4 Questions from a Wannabe Trucker

As one college grad to another, I drive because I like driving. I don't like drivers, I don't let the other drivers whining bother me, I listen to talk radio or music and play a flute (Wood instrument used in Indian nations). The meds and being bipolar can certainly become an issue especially being OTR and perhaps not being able to renew a prescription (what are you like off the meds?).

Advice I've gotten has seldom been useful but I do listen as it may give me a different perspective.

I don't drive for the money because the hours hardly justify the pay... but it is nice being able to "turn off your employer" while you're delivering a load. Rather than buy one of those 'hands free devices' I simply turned off my phone to meet the new DOT regulations. Now, if they want to reach me, they use THEIR equipment (Peoplenet or Qualcomm) to communicate with me rather than using mine. My phone is for my convenience, no-one else's. I'm required to have it but that doesn't mean they have any rights to it since I'm the one paying the bill.

Advice?... do what you enjoy and you'll never work.

'Bigfoot'
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Tuba/Suzaphone, Trombone or Bassoon would likely be very difficult to play in your truck.... and please do not be playing some loud instrument at a truck stop at 9:00pm when I am trying to get some sleep.... You will have to be parked with nobody else close by in order to be blaring your trumpet in the truck, even in the middle of the day... there are some drivers who drive at night and sleep during the day.... Wouldn't want to see ya get your musical equipment grabbed from you and used as a "windshield adjustment device!"

 

That phrase always makes me laugh. It's a job, even a career, that you may love, tolerate, or hate. I haven't seen Robin Leach doing any interviews in truckstops or terminals, in 30 plus years.

As to the OP, 23 is generally the minimum age for insurance requirements. As to an instrument, a grand piano generally will not fit, but my kazoo does!

 

Bottom line is this....you gotta do what makes you happy. Even if you struggle in the beginning, dont give up. I know lots of people who get up every day and go to a job they hate (been there myself). There is nothing worse than going to a job you hate (well maybe having a terminal illness would be worse). But I am a believer that if you love your job, you will find a way around all obstacles to get where you want to go, and your own satisfaction and happiness will follow. And if you keep the left door shut, paying those college loans will not be so bad...good luck

 

After I retired from a management job, I went to a community college for my cdl training, and we had a class of about 15 - 20 students. A few dropped out on the way. The skills I saw others having problems with were mostly backing up a tractor trailer. We had cones set up for about 4 or 5 different backing exercises....and we could back for as long as we wanted for a couple of days. Some guys just couldn't get it.

Some guys had some trouble with shifting, but most eventually got it figured out. A few guys had never driven a stick shift before, and one of them dropped out, after he broke a universal joint by not using the clutch when he braked to a stop. ( A brand new universal joint, no less)

I started working the last week of the program, as did most of the guys (we had one gal in our class). I only drove as a relief driver, so I only drove once a week for 600 miles. My first task was to back the truck into a building so I could get loaded....made me nervous, but I had a guy watching me, so it went ok. I did bump the mirror on the doorway once..... Backing into a building is interesting, because you cannot see into the building, unless it is really lit up well, which most are not. Another time I had to blind side back into a building with a power pole on my blind side, that had been scraped so many times it was flat on the side that got hit all the time. I got it in ok, with no damage. I have never damaged a truck, and have pulled some tanker trailers with some damage to them.

I had a lot of small mechanical problems on just about every load I hauled. A fuse panel problem, a rear fender came loose and fell off--that was pretty #### exciting when the rear tandems tore it off and drove over it, a fuse problem, a loose wire on the connecting wire to the trailer -- no brake lights....not good, a flat tire at midnight--no one in rural South Dakota is open at midnight to fix a flat tire....park it and wait until 8 a.m., a broken air line hose that resulted in the trailer tires trying to lock up--they make a lot of blue smoke that you can't see at night until a car's headlights light it up for you to see. All these problems result in time delays and problem solving on what is the problem and what needs to be fixed and who can fix it. You, your boss's shop, or a service call to the roadside.

One of the other drivers in my class got hired by the same small company I did. He had a rear end go out on his truck....twice. He didn't like to back up or crank up a trailer stand. He didn't last long there.

I really enjoyed driving a truck, as it was something I had always wanted to do, but I only did short runs during a 24 hour period. I have sleep apnea and driving did disrupt my sleep patterns....but I would pull over and take a nap if I needed one, so that helped greatly.

Good luck to you.

 

If you have school debt, now, how will you pay for trucking school?

Trucking is a dead end career, that will always be out there. You can get into it later, if you want to or need to survive.

That said, I have several siblings who were professional musicians, and it's very hard to make a living doing that, also.

 

Well, you have to weight the pros and cons of it, and you need to think of what you want both out of the industry and out of life. Things such as...

Relationships: Do you dream of the house with the white picket fence and the two or three or however many kids? Do you see yourself pitching baseballs to them in the front yard, or whatever? Are you with someone now? Will they handle extended absences well? Me, personally.. the last girl I dated committed suicide, by taking a bunch of sleeping pills. I was there when she flatlined for the very last time. Suffice to say it put me off from dating and relationships for a very long time. So, running OTR and putting in long hours in the road building industry suited me fine in that regard - I had no time for and no interest in relationships. But that changed in 2010, and that's why I moved from North Carolina to Colorado. And the job market sucked, so I bit the bullet and went back to running OTR again. I'd be out for a month at a time, home for a few days, then back on the road. She didn't handle it so well, and I was essentially given an ultimatum to get off the road, put my GI Bill to use, and get back in school. Some drivers have a significant other who handles it much better... but the divorce rate in this industry indicates that they're not in the majority. So you need to consider what your ambitions are as far as that goes.

