The Dream

Oh @Chinatown

 

I cannot stand corporate decorated speeching BS. I have stood up at time or two in carefully planned safety meetings and yelled "Thats BS." and walked out. (They can fire me...) Companies in which normal people come in and do what they can with the battle plan of day in the office to run a load to me to get then sure, I'll get it there.

Fears? There are many, but the better situation would be to continue to function, make decisions and follow through for better or worse. If you are lucky and early enough you wont be the one in the smashup. Instructors in school found I don't do well in the mountains so by the time they got through with me, mountains is all I did. I am not happy today unless I am on a mountain. There are little hills where I live. blah. Throw in old man winter with that ice and storm and I find it motivating.

OTR trucking is not terribly difficult anyone can do it. The problems lie in the schedules, regulation and people who are not nice inside the office. You call them up in the morning and get the following:

"GROWL. WTF do you want?"

And morning to you too. *Hangs phone up. If they are going to be that mean and cranky I don't need it. If its something important they have not get around to letting me know about then I'll find a company that will keep the information flowing. I'll take a nice 3 hour breakfast and try again one more time. If they have not improved then I'll take a day. If they don't like it they can fire me. After a certain age the old fear of firing has no hold like it does on the young ones.

Some days are better than others. There are also really bad days where you think why am I doing this at all? Am I that stupid? (Yes....) so you fix it and enjoy life.

 

Depending on where you live, there are local jobs around any urban area, straighte trucks, food ,booze ,lumber yards , home depot, not every driver wants the short hauls.

 

If you already have a CDL A, look around your local area for a small tanker outfit.

Foodgrade/chemical/fuel; make the rounds of 'em all. Maybe someone will be willing to train you.

I've done all three. I like foodgrade best(pays a little lower than the other two, but less DOT hassle).

Fuel used to be AWESOME, but ever since KAG got their greasy fingers in it it's a race to the bottom. Still, if you have nothing to compare it to, you might like it fine.

Beat the bricks, backslap and glad hand. You got nothing to lose.

 

My biggest fear was an accident and exploding in flames which seems to be more common these days, and steer tire blowout on a two lane road, or the other guys tire blows. The thing I would have done different was not pull a reefer, but a scateboard instead, or maybe a non fuel tanker. Just so you know, a manual trans in a truck doesnt shift like a manual in a pickup truck. You need to know how to double clutch. It aint easy.

 

My biggest fear is a head-on with a wrong-way driver.