt. In this profession it is possible to SAVE a lot of your paycheck. That's the big difference.

Regarding the "deserve" aspect of it, some have touched on the notion that in order to "deserve" something you need to demonstrate you are "worth" the compensation. Some companies will never pay as much as others. That's a given. It's up to you to figure out the next steps in your game plan to play "work up".

Have a Plan. Work the Plan.

 

No need to qualify that statement, this country always has and always will be run on slave labor. We simply outsource it now.

 

I have a plan.. I'm resorting to plan B and D then C before E will enable A to work.. there's always plan F

 

Somehow reading this post reminds me of watching newbies at a truck stop trying to pick a spot to park and get it in the hole. Can't make up their mind and never get set up properly. By the time I finish dinner and I'm on desert they're hopelessly blocking the lane...

 

however... it means things don't always go as planned.

 

After 1 year of Otr which is small compare to many Otr drivers IMO there is no company driver pay worth me staying out 3-4 weeks at a time from my wife and kids. I have an awesome conversation with an old timer who told me his biggest regret was being Otr for over 20 years and never have a real relationship with his wife and now adult kids. Otr is hard on a family man I thank god to see my family every weekend

 

Which makes your sacrifice all the more amazing to me. FWIW, you have my deepest respect.

 

For me the best year I had was half of what I made at my last job.

This job is easy compared to my last one. It is hard because of the people around me, the other truckers who can't drive and the yahoos who are idiots on the road driving without a clue.

My job is twice as dangerous as those OTR jobs, which I would do again if I had a chance. I have to deal with large heavy objects (steel and Zinc) that are put on trucks by people who don't understand how to read the weight limit tag on their forklift. Thursday had an idiot forklift driver drop a 26k block of steel because he got it up in the air (5 feet) and didn't understand his lift is only rated for 16k - so BOOM when the block, taking out a nice large chunk of cement and the guardrail on the dock. How can any one miss the BIG block letters that are stuck on the side of the block that says 26,000?