Why does it seem like the big companies have brainwashed all the drivers...

I'm just curious what you expected when you started driving a truck? Did you expect to be home 3 days a week? Every night? Exactly what did you think trucking was when you started?

 

When I started driving I expected to make a good wage and be home every night,....

Guess what????

I make a very good wage, have excellent benefits,..And I go home every night!!!!

 

That's life at the regular, big, bottom feeder companies. You know there are small ma and pa companies with just a few trucks out there that run regular routes and you are home for 2 fulls days after being out just a week or less.

 

I personally didn't expect that when I started. I expected to be gone for a few weeks at a time. That's what I wanted. I also make a very good wage, great benefits and am home every weekend. To each their own. What works for me won't work for the next and what what works for the next won't work for someone else.

It's not brainwashing it's just OTR trucking. I don't understand people who want to be an OTR truck driver yet complain and pizz and moan about everything the job is and isn't. If you don't like it find a new job.

 

I personally had no real expectations of running the road or of any of these companies. What makes me sad is that these companies really do brainwash a lot of people. Not so much the driver, but more of the lower managment. They give them "training" that is basicly just manipulative psychobabble reinforced with empty promises of money and grandure. And when it comes down to something bad happening, they r well prepared in the art of shifting fault. What ever happened to being honest and holding oneself accountable?

 

I knew that I would rarely be home and that I didn't care to come home unless it was an emergency but I don't have kids or any resoinsibilies to worry about besides a new car I had just bought. What I didn't expect was to gave negative paychecks because I was in areas where they didn't have freight or I was only doing little shag jobs. I knew I wasn't going to be making alot but it felt like I was paying my company to work for them.

 

Why is that you have to use the term "brainwashed" for these drivers. I think if they're sitting around the terminal discussing the pros and the reasons they're happy, that's a good thing. It seems there's so many people out here who want to make a negative out of anything, I speak highly of my job, I don't make a grand a week, I do pretty good, I'm home at night, but I'm also out of bed early to do my job, and it's not rare to put in 14 hour days but I still speak highly of what I do, I'm not brainwashed, I knew what I was getting in to when I took the job and I'm happy with what I'm doing. Let these guys be happy, and praise them for that, there's not enough of them out here anymore............

 

Good for you!
BUT! That's the kind of work YOU like and want to do...I would find it crushingly boring.
I make excellent money and buy my own excellent benefits...And I don't go home very much, But that's what I want to do and what I like to do.

You guys that think everyone wants to do the same thing crack me up...

Some idiot recently said that "If a union job was available in your area everyone here would line up trying to get it" or something to that effect...They were wrong!

I have never had any desire to be in a union or to work local for that matter...It just doesn't interest me and yet, I have made great money over the years and supported my family and have all the things that I want to have and had the ability to do that on MY TERMS!

That's easy, They expect to drive a big shiny truck, Make a million dollars a week, Work 8 hours a day, Get home every night and be treated with respect by every one around because of the tough job they do...

...

EXACTLY! These guys that aren't truckers but are simply "Doing this till I save up enough money to do what I really want to do" are the ones that are bringing down the standards in this industry
They don't intend to stay so they just leech what they need out of our industry and then leave and another loser waddles in and tries his hand at screwing it up to try and get what he wants out of it.

Meanwhile, The people that are in it for the long haul so to speak are watching these short timers break down the working conditions and wages across the board and causing most of the problems that bring the government in to try to improve safety when all that is needed to improve safety is to run the short timers and babies out of the industry and let us get back to work...Moving freight from point a to point b!

AGREE, 100%!