Student

Well, so far my truck driving career has been a flop. I quit Werner to haul coal for a local company, that didn't last long because of some bad luck. I recently found a new job hauling coal for another company and I'm quitting them before I get myself killed. Don't get me wrong, I love the job and I find it easy and relaxing to do when it's a good day. But all their drivers drive like crazy, many of them flopped a truck or worse, and their trucks remain in piss poor shape, and then heaven forbid if you need to down the truck for repairs for something like a bad air leak.

And even more importantly, I'm a safety concern! They put me on nightshift because it's all they had, fair enough. But I know from experience that I don't handle night shift very well at all, I worked about 10 years as a security guard and could never for the life of me, get adjusted to nightshift. But I figure since I'd be driving that I would probably get used to it. I've been working two weeks and I've nearly wrecked my personal vehicle several times going home and almost wrecked the truck twice; because I was tired.

I just got off of work last night around 2AM, I took a nap at a local gas station on the way home and made it back (not without nearly wrecking twice) around 5AM. Got into bed just after 6AM and woke back up around 9AM and can't get back to sleep. So I put in my resignation, I can't handle the shift, I think it would be worse for me to be jobless because I put a truck in a ditch or run someone over because I fell asleep at the wheel; than if I'm jobless without such an accident on my record.

I've decided that after this job I'm pretty much giving up on truck driving, I don't feel like I'm cut out for it, so I'll try to put my CDL's to use another way. I've noticed that a few positions in the railroad locally, requires CDL's; so I might look into trying to break into railroad work.

 

If I remember correctly it was a signal maintenance position, required CDL's because of the service truck.