No wonder truckers are paid so little!

Everyone gets what they want out of life.

Some can say they want $70k but they don't really WANT it. If they did, they'd go get it. What they really want is to have no responsibilty, no financial risk and no thinking.

So they get it.

 

Not me, i dont make 70 grand a year, dont want it either. No desire to work so f'in hard for money and stuff just to have no time or energy to use it. Ill stick with what ive been saying for years, what i want more than anything is contentment. To be happy with what i have. And for the most part i have it. could have more but eh, then there would be nothing to complain about, and i am a truck driver after all......

 

I agree with you both.

Being happy is more important to me than money. My dispatcher asked me if I could change to a different company, doing the same thing I'm doing, but make $15k more per year, would I do it? I told him no, the way I'm treated by dispatchers and my terminal manager is what makes me stay here. I make good money but I could make more at another company around here.


I'd rather stay here and make more in the long run.

I still believe starting wages for people new, coming into this industry aren't bad. my 1st year I was making good money (to me) and having fun doing what I've always wanted to do. It was exciting and awesome.

That's why I view trucking as a lifestyle, not just a job. I got paid to see the country and had a lot of fun. Even being home every night I still miss OTR every now and then and I'd be otr if it weren't for my girlfriend. I made good money and had a lot of fun.

Although I wasn't running for companies that required me to run my butt off to make a living.

 

10+ hours a day laying up, sweating or freezing in a filthy truckstop, listening to engines racing or droning on, getting dusted by all the engine fan truckers kicking up clouds, worrying about Johnny back-up beeper tearing your hood off, inhaling the delightful eau de urene wafting off the blacktop... if that ain't work and doesn't deserve pay then I'm Obamma's uncle. 168 hours sounds right to me. drtydeisel sounds a bit brighter than the average CDL mill student to me.

 

That's quite the screen name you have.Anyway all the stuff you mention,drivers get use to it.They don't even think twice about it as long as they have a place to park for their 10 they're good to go.

 

To the OP.
I love the entitled mentality.

I am special, thus, due to the fact that I can suck air and walk at the same time, I deserve a "living wage" when I start working __________ job." (insert your favorite scapegoat industry, or any industry in general).

The megas have a business model that works for them. Hiring/training/having entry level workers, whether it be in trucking or retail or any other industry is a crap shoot. For every 10 that you bring in, 3 may stick................ if you are lucky. The rest are shocked that they are actually supposed to work for a paycheck, and move on to the next latest greatest "scam" out there. If they paid more money to all of the "I want a paycheck" crowd, they would have to charge more for freight, or make less money. Guess what, they are a for profit business, and their "job" is to make as much money as possible for their "owners." Chances are good they are a publicly held company, which means their owners are you and me and everyone who has any kind of investments, 401K's, mutual funds, etc.

So, if they had their stockholders meetings, do you honestly think the "owners" would say "oh no, we don't want to make nearly as much on our investment, so go ahead and pay people more, as we understand that you can't raise rates or you will not be competitive and will lose business."

Really?? If you are a stockholder, do you want to give YOUR money away??

If you are a privately held business, and you worked your ### off for a long period of time.................... sacrificing much, and by the luck of the draw, and your hard work............... you are now reaping some rewards. Should you just hand out money to people who have proven nothing to you, and have done nothing but cost you money at that point (understanding that there is a breakeven point for any business, and employees are part of that). Hiring, training, insurance, accounting, and all of that is not free.

Frankly, you sound like someone who has no idea what it takes to own a successful business. You have no idea what percentage of business is not successful, and how many people lose everything. You have no idea who actually owns publicly held business, and what that means. You also cannot fathom that when everyone makes a "living wage," very few actually do.

Start out, hone your craft, make yourself a valuable commodity in your chosen field, and the money will come. We all start someplace, and the vast majority of us did not start making a "living wage." We had to work 2+ jobs and be 2 income households.

It is always easy to spend someone elses money.

 

Yup. Work is for suckers. The people that get it are the clean cut "homeless" people that I see by the mall pan handling. 10:1 odds they're taking home more than most of us are for only a few hours of "work" each day.

 

I'm always more than a little suspicious of folks who want to bring a member down who speaks the truth about driver wages. Hey! They're too low and don't represent the responsibility and gravity that comes with the job. The mega business model sucks. Lure in a bunch of gullible and naive folks, see that they get a minimum of training, send them out and grind them up.

Many lose their CDLs due to tickets, poor management and being pushed before they're ready.

No, if they (the megas and similar starter companies) paid more, they'd get better applicants and their driver retention would go up, their turnover would drop. But that's not the business model, is it?

UKJ is sharper than most; that's obvious.

And doing well, thank you...

 

A while back some reporter followed a bunch of pan handlers here in mpls, several were just drug addicts and truly homelss, but there were a few that walked a few blocks got in nice cars and went home to the suburbs, best guess was between 2 to 600 bucks a day for 6 hours of fishing.