Is this a Sign to Quit Trucking?

Only thing that changes in trucking is the name on the door and rate of pay. It's practically all the same, even if it was your name on the door it would be the same because the market is going to dictate what you do and when.

 

I have received vastly different treatment at different trucking companies. I don't believe all trucking companies are the same. Some companies compete on every piece of freight on the spot market and other companies focus on direct shipping for customers.

 

Stay with trucking. Find something that gets you home more often if that’s what you want. Every driver I know, including myself, that quits to try something else ends up back in a truck. Every one of these guys if that preach you should get out of trucking would probably end up back in one themself if they ever got out of it. It’s totally a waste of time to try something else. Once a trucker always a trucker.

 

Well some drivers get to work with cows, doesn't that count?

 

Sadly, this is the truth.

 

What Chinatown said. If you go back to trucking go with a larger stable company with better equipment and benefits. It's a cannabistic world out there right now for smaller companies. There are plenty of larger stable companies out there with weekends at home, at least a re set. Depends on how much you want to stay in school amd what's most important to you..but you can do it with trucking, sounds like you haven't gone with the right companies. My current company is mid sized , takes.great care of their equipment and I've only had 2 minor 1 day long break downs in 18 months.

 

I am not a good example at all. I have always chosen the path that led me to work that I liked rather than worked that payed the best.

That said, it seems to me that the OP's heart isn't necessarily behind the wheel, which in my mind is a prerequisite for a career in trucking.

My experience with horses has been on ranches, and then to have around for the kids to pursue their pjassion if it involves horses. I was too poor to hire farriers, so I learned to shoe myself. Actually, the ranches that I worked on were pretty remote and the travel time alone for a farrier would have exceeded my miniscule ranch hand budget......that and the other guys would have laughed me right out of the barn. We still have horses around, but we are mostly a retirement home for them now.

"Horse" people can be amongst the lowest form of life known to mankind, or some of the best people you will ever meet - kind of like trucking I suppose. Having a steady relationship with a number of clients to take care of their farrier needs will take awhile to develope, and you will deal with a lot of low-lifes in the process of developing a good client list. End up at the tracks and very good money can be had, but it comes with a price.

My son went through the equine program at a local college and got an internship at a thoroughbred farm in Lexington Kentucky. He ended up staying there 6 years and became the assistant broodmare manager. The farm had two farriers come every week to trim horses on the broodmare side and shoe on the training side. Those guys were really good and really fast - and made pretty decent money I believe.

Anyway, while shoeing you are always one kick away from ending your career, but you learn to feel when a horse is going to come undone. I suppose in trucking you are always one crash away from the end as well, so that's a toss up.

I didn't catch what the OP was studying in Grad School, but it might have shed some light on which way to go. My advise would be to follow your heart and pursue what you think you will enjoy the most, for the longest. I am not rich though and continue to work in my mid sixties, but I still enjoy it!

 

Great Grandfather was killed when he was shoing a horse, he was a Farrier since he was a kid and took care of the ranches and farms around his homestead for decades. It was his own horse and from what I remember my grandmother telling me, it was a very good horse. Calmest and nicest horse they ever owned and never kicked, even after being stung by hornets.