20 years old and not sure about a career

I started trucking slightly older than you with a similar path dropping out of college. I never liked Managers looking over my neck so trucking works for me. Before the abundance if technology in trucks I'd say the industry was alright however the direction has shifted and currently there's a lot of financial deterrence oppose to other career choices including trades. The persistence of the Autonomous agenda is relevant so determining the Longevity point for 45 years for a newbie is the deciding factor for the year 2074. Regardless, teucking is a very adventurous career thats far from being boring because everyday is different and has exciting challenges.

 

Same here, dropped out of university, did some sea time in the Navy, then to long-haul trucking. No regrets with a trucking career. I hate local driving and found my niche with OTR coast-to-coast driving.

 

I am pretty sure your driver manager will laugh in your face with those requests.

 

The industry is really slow right now. THERE IS NO DRIVER SHORTAGE.

I liked plenty about trucking & hated some important things about trucking. I went bust trying to get all my pilot license/ratings. Then switched to aircraft mechanic. I graduated from college during the biggest airline recession in history & could only get low-paying jobs & went bust doing that. I got into trucking just before I became homeless & got a good job & learned a lot. My dad was a former Owner-Op & current company driver so he really helped me sort through what things set a good job apart from a bad one for me. I loved being alone, mission focus, someone else paid for everything but my food on the road. I grew to hate, hate, hate being treated like a mangy stray dog by 9/10 I would deal with. That eventually caused me to retire.

Trucking IS NOT a long vacation trip. It's barely enough time to drive from A to B and the shipper/receiver/dispatcher are lying to each other & blaming their mistakes on the driver.

I saved my money like a Scotsman & trucking got me out of debt inside of 6 months. I loved having my dog with me & really came to see the public like I imagine cops see the public, a bunch of reckless, lying, druggies, with nothing of value but excuses.

It was a VERY stressful job if you need to do it well for your own self-respect.

The newbies do zero research, expect to get results only the upper 10% of drivers can get, pay no attention to anything but their smartphone, have enough minor crashes or customer problems, get fired or start the bad job slide, and leave the industry within 12 months of starting.

Trucking can rescue you, if YOU do a lot of research. Or, it can be another problem in your life depending how selective you are in choosing where to work AND KNOWING WHAT QUALITIES YOU HAVE/NEED. Most newbies do no research & fail because they have never researched & picked among important options in life.

 

"There's so little freight coming out of Florida you may have a few days off after delivery but you won't be told in advance about it, and there's very little safe truck parking. He might as well plan on solving cold-case crimes between trips.

 

Until you are 23 you are less desirable as a new driver. EVERYBODY sees NEW & YOUNG drivers as high-risk.

Stay away for 1099, insist on W-2 jobs only. Stay away from owning or leasing the truck or trailer. Work 2 years as a company driver and learn the industry before you commit to paying all the bills for a commercial operation. No exceptions.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube about the life of a CDL truck driver. Some of them are true. Anyone with a flat brim baseball cap is probably lying.

 

So, I was about 23 when I dropped out of college; I'd grown tired of my degree program (was going for Geology at the time), and quit after finding out that most of the jobs in the field by then were either doing soil compaction tests for construction, or oil exploration in some of the most gawd-awful places on the planet. I spent a year driving a taxi at night, and wanted to see more of the world. So I signed up at a trucking school, passed all my tests, and 8 weeks later, I was driving OTR.

After about 4 years of going all over creation, and only getting home maybe once a month (and seeing a LOT of loading docks, by bypassing anything interesting...), I decided to try regional driving. Where I live, that meant doing cross-border loads into and out of Canada. Still only got home maybe twice a month, though...

Then, I got an automotive dedicated cross-border run (the first of 2, actually), driving from American suppliers to Canadian assembly plants, and got home every weekend. Did this for 3 years, and was ready to stop driving, or at least stay local.

Next job was a local bedbugger for a major moving company. Learned pretty quickly that bedbugging meant a LOT of lifting, stacking, wrapping, and not a lot of actual driving. Also, as the tallest guy on every crew (I'm 6'3"), I was ALWAYS on the downstairs end of anything heavy when taking stairs. I got home every night, abut after a summer and half an autumn of this, my back couldn't take it anymore.

Did a few temp driving jobs while going back to community college to start on an engineering degree. Drove a holiday mail run one winter, but also made some part-time money doing roofing, siding, window installation, etc.

Got into engineering school, and made decent money on quarterly paid internships, but the summer I graduated, took a job for a local ice distributor, taking full trailer loads to their warehouses in a 150 mile radius. Kept that going well into October (surprise, the Amish buy a lot of ice starting late summer until the weather turns cold...

Yeah, I made good money during that time, and it was worth the student loan I got for the trucking school, but it was the first investment I made for myself without my parents supporting me. I eventually grew tired of the grind of driving, but it put me into the right 'headspace' to get my act together, and get into a 'real' career. I consider my 8-ish years of driving to be a well-paid internship in life. There were also a couple of unexpected benefits:

First, although I spent a lot on sit-down meals, I was making better gross money than most of my friends were, which resulted in putting more money into my Social Security account than most 20-somethings were doing. Today, that is about to pay off.

Secondly, although I took out a lot money on student loans for my engineering degree, the folded-in the outstanding balance from my trucking school into the total, and then when they were doing loan-forgiveness for people with long-running (over 20-something years..) loans, my initial trucking school loan was about 33 years back, so they forgave EVERYTHING I owed after 25 years from that date, so not only was my balance paid off, but I also got a sizeable check from the treasury for all the payments I made going back some 8 years......

 

I dropped out of college to do truck driving. I loved it at first, now it sucks. I dont regret it but I would definitely choose a different career.

You wont he seeing amazing things. you will be going to the worst ghettos, tormented by cops and idiots, lunatics on the road, nowhere to park, dealing with miserable warehouse workers, long hours (no overtime pay), ect.

Im going on vacation in 2 months and plan on quitting this #### job when I get back so I can learn a trade and actually do something useful with my life.

If youre a truck driver everyone hates you (including other truck drivers) and will look at you with disgust when they find out what you do for work. The older truckers were cool but theyre mostly retired now so youll be associated with modern trash and demonized by the media.

Its a job for immigrants who cant speak english now. They have no respect for each other.

 

It’s a good job I think. I run local, wouldn’t consider doing anything else. Usually local work will be at least a 10 hour day or longer and start early morning. I’ve been doing it for 8 years and always early morning starts. Works best to get up around 4. I tell everyone a CDL is just as good as a college education.