Central Refrigerated Truck Stop II

I actually have an answer for that. I'm hoping Team Klingon and others will chime in, and see if they agree:

To be successful long term, you have to flip a switch in your mind. You have to just understand that during this phase of your life, you will miss birthdays, graduations, and weddings. You either accept that as part of the job, or you are miserable.

If you talk to drivers who are upset about something, its usually NOT that they are so upset about the delay at the shipper, its that they are delayed at the shipper, and they are now going to miss an important family event. In other words, the stress comes not from the problems of the job, but that the problems of the job cause you to miss out on important family responsibilities.

Look at Unloader and Chris91 and others. They have the attitude of, "I'm putting my stuff in storage, giving up my apartment, and making this my life during this phase of my career". This puts you in a position where you are not stressed out when things go wrong and you miss important hometime.

Just my observation...

 

You are 110% right sir!!

 

Couldn't've put it better myself. I would add though, when the problems cost you money the equation changes.

 

I like to think that attitude plays the most important role of success. I feel like I have a great idea of how otr drivers do it. I lived with my aunt and uncle for a year and they were gone 2 weeks at a time otr Driving. and guess who was taking care of their kids. so I came in knowing not to set any events in stone at home. It doesn't bother me one bit that I missed my family reunion memorial day. Its part of the job. if anything my family was upset about it. But they know what I do. You HAVE to know what you're getting yourself into. We had one guy 2 weeks into training who said his wife was already getting on him about being out. it takes a lot for anyone to do this job. Even more for people who have family. If you have a family and do this. you've earned my respect.

 

Met my trainer. he seemed like a good guy. He's on dole dedicated. He's on home time here in SLC until Friday. so now I sit and wait.

 

Good luck, rest up for Friday and keep us up to date. People like myself are throwing around the idea of a career change and I'm leaning more and more each day about doing it. Seems like my current job keeps getting less appealing with every day that goes by. It's posts like yours that will help me decide to make the jump. How did you like training overall?

 

It was great training, IF you listen and have that good attitude. If you act like they dont care, theyre not going to care. As far as training companies go, this is most likely one of the better companies out there.

 

Ok, this morning was a precursor to my whole day. I got up at 4:30 to drive 351 miles. Hit Washington DC around 8:00 but I figured all the bad traffic is usually in Baltimore... Yeah, no. There's a lot of constriction going on and it took me until my appt time, 12:00 to get where I was going. Get tere, some other guy has to turn around before I can check in and I check in only to find out they send me to the wrong building! Ok, drive around the block, spend 3 1/2 hours getting unloaded because they're slow at that Americold... Fine, push my time available back to 0200. Right before I leave I get a preset for 2230. Great. I accept it, there's already a trailer number and I'll at least make my delivery. I go to get my trailer washed out and read over the rest of the load info. They have to have your trailer by 2200! Lol. Ok... I tried. Didn't make it. When I was leaving Norfolk there was a guy who came out of a bottle and hazmat inspection station waving two match stick looking batons. I've never had my truck on a flight line but I slowly inferred he was trying to direct me into the station I had already mentally dismissed! Crap. Ok, I pull over past the station to find out what to do. He starts gesticulating all crazy like to get back In my truck. This is almost 1700 btw, 6 lanes packed with traffic. Ok, I smile, wave, and leave. No clue what his hand signals meant. Then right before the tunnel another DOT guy stops all outbound traffic with a stop sign just to come yell at me for not getting inspected. I've updated my books and had 3 preventative maintenance inspections in the last two weeks. I'm also clean and empty. I don't mind getting inspected but have somebody send clear signals well in advance! I can't just slam on the brakes because some dude just woke up an decided to wave me down with sticks!!! Wow. So, I didn't make my 01 and I'm stuck beside a cat scale until 0200. What a day! And it had nothing to do with home time. Some days just suck the life right out of you.

 

Central---Richie from wisconsin you out there???---Random Lake

 

Shop wasn't open either.... I was thinking the same line...