Career Planning

I'm trying to plan out a career. I've recieved some first rate advice on here, and some info is encouraging and some is discouraging.

I don't know what I want to do in trucking, and I don't know how to figure it out.

I'll be honest, I don't see how trucking is even real sometimes. It seems you have to hope and pray that nothing goes wrong in your truck for some twenty odd years. Odds of that seem slim. Human nature leans heavily to error, and if not mine someone elses. Mr. Murphy is always along for the ride. I went for a cdl primarily to have some guaranteed employment during what I see as a major and continuing decline in employment prospects across the nation.

I feel like thats a silly idea because a simple and even unintentional speeding ticket or "fender bender" endangers your means of employment, and things that aren't your fault become your fault because you are a professional driver. I'm an exceedingly careful sort of fellow, but a dispassionate assessment of the odds is really discouraging. Every second on this job, of the fourteen hours a day I can expect to do it, I have the potential to do massive damage.

Sure, truckers across the nation have literally millions of safe miles, and today after a modicum of training I was barreling down the highway and made it through the day safely in an older Freightliner, clutching and shifting and merging and even changing lanes when I absolutely had to, and it somehow worked. Maybe the heavens take pity on fools, or maybe I am overstating things. I am certain that this will all seem much more plausible after a few weeks and more so in a few months.

I have a hard time thinking I could make a local job work around the city, backing in and out of 7-11s for say, mclanes.

I'm trying to figure out an exit plan for what I do if trucking goes wrong. I know there are second chance companies, but largely thanks to what I have learned about them on this board, I would choose to flip a sign on the side of the road first, and for roughly the same pay.

What I'm getting at is that there seems to be plenty of security in having a cdl, but right now it seems awfully easy to tarnish, and frankly, that seems to be a best case scenario if something goes wrong, to only lose your livelihood, but thats something to be planned for.

Moving along, and all that aside, I am trying to make an educated choice as to what field to go in next. I've read much on the board about ltl, tankers, flatbedders, etc. I'm trying to find out about niche markets from wreckers to septic tankers to whatever else.

I don't mind working hard, really hard. I understand I'm entry level, but with 5 kids I'm needing a certain level of income, not least of which so I
can afford insurance for them. If I can make up the difference in entry level pay by busting my tail in overtime, thats fine.

Look, every rookie thread on here is asking for the pot of gold. If anyone has a map, please send, but I want to make this about other stuff.

Lets talk quality of life. Lets talk fun jobs or lines of work. Which types of trucking made you feel like an "asphalt cowboy?"

What am I missing here? Maybe feasibility of small business ownership, or just being your own boss. Failing that, maybe just being left alone in the cab to do your thing. Lines of work where you are left alone and unhurried, yet still can make a good living. Maybe jobs where you can make your own luck by lassoing herds of feral trucks in wyoming, and breaking them and selling them to swift. I'm trying to get
as much info as I can, and trying to predict what I will enjoy doing, and what will make me wish I'd taken up a second career scalping Love's shower tickets.

You guys are great, and I appreciate your advice. Had an actual member of the site meet up with me which really helped too, and was very kind of him. May be some type of which career discussion aimed at rookies will help deflect from the constant questions we bombard you with about the cash. Sometimes it seems like everything is cents per mile and fighting with retarded security guards at shippers, etc.

 

I don't even have flip flops or a headset. Virtually everything I know I learned here on truckers report.

 

Not sure how you mean that. I've been in extraordinarily high risk high mortality careers my entire lif . I'm not risk averse in general, but running counterintelligence for the Marines, and driving toyota pickups, go karts, and 21 ton cbrn recon vehicles on the IED strewn roads and mountain passes of Iraq and Afganistan, I felt I had more control of the result than I foresee on the highways today. Perhaps I've just developed a constant awareness of the catastrophe that, to me, appears to be only a half second away, every second.

 

Thats good advice, and perhaps I've given the wrong impression, but its less about being afraid of dying in a spectacular fiery crash and more about losing a cdl 5 years into this and then what? I'm already having to change careers at 37 after a well thought out plan that included huge amounts of military schooling and a bachelors. I'm trying to figure out where I go if for some reason a cdl goes away. What secondary and tertiary careers are worth looking into that some former experience will help in gaining employment.