A newbie with no direction.

Complainers are really loud and vocal.

The quiet ones like me tough it out and don't know any better. Stories are made from such things.

I cannot recommend any particular company, but urge you to consider that trucking is a lifestyle and to support that lifestyle means savings. The more you have ready to use during REALLY bad days or weeks is the difference between standing in the unemployment line or enduring say a Post 9-11 no pay situation (My payroll company was destroyed int he towers, we had 12K in savings enough to last about 2 months clear with zero income until the payroll was restarted.) And that was for two people also caught in the middle of rebuilding part of our home from a tornado damage. We paid that cash too. So the dollar piled up in your pocket will be your freedom.

We finished our time team for McKesson of Memphis. They are a very high dollar narcotics company and have like 5000 people monitoring both your tractor and trailer by qualcomm on your run. You back in, sit in cab are reloaded with cardboard right back to Memphis every time. You are prey in Memphis because every thug knows what you are leaving their facility. If you are a team.... have a look at them.

Dispatch? Essentially a mailbox with load packets to choose from or discover which one has your name on it. Presents I call them. I should not even have said that but there it is.

 

I pulled doubles. The skill is in making up a set & breaking then apart with minimum effort. Pulling them is no extra effort. They go around corners easier than a 53ft once you stop swinging wider than for 53. You corner like you only have the lead trailer. The rear trailer goes where the lead trailer goes. Swing LESS wide with doubles than for a 53.

 

Don't jump in and see what happens. That is what the loudest complainers did. They expect a company to take care of them often when they took a shot in the dark. Make decisions like the outcome is important. The outcome is important.

 

Anyone can do doubles. Even the best of them go to Rodeos with them. They are that easy.

Now... when you are on the NY Thruway and discover TWO FULL trailers with cabs that have the horse to out run you upgrade.... I spent alot of time around rocky mountain doubles and B trains, I rather have either one of those rather than a double or triple.

What we need to start doing is the Aussie Road train. String B train times 10 trailers and stick a German V10 Tank engine with 1200 horse up front on one foot double pipe snort.... They can pay me ten times the half dollar what I would be worth with just one trailer.

 

That's the oldest joke in the book still funny though.

 

My own story started out hauling bulk cement locally out of Hahn in Maryland. That was fun. Also training time too. In those days there was no limits on the American Legion Bridge that we all crossed at 100 plus in both left lanes as a herd back then racing for the Arlington Pentagon Silos.

Then I got into containers for Baltimore. I am responsible for destroying the stephens city scales at 137500 which is the max it read before it failed and dropped about a foot and change. BOOM. Fines started. With the recommendation Maryland scales get around. I got around that one too. Had to.

It's not a kind of experiences I can share really, it's a time that first year or two where you learn. And sometimes the Law will learn ya. If you don't kill someone first.

That is why Im general in my responses. Companies today rake in 100 bodies for orientation each week across the USA knowing half will have to go home by themselves. And many of them don't even have a 20 to get there. And some of the orientation material is the scum of our Nation, filthy unwashed and not expected to make the first year.

Since 9-11 you cannot go into Canada without a passport or a beefed up license. To go into navy bases or other bases you need a TWIC among other things. The so called captian of the ship is dead and being methodically beaten out of anyone still rolling. Rates fall so low below profitablity because there is always someone hungry enough to run across the USA for less than what it takes to fuel it there.

This industry is in times of trouble. It will get better.

Lesson, you are truly in a position to determine for yourself if you make it the first three, six or 12 months on the road. If you do... your chances of making it 5 years, 10 years or even life has gone up dramatically versus the other 99 who tried.