Hello from South Jersey

Hello guys and girls, I just finnished my CDL course and got my license yesterday. Hopefully I can find a "regional" job. I'm starting out my driving career at 49 years old. For the past 30+ years I've been an Auto mechanic, Like most other jobs it's been a steady decline of pay and more demands placed on us greasemonkeys (probably sounds familiar to you folks in this career as well). I've thought about driving as a career for many years, I have a lot of years experience pulling trailers behind pick-up trucks. While that has nothing to do with driving 80,000 pound loaded 18 wheelers, it does teach you to drive defensively and co-exists with other "not-so-skilled" drivers out there. There are no perfect jobs, you have to take the good and the bad with any career. After 30+ years turning wrenches I'm really looking forward to a different type of "good and bad" circumstances, Lol.

 

Thanks. It sure will be a change. And at the dealers (car), being a class A mechanic doesn't pay anymore. You watch the oil change techs doing cash brake jobs, services and money making jobs all day long. The class A guys get the warranty problem cars that don't pay anything. Ten years ago dealership mechanics brought home about $1,000 a week. Now those same guys are bringing home about $400 a week. We all used to joke about our class A status. If I had to go back to wrenching I would quit my jobs after 6 months so everywhere I went I can be the newbie. Just do money making cash work all day long and leave the electrical nightmares and "check engine" light cars to the class A suckers, Lol.