What was your job before trucking? And After?

spent 15 years as a paid ski bum in Park City,UT( one of 3 resort u can see from i-80). Lift Operations Foreman,for the #1 ski resort in the US. for 3 years running( current rating) Also did a summer season working with our full time lift maint. staff, as well as a company that builds chairlifts. 4 of the lifts i help to build are still up and running, and will be for another 30 years.
Our lifts capcity with 19 lifts was 40,000 people an hour at fully loaded. But only saw major crowds during the holidays.
Was inside the 'fence' during the 2002 Winter Olympics. Running a lift/ crew for the Olympic Family. In at 4am, out by 10pm. 3 weeks in a row.

Met alot of famous/ rich people in 15 years,, from Eddy Van Halen to Dusten Hoffman, Cheech Marin, Tony Danza, Hilary Clinton and her daughter. Just to name a few

Burned out after 15 years. And company politcs were starting to play into things when it came to trying to get a year round position. They have about 300 positons, from summer Events crew, to trail crew lift maint. etc.
DO i miss yes, would i go back, only if i wanted to go back to being a seasonal employee, and didn't own a home.

The thing i liked most, free season pass, as well as skiing and or riding snowmobiles every day and getting paid to, had to get to the outer lifts using a snowmobile.
To this day i still have many friends still there, so connections for a lift pass are still there.

 

I'll be driving this fall, but for now I'm a computer programmer and with being with 3 companies in the past 5 yrs due to the IT field going to India, and my current job is going to India at yrs end, so I'm done with that crap.

I'm going to do something that I've been wanting to do since I was 4 (30 yrs ago), the IT stuff, cubicle life is for the birds. . .

 

What the hell is with that anyway? They sent our manufacturing jobs to china, and what we do have, they made robots that did it for us...they said it was so we could have high tech jobs. Then they sent those to india. WTF?

Sooo...I've been driving since 2007. Worked for CRST, Werner, now I'm going to training to pull a tanker for a QC affiliate company.

Trucking can be the worst job ever, or the best job ever. Depends on the day and job. Hell man I was on my way to this training class this morning, in my personal vehicle. Drove a couple miles out of route to buy an EZ-Pass transponder so i wouldnt have to dig out the quaters for I-294. Got back on i-94 and then realized the mile markers were going the wrong way. Yup, got on the highway the wrong way, in BFE Indiana! 8 miles to the next exit. I was sooooo mad. Especially since thats basically $1 out of my pocket. I might as well have just stopped at the toll booths. Oh well, the transponder will be nice in the future....

 

I was a roofer and framer for 30 years. 18 working for various other people, last 12 working for myself. When the housing boom went bust so did I. I've wanted to drive since I was 14 and working at a mom and pop truck stop. My business went bust so I figured it was as good a time as any. no regrets yet.

 

I tell ya and I'll say it to the day I die, if it wasn't for the outsourcing that these companies are doing, I don't think the economy would be were it is today. yes i know that outsourcing has been done for years and years but its done more and more and more everyday. Once that stops at the level it is, then I think the economy would rebound.

 

Outsourcing and consolidating/eliminating jobs through robots, yes. The economy would be perfectly fine if certain people had kept their heads out of their #####.

I've been to warehouses with robot forklifts who did their job all day without complaining, without taking breaks, without unionizing, without demanding raises, without arguing, never turned down overtime, never wasted time talking to each other. They just do their job with a cute litle beep beep beep...sounded very eery with dozens of these things in close proximity beeping away. I joked with the customer and asked if that was how they talked to eachother. Someone just tells it what to move and where to put it, and it found it. I delivered special pallets to them that have chips in them to work with these robots.

Near the CSX rail yard in Chicago, theres several railroad crossings with little signs "Remotely operated locomotives used in this area. Trains may be unattended.". What really bothered me about these in particular, was that not a single one of these crossings had any traffic control devices whatsoever. No gates, lights, not even a stop sign, just a little Railroad crossing X sign. The hell?

It won't be long before we have robotic yard dogs at our customers. Thankfully the technology to make robotic road trucks isnt here. Yet....

But they can still "outsource" the jobs by letting the mexicans do the job for cheaper.

 

-Dairy Queen cashier
-Hotel hostess
-Swimming pool company technician
-moving company packer
-was a lifeguard at a public pool
-delivered fried chicken for this little restaurant
-delivered for a local furniture company
-modelled for catalogues and mall and bus stop signs
-legal secretary (that's when I realized I didn't want a law degree anymore)



....yeah, I've done a little bit of everything

 

-first paying Job US Navy (DK3) 4 years
-factory worker (press operator) 4 years
drove for five years ( more than a couple companies)
-call center for 2 years
back behind the wheel now (last 6 months)

To be honest the money in trucking is the only reason I stay in it. I got to make over 40K per year and you can't do that in a factory or office without a degree any more. It's not like it was when my dad drove or even when I first started. The respect is gone and drivers are treated like parts to the trucks that can be replaced when needed. I am putting back money to buy my own truck and run it under my own authority so I can be my own boss. I would like to Co-Op with some other drivers to share the cost of Authority and get the fleet discounts on Insurance, mait, and fuel but every time I find some people interested in doing that they start getting greedy and coming up ways to add more trucks and scaming drivers to run them....not what I want to do, being ethical has a place in trucking, it's us drivers who has to get it back in there.

 

EMT in georgia and florida now a paramedic in flroida soon to be back in atlanta did 6 months on the road hated it went back to being a street jockey

 

For many years I was the "National Vice President of Technical Engineering" for a well known technology company. (I won't give the name of the company for obvious legal reasons...I have nothing good to say about them)
I grew up on a farm and on construction sites. Driving brought me back to my roots and I LOVE what I do!!! I don't miss corporate America any more then I miss a killer migraine mixed with the flu! I've only been driving for a little more then 7 months now but I'm 100% certain that I have finally found what I love...truck'n!!!