How Easy Is Trucking, from a truckers view

I don't imagine, cause while your already up the road. They are all still in the process of hitting 4th gear.lol

 

Depends what type of work you do. I have lost a lot of weight since driving... mainly due to being happy with what I am doing, climbing in and out of the truck and trailer all day, moving skids with a pallet jack and the fact that I am so BUSY I dont have time for the treats I used to have!

 

Yeah, I've lost weight too from trucking. I think from being less sedentary -- in and out of the truck all the time, wheeling dollies up and down.
But I've never used a pallet jack; I hope nobody would ever let me 'cause I sure don't know how.
I like Schneider's "bump and run" technique (no, I'm not a Schneider driver, but I have practiced this method) for coming up on mature red lights -- down to 8th, down to 6th, down to 4th -- that way you often don't have to run all the gears again, just carry on from 6th or 8th or wherever you're at when the light turns green and traffic in front of you clears.
Maybe I'll find the job easier if I ever learn to bump a loading dock more gracefully; I'm getting better but it's a slow process.

 

It takes time, and its so pleasing not to bump hard when you get the hang of it!
A few days ago my trailer air valve blew in a customers dock, and I tried to move the trailer out, and the brakes slammed it back into their dock when I took my foot off the accelerator... was so embarrased... when I went in to apologise they said they dont even hear it anymore!
Sat for 4 hours while the mechanic made his way there, fixed part of it, went for parts and finally finished. Thankfully rush hour on that dock was past when I was blocking their door!

 

Etosha,
Oh dear! It's a bit like what James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small) said about being a veterinarian, that there are endless opportunities for feeling like a fool. I'm glad it worked out.

 

driving a Semi isn't all that hard it just takes time to make the truck your comfort zone, and you need to learn how to control your stress dont freak out just because your going into a big city just take it slow wide turns and watch out for idiots and you will have a great time seeing the country something that not many Americans get to do..

 

Every day presents itself with these opportunities! Usually they work out OK, and sometimes its difficult to find the funny side!
There is one place I go into regularly, where I have to wait at security for her to call the receiver, who then arrives at the gate on foot, and I have to follow him on site as he walks. I asked why I have to travel behind him, and he told me, straight-faced that its to prevent accidents with pedestrians or equipment on their site! (Can you imagine all the accidents that could be prevented if every truck had a spotter while they drove forwards all day??? I can see spotters being run over...)
Anyway, when I leave the dock of this place, I am free to go without a spotter... Soooo???? Are there no hazards on the way out? All the pedestrians on coffee break? All machines shut down?
I still shake my head as to the logic of some of these places.

 

If theres an ice storm you get sent through it with a HOT load. You're always gone Saturday and Sunday when the kids are home and always on their Birthdays. You stay up til 3 AM, you eat crap at truckstops and it all smells tastes and looks the same. The coffee is 90% bad unless you make your own. The toilets in the South are filthy, the showers so dirty you feel cleaner before. People love to hate you, the state police, every small town and city cop, DOT, 4 wheelers, Naw, its easy. Oh, Swift drivers hate you because you can outrun them too. Any Questions

 

It's been a while since I was driving (1996 to 1998, then locally for two more years), but I remember it well. I was scared at first, then I found it mundane, and it was always stressful.

When I quit it in 2000, I said I'd never drive again. Actually, working locally was more difficult because you wanted to be to your third stop by a certain time of the day, and the fourth stop and so forth so you could clock out at straight-up 5 p.m. and be home drinking cold brew by 5:30. When it didn't happen like that, you got stressed. Also, you took your route for granted, and if there was some unusual traffic jam, then it'd ruin your day.

As stressful as over the road was, I miss it and want to get back into it. This time around, I don't have much family left, and home time won't be an issue. I remember back 10 years ago, I missed home something awful, and didn't want to get back in the truck after only three days at home.

The worst times I remember being on the road were L.A. and NYC, of course, and what made me quit the long haul was a god awful trip to L.A. where I had five stops, and then picked up at three different shippers to get out of there. That one trip from North Carolina to L.A. took like three or four days, and then it took three or four days to get unloaded and reloaded and back to Memphis. That was a hellish trip.

I hated sitting and waiting whenever I was on the road, especially when you had to stay awake and wait. That sucked ballz.

But it had it's good times too, like when you're out in Kansas or Nebraska and the traffic thins out, and you can pump up your stereo and that's real freedom -- or a sense of it. You're doing your job, your boss isn't around, and things are going smoothly.

I also liked having money, and being able to save money so that I didn't worry about my bills all of the time. And I liked it when things were moving way ahead of schedule and you could just stop and sleep whenever you got tired -- rather than those 1-day 700-mile trips where you had no time to even get fuel (but you had to, of course) -- and those string of like three or four days of 1-day, 700-mile trips and you had to forgo the shower for like a week because you just didn't have time. That sucked ballz.

I remember being lonely on the road, but then making friends and occasionally seeing them at truck stops or warehouses. i remember once a buddy and I left our trucks at a yard in South Chicago, and then took a cab into the city and went bar hopping. That was too fun to hang out in bars and you know you'll never see anyone in there ever again. We were hitting on babes that were way too hot for us, but we were having fun getting rejected. Lated we ran from Chicago to New Orleans together, and then we were both loaded at the same place north of the city, and then carried loads of Tobasco sauce to Villa Ricca, Ga. That was like 1200 miles together laughing on the CB about our bar-hopping days in Chitown. WE had drivers all over listening to our conversations and we were killing them with our stories. That was fun.

But having been off the road for so very long now, I miss the money most of all. And I'd love to get rid of my house, sell this freaking thing and get out from under this mortgage. You know, I do want to retire someday, but I'll never do it with the job I got now.

There's little you can do these days to make money as quickly as I did when I was on the road. I remember in '96 when I got into it, I was $3,000 in the hole from credit cards, and another $1,800 in debt for driver's school. Within a year, everything was paid off, and it was the only time in my life that I could go visit my brother and his family for Christmas and come with nice, thoughtful gifts for everyone.

Now I'm back in debt and I need to hit the road again.

 

Depends on the indiviual. Its all in attitude and patience. Everything is in the setup. Your frame of mind on how you start your day has a lot to do with it.Are you running on time or early. Do you know exactly how to get where your going.

Driver can do alot to lesson there own stress. Its kind of a decision you make every day. If course there is the soccer Mom thats not going to let you have an easy day.

But bottom line we all decide who much were going to let the outside world take its tole on us. For me life is too short to get to up tight if avoiable.

I try to know exactly where Iam going before I start my day, And I try to leave enough time so as not to be in too big of hurry. But, I do run Los Angeles, Vegas, Orange County, Denver, etc and there are days when you consider another career choice.