Career change, from office culture to trucking. with a 2 year interval in mechanics and construction

I'm the IT Director for my company. Drivers dress casual when they are here for interviews. Many of them are covered head to toe in tattoos, are wearing work clothing and stopped in while on their route, etc. No need to overthink it just don't wear flip flops.

Learn the difference between being a driver and bring a steering wheel holder.

You'll eventually get over the culture gap. Don't let people take advantage of you.

Speak confidently but don't talk too much.

Sounds like you got cold feet about the culture shock more than anything.

 

You know you got it made when you wake up in pitch black dark sleeper with a rushing urge to piss. You lean up piss in a jug and lay back down to sleep . When im home in like dang IV got to walk all the way to the bathroom and try not to piss on the seat. Trucking is freedom

 

I have a degree in English, I was a journalist for five years before driving, and I taught myself Linux to run a file server from my house. We're out here. We don't always fit in, but that's okay. Honestly you won't have much interaction with other drivers. You'll be too busy driving.

Navigated correctly, this can be an extremely lucrative career with little stress other than time management.

 

Early on in my career, I had a shipper tell me that I was too nice and well-spoken to be a truck driver.

Now at my current company, I would say the majority of the drivers here are like me. And quite a few of them have degrees. There is a place for unconventional drivers.

 

I’ve got a finance degree from a top tier public university and worked in sales after college selling to lending officers/CEOs of small to midsize companies. A couple of company buyouts/bankruptcies later and I realized I started to hate sales and the smiling face backstabbing of the white collar world.

When I started truck driving it was positively scandalous among my white collar “friends” (mostly doctors/lawyers/tech executives). You would have thought I had gotten into gay porn.

The cold truth is that, after this switch, you won’t fit into either world completely anymore. Most truck drivers will think you’re not sufficiently “Street” to be one of them or will whisper that there’s some skeleton in your closet they don’t know about. The white collar folks will forever brand you as less-than-them. Old white collar friends will ask about your new life just so they have a punch line for their next conversation at the country club.

That being said, you’ll have some amazing experiences in this job if you decide to get out of the cab and explore.