Is it really worth it?

I started driving with 3 kids and 4th while driving. I ran regional from Indiana to Wisconsin. Enjoyed the work and the money. It was a better time economically. The run let me get home almost every night for a couple hours, sometimes just a shower and a meal during the week. Was home every weekend.
After the children got out of high school. I started running OTR. Where ever the best paying jobs took me, that's what I did. Now I'm hooked into hauling 60' beams. Which I can be home everyday IF I choose. IT is a local run 600 miles 300 miles each way from my house.

 

why am i still doing it!!!!!! the local wages aren't there, nor are the jobs. haven't been since the economy tanked 7 years ago.

made darn good money driving dump trucks for construction. work hard in the summer cuz your going to need that cash in the winter. there's NO buying the toys. won't be able to afford them in the winter.

you can't put a price on family, or newborns for that matter. starting out, will hurt you financially, but if you can manage being poor for the first little while, and work your way like the rest of us had too. good paying jobs are out there like china suggests. but they aren't always good paying. i came out on the road becuase the local work dropped in wages. BIG TIME. if the economy goes south, so do the wages. but that's with pretty much most professions.

the company i'm with now. will work year around, but winter time is coming. they pay pretty good. and it took me 7 years to get BACK where i was when the economy tanked. it's not a bad company, but it's not what i want to be doing. but untill i find the wages somewhere else. it's where i'm at. and so far, the best i've found is $15.50 an hour on 40 hours. no overtime.

i'm still here because it's where the money is at, at the moment. but i'm with most of the other posts. this profession sucks with all the rules we have to deal with, and the pigs that drive trucks. (yes, you all complain about them on this forum). this is NOT the profession i would recommend to my own kids.

go back to school, well, as you get older your life is pretty much set when it comes to finances, you can't exactly just walk away to go back to school. learn a new profession, and start at the bottom of the barrel all over again. and my brain has absolutely no desire to go learn another profession. i hated school when i was a kid. i WON'T like college when my life is almost over.

stay at home, be with your soon to be new family. you WON'T make the same money your making now doing construction. not at first. and right now, you can't afford to struggle and buy 5 million diapers a month.

unless your up north, at which you'll probably be struggling anyways. through the winter.

everyone wants to be a trucker, most drop out in the first year.

 

I think the same could be said for a lot of people who have done the same career for 20 or 30 years and when asked if they would recommend it, it suddenly becomes the worst line of work known to man. People get burned out, and also many job professions probably seemed more fun 30 years ago with less regulation and better employers in general who werent just out for themselves.

 

Hard work beats tallent when tallent fails to work hard!

This can be a good career for those who are willing to work for it.. You must learn the skills and develop good work habits and ethics...

If I meet a driver who is doing well and I get a chance to talk to them... I shut up and listen. .. success in this industry is all the little often over looked thngs that make a big difference. ..

 

My OCD won't let me past the possibility of having a baby. Did me Mum lie to me - Can boys really have babies?

 

I look at the individual, and what they are asking, Im not a recruiter as some here would appear.

This situations as described by the OP, does not dictate a response of join the OTR team.

His situation. IMHO, he is better off making the same if not more money is less hours, also enabling him to spend time with his family, so IMHO I certain, do not reccomend a job that would deprive him, his wife and kids the time they need to be a family.

If he wants to spend long hours away from home in a small cramped enviroment, miss birthdays, annaversarys, kids playing sports, school plays or just telling his kids bedtime stories, then by all means, Join Stevens one of the absolute wrost training companies.

 

You will either love it or hate it trucking that is. Only one way to find out

 

But as a wannabe you dont know that. Trucking has provided me a very good living, I have alway drove jobs to get me home alot while the kids were growing up. I was raised by a second Gen trucker that an shakey to chi or Hunts bak to Shakey town. I wish my Dad would have been around when I was growing up. He did reach me to drive and as adults we spent ots of time together, but that cannot replace him when I was a kids.

This kind of question can not be answered by those whom are not and have not been drivers. Sorry just the way it is.

Bang in them nails Mr.Carpenter and have a beer that one of us brought you for all of us. Enjoy the wife and Kids, or someone else may.

 

If you can get into local trucking with good hours go for it. Otherwise keep your job. Being away from family is not worth any amount of money. I got straight into local, work Monday to Friday. Start at 6 am off between 2 and 6 pm . usually around 3. Good money to start. So it can be done. It took me a lot of applications and interviews to find the job that I wanted. I would never spend a single day OTR away from my family no matter what they pay

 

It's official. Ltl or nothing if you get into the trucking industry. Compare the differences to those who think otherwise.