"I am interested in starting a trucking business."

I used to own a food truck.

it was incredible how ignorant people are.

they all want to start a food truck, first off you need 60k to get something decent but you better have 100k in the bank because that thing is gonna break constantly and you’re gonna spend thousands on pots, pans, cambros etc.

They also don’t know anything about cooking. “Oh I can cook Bbq!”

ok cool, come talk to me when you can serve 300 people standing for 12 hours over a 400 degree flat top in a truck with a 140 degree ambient temp. First you better learn on someone else’s dollar once you can cook in a James beard award winning or at least nominated place then you might stand a chance.

it’s actually a lot like trucking. Cut throat as all hell.

 

Okay. What about the guys with 5 or 10 yrs company driver experience who just decide theyve had enough of the forced dispatch qualcomm BS and know that their own truck is the only way theyll get the level of control they need in their life. Are we to hate them too? What is it that makes the current batch of O/Os so righteous and the future batches so wrong? Are you current O/O's the only folks who can do it right and everyone that comes after you a guaranteed idiot?


I bet the last generation felt that way about a lot of you. Were they justified in that? Did you wreck trucking for them?

Devils advocate here.

 

I don’t hate on any owner op

just people who think it’s so easy anyone could do it.

 

And i do take it a little personal. Theres the resident lifetime trucker at my place.. Looks down his nose at me because im that new generation thats wrecking it for him. Well guess what?



This is his THIRD wreck just with our company in his 4 or 5 months.. And ive heard of atleast 3 others elsewhere. Now my company has repurcussions that effect me, the greenhorn that DOESNT eff stuff up.

 

I heard an old timer today crying about the snow how he wanted to go home.

lol we drive dump trucks, they can plow though anything, you got 20 tons directly over the drives.

keep your pushers up and man up.

 

Everyone whines about everything. Its just that when you self group with like minded whiners, it seems like your group is right and all the others are wrong. Im as guilty as anyone but deep down i know im just whining too, and that im pretty blessed to even live in america, even if it is in a smelly old truck away from my wife n kids most of the time.

 

True, it’s just what whiners you hang out with.

I work a seasonal job so when the snow flies watch out. “Just lay me off now! This is unsafe”

well, how the hell do you think the guys out west do it? Wait until spring? It’s 4” of snow, no one is asking you to drive in a blizzard.

 

I was hand splittin boiler wood in a cow pasture in the pouring rain most of last winter. "Layoff" = starve. By gods grace i finally got CDL and my first very crappy quarry hauling job.

Im not gonna let anyone make me feel guilty for wanting out of that rut i was in. I dont have some picture of every old OO on the road being an idiot and i can do it better. Its a sense of, theyre doing it and their kids have decent clothes and live in a warm house. If i do that and bust my balls mine can too.

 

I honestly believe that a lot of People subconsciously talk themselves out of any Occupation, when they’re nearing the end of their Career.Its always the same comments,” Ain’t what it used to be”,” new Breed” , This used to be a great job” etc. It’s a way of coping with life’s changes. They said the same stuff, 27 yrs ago, often directed at Me and other new Drivers.Theres different ways to age, one is to be bitter and criticize change, a better way IMO is to accept changes, and try to adapt. As an Oldtimer once said, the good old days weren’t all good. We tend to remember only the good. It’s Human Nature.

 

Yeah, there was less laws I guess but you had to drive trucks that wanted to kill you.

my wife’s dad drove trucks in the 70s until the 2000’s. A lot of fun stories for sure and wild times but also a lot of not so fun stuff he had to deal with.