Still trying to get into trucking

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/6607529/trucking-giant-goes-bust

"Reports the cessation of the trucking operations of Burlington Motor Carriers Inc. in Daleville, Indiana. Failure of the company to find a buyer; Agreement of Celadon Group Inc. to buy the customer list of Burlington; Discussion on the causes of the company's bankruptcy."

I was looking for news articles or something that can help me tell my story. This gives a good description of what happened to me in 2002.

Hi, my name is Rob. I have been interested in trucking ever since my late father in-law hired me on to work for him driving and loading/unloading product for multiple businesses using under CDL class box trucks. After he died I tried a few odd jobs and even tried starting up his business again under my mother-in-laws name(I was only 20 and couldn't contract myself). Once that didn't work out(Dock manager hated me???? Don't know why) I went to MTC driving school and acquired my CDL. Went home for a week and got on with Burlington Motor Carriers. Did the orientation and got with a trainer, drove for about 2 and half months then came back to the terminal to take the solo test. That morning I walked in and took my seat in the test room and started to take the test. About 10 minutes into the testing the terminal manager(or somebody high up) told us to close our books and get ready to go home. I asked if Celadon would keep me on and they said no because I was too young and not enough experience.

Being out with short paychecks for almost 3 months I came home unemployed and had to take whatever I could at the time to get money fast. I started working for Waste Management. I worked for them for about 6 years until I couldn't physically handle the job anymore(it is a very physical job) due to overworking me(I was running my 5 one man routes, average stops 600, plus they made me run another route after they fired the guy that usually ran it and I was the only one to even touch that route while the guy's other routes were handled by 3 or 4 trucks. You want more details?).

After quitting Waste I tried to install satellite only to find out that the guy I was contracting through wasn't paying me what I invoiced each week. I was invoicing $600-$1000+ per week and he might throw a $200 check at me. I was contractor so I had to pay for my own fuel, tools, vehicle, and even the cable, cable ends, cable anchors, and other such parts to a satellite setup. I'd still be doing that if he would have paid me what he owed me.

Next I tried Swift, did the orientation and passed the road test(even after not touching a tractor/trailer since 2002 - it was 2007 or 2008), waited a few weeks and then sent on a Greyhound(oh yay a 12 hour trip sitting next to crazy people) to Harrisburg, PA. Waited another 6 hours for my trainer to show up. STOP!! Okay, before I go any further there is an issue I must explain. While waiting for a trainer to be assigned I had a shingles breakout(for those of you who don't know that is the adult form of chickenpox which is a form of herpes, not genital herpes but in the herpes family of viruses). The breakout was mostly over when they got me the bus tickets, the only thing that was left was scabbing around my eyebrow where the breakout occurred. I was not contagious and was safe to drive and be around people, it just needed time to clear up to look normal. Okay now that you know that once I met up with my trainer he seemed pretty nice and showed me to his truck and where I could put my stuff. He was starting his 34 hour reset so it was going to be a boring couple of days before we got started. I was tired and went to sleep. Once we woke up he went over how things were going to go as far as how he trains and then we started to get to know people. He asked about the scabs on my face and I told him the truth and that it should go away in a few days. He didn't know what it was and looked it up on the internet, saw the word herpes and pretty much called his DM to have me off his truck. After they got me a bus ticket home I couldn't get ahold of anyone from swift and nobody would return my calls.

After all that I went to an all time low of driving a cab, I did well the first year(averaged close to $500+ a week sometimes way more depending on the type of calls I got). Soon after my first year the company went dumb@ss and lost the city contract that brought most of our business. After that the company slowly turned to POO. At the end, OCT of 2012, it was so bad that 50% of the time they didn't have a car for me to drive even though I was on the schedule and I would be lucky to make $50 on the days they had a car for me to drive.