Social life: I'm not a particularly social person. So it would seem like a job which doesn't allow me to have any sort of life would be perfect, right? Well, not so much. Prior to trucking, I was a Combat Medic in the Army. I was no more of a social person back then, but others in my unit pretty much coerced me into going out to clubs and such with them on weekends (I actually had to borrow collared shirts when we went because my civilian clothes consisted almost entirely of Slayer, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Morbid Angel, Megadeth, Emperor, etc. band shirts... I'll never be on any 'best dressed' lists, ever). So I'd actually go out and do things, and I enjoyed it. Once I was out of the Army, that all fell by the wayside. Had I gone to college immediately afterwards, perhaps I'd have taken the opportunity to go out and do things, maybe I'd have done more to enjoy what are supposed to be the best years of a person's life. My peers would be out partying, traveling, etc. while I was scrambling to keep the guy who'd been hit from bleeding out, or while I was driving all day and sleeping in a 70 inch box at night, or while I was working day in and day out to try finishing up a road building project which had gone into penalty phase, or while I was working in New Orleans after Katrina. Maybe. There's no guarantee. I could've ended up being a complete shut in. I don't know, and I'm not going to know.
So, where do you stand as far as this goes? Do you think you'll essentially become a paid tourist, as I've seen some commercials for truck driving schools imply? Because you'll be in for a lot of disappointment if that's what you're expecting. Do you think you'll have the option to stay out until you feel like coming home, then head straight home? Negative on that one, too.

What appeals to you: I started OTR. It is not my gig. Getting called up by the Guard to deploy to Iraq was somewhat of a blessing in disguise, because it broke that cycle, and started the chain of events which got me into the road construction industry, where I not only hauled equipment, but I got to operate it, I got to finish concrete, I got to do asphalt work. The hours I worked were ridiculous, but I loved it. It was a job where I could be dynamic. I never wanted to be just a truck driver. The only reason I was able to put up with OTR again after I moved here was because I liked working the people I worked for. If I'd have gone back OTR again with one of the major carriers and their 62 - 65 MPH governed trucks and their annoying little Qualcomm systems chirping at me, I'm sure I'd have miserable the entire time. So you have to think about what appeals to you. To me, these guys who spend 20 years OTR and profess to love it seem insane to me. On the flip side, when I'd talk about working sometimes over 20 hours shifts, frequently loading and unloading equipment, working pretty much nonstop throughout this period, and being happy with it, I probably seemed the same way to them. Some of these guys have only ever known the road, and yes, they can be passionate about it - they'll know every route, they'll know every type of weather condition there is to know, etc. and they'll pride themselves on that. Then you have people like me who've had very dynamic experiences, who've worked a variety of jobs and operated a variety of equipment, and take pride in that. Each group has advantages and disadvantages over the other. I have a little side gig where I run a TT through the mountains to Kremmling and back. And I know how to drive through it, but I don't have as much experience with mountain driving as people who've been doing it on a regular basis. That's one example.
So you need what your goals are ultimately, what your options are, and what your path is to achieve those goals, and what the pros and cons of various industries are (after all, there are substantially more options for a CDL holder than just running over-the-road).

Is this your be-all, end-all dream job, and will it stay that way: When I first got a CDL, I thought it was the coolest thing ever that I'd be driving an 18 wheeler, I'd be in a pretty solitary work environment, etc. Ten years later, I decided it was time to hang it up. When I first started, I never imagined wanting to anything else. Well, things happen which can change your perspective. Good things, bad things.. doesn't really matter. I was fortunate.. I managed to get into a new career field. Which, when you're in your 30s and you've spent a decade already in a particular trade, dropping it for something different can be an iffy proposition. Now imagine someone older who'd been doing it twice, maybe three or four times as long. They're kinda locked in at this point.
So, that's another thing to consider.

Industry turnover: This is a big one. This is an extremely high turnover industry. Many who get into it will not last their first year. Look at all the complaints about the many different carriers ("Report a Bad Company Here" is the section to find this). Look at how many threads there are on this forum by people who ###### up one way or another and can't find employment anymore (DUIs, accidents - some of which involve fatalities, etc.). Now, as an OTR driver, you could put in between 100,000 and 125,000 (maybe even more) miles on the road in a year's time - that's a lot of opportunity for things to go asunder. So you need to consider that.

Health and fitness: Go to a truck stop sometime and assess the number of truck drivers who are in shape vs. the number who are out of shape. Note the amount who are grossly out of shape and morbidly obese. That should cover anything I'd have to say on this subject. So, then you ask yourself..

"Do I have the self discipline not to let myself become a tubby-tubby like these no-touch freight, drop and hook guys, who only ever waddle their porky ##### out of the cap to pull the kingpin latch and do up their air lines?"
"Do I care if I end up like that?"
Questions like that.

I can't tell you if this industry is the right fit for you or not. I hope I gave you some useful points to contemplate over, and that it might provide you some assistance in making your decision.