Luckily my wife found a job and I was able to quit. We are not liking our current situation and I really miss driving a truck(seems like its in my blood, even after that little bit of experience I got in 2002). My current plan so far is to start next semester(yeah I'm in college and I'm not liking it anymore-just not me) and when I get my college loans apply for a break and go train with CR England, unless I can find another carrier that will take me. The loan money is for my family and whatever expenses I will need during training until I start making money. I can still drive a truck(forward and back), I take my time though because it's been so long since I last drove and I G.O.A.L whenever I'm not absolutely sure about where my trailer is. I've only been in one accident(not at fault) and haven't had any tickets driving a commercial vehicle. But, most of my experience is in a Class B truck. My wife is okay with me being an OTR, she gets to be back with her children instead of at an office all day, but is worried about trying to get into it again. I really want to drive because it's about all I can do, I can't stand for long periods of time, like in a factory, because of an old injury in my ankle flaring my arthritis but I can do a few hours here and there of walking and manual labor and I can drive just fine.

I've already talked with CRE and have things set up but I still have my eyes open for other opportunities because of all the bad rep that CRE has. I have a positive attitude and know that that is 90% of what makes a successful trucker. I'm a hard worker and will take whatever loads they give me that I can run legally. I have filled out applications to Prime, Maverick, Stevens, USA truck, Crete, and many more. So far I've only heard back from CRE. All I really need is a few months with a good trainer to relearn the business again, especially with the newer qualcomm systems and electronic logs, the new DOT rules, and of course the company paperwork and procedures. I learn quick and can get the feel for any type of equipment very quickly and I always do my best to run safe in any type of job. Any suggestions to other companies that would be most likely to take someone like me with a valid CDL but hasn't driven for along time would be greatly appreciated.

 

I admit that my fault is in not pushing harder on getting on the road. However, my wife had played the "you just don't want to be here" card and I fell for it. Add to that that each time we had no money coming in so I had to take something that paid well enough to pay the bills. It is hard to go OTR without any living money for yourself or your family. This time is hopefully different. My wife and I don't get along as well and so this is a welcome break, she is also more positive than in the past about me going OTR. I'm getting ready to end a semester of college and start another one, 4-5 weeks after the start of the next semester I will be getting somewhere close to $4,000 which will give me the money I need to support my family, live on the road, and buy the travel supplies I need to go OTR. I would finish school if I could take classes the semester after next but I can't because there are no classes and I depend on the school loans to pay rent and bills we are behind on. No classes = no loans. It wouldn't be a problem if they offered those classes any semester but they don't and they won't make any exceptions, I've tried to get them to do it. My wife doesn't make enough money to support us without the loans and I can make in 1 week what she makes in 2. I'm partially disabled as in I can't work in places that require you to stand for hours on end but I can drive do pre and post trips and even load or unload a trailer on occasion. Hell, driving a truck is better for me than sitting in front of 2 monitors all day, plus I'll get paid! I'll still try to find a way to finish my degree when things get more financially secure. I plan on buying a good laptop and possibly transferring my credits to an online school and finish my degree while trucking. Sometimes you can freelance program for companies which I would prefer anyways even if I were to be at home.

I have set up with Maverick and have been instructed to call a month before I'll be ready to go which will be at the start of October. I'm making sure I'm in decent health, enough to pass DOT and Mavericks requirements. If for some reason I do not pass I'm simply going to call Stevens and if that doesn't go through then I'll call CRE and go with them until I get enough experience to go elsewhere(unless I like working for CRE). I'm not too picky and as long as I'm making enough money to support myself and my family then I won't leave, I can put up with a lot of crap if I need to.

I'm going to treat it kind of like I did when I worked at Yellow Cab. Some of the drivers were super picky and would refuse calls because of the type of people(elderly, children, drunks) they would have to transport. I only ever refused to haul 2 individuals because they were pissing all over my cab, which made that seat unusable the rest of my shift, or were threatening and incoherent. Because I was very easy to work with I got more calls and were generally liked by the dispatcher. Hell, I had the other drivers getting pissed at me saying I was paying the dispatcher or something to get more calls enough though I was simply just running the calls that were dispatched. To most of the dispatchers, until the end at least, I became the "go to guy" simply because I was always answering the radio when they called and ran the calls efficiently. The dispatchers job is to get the calls off of his sheet and logically if you run those calls the best you are going to get more calls than the other drivers. The other drivers never got that concept for some reason, but that was in Newark, Ohio - glad I don't live there anymore. So as long as I get the opportunity to show what I can do I'll probably do just fine, just got to get my foot back in the door.