Am I making a mistake leaving Werner?

Also, making a truck comfortable without an inverter would be impossible for me. My main source of entertainment on the road is my laptop and my laptop will not run on an inverter plugged into a lighter. It just doesn't provide the necessary current to run my machine. I can't imagine life on the road without my laptop. It would be unbearable.[/QUOTE]

Just curious , what is your lap top brand and model and how do you access data ? Data cost ? What is your inverter rated watts ? Thanks

 

It's a common bit of feminine sexism, that I like to quietly illustrate, whenever I see it...

When women don't have jobs, society is accepting and supportive of that, because that used to be the deal between the sexes, in society. We call them "stay-at-home mom", or "housewife", and no stigma attaches despite the ubiquitous automation and prepared goods and services that have substantially reduced the workload for people in these roles.

When a man does it, we still sometimes call him a "stay-at-home dad", or "house husband", but with a social stigma - the undercurrent of "bum" - attached. A man must work. A woman may work. The reason is simple; sexism is alive and well in both genders. Men are judged, socially, principally on their incomes, and women, on their appearance. By both sexes.

I make the point, only because most people are conscious of sexism against women, and social pressure to eliminate it is brought to bear, proportionally to that awareness. When sexism is perpetrated against men, however... it tends to go unnoticed, and it therefore does not enjoy the same pressure to correct. Worse, when a male victim objects, he is typically ridiculed for the objection - "man up!", or something along those lines.

Now, I'm a traditional guy, and my lady is a traditional lady, which means that she dresses up to go out, and I pick up the check. I hold doors open, and she enters first. I have the job, and I determine how much of my paycheck is available for her discretionary use, how much is available for mine, and I pay the bills. It's all very traditional and sexist, and that's our deal. But I can't count the times that some liberated young woman has yelled at me for opening the door for her, or picking up the check at a working lunch or group event, and I'm just about afraid to even talk to lady coworkers, any more, since sexual harassment became solely defined by the victim (but only if the victim is a "she", in practice). I told one young lady she looked nice, one morning, because she was dressed up like she was going to an interview, and I was out of work by that afternoon.

It's a thing, and like many other things that appear only to affect some self-declared minority group, it is not so limited. Circumstances change, with sexism, because society treats the sexes differently, but it's still sexism.

I'm not sure whether the comment is actually more insulting to men or women (is wanting to work also what separates girls from women? If so, perhaps the right phrasing would be 'children', versus 'adults'?), but impugning a man's sexuality (or maturity), over his occupation isn't really any less offensive than implying that a woman uses her sexuality, in the course of her occupation.

Normally, I just make a wise crack, and move on. Not sure why I wrote a lecture about it, today. Maybe I bothered me more than I thought? Maybe it's just my day off, and I'd rather goof off online, than take care of those Sunday weekend chores that need doing, after I catch up on sleep, on Saturday...

 

Nice quality lecture on something I already knew. Moral of the story, there's ######## and there's nice people. You sir are just a man that is considered a 'gentleman'. I share that belief that women can work but men should be doing the hard work making the most money paying the bills and pampering the woman. But then feminism comes in and wants to #### men in the ### (figurative speaking) for believing in that.

 

Just curious , what is your lap top brand and model and how do you access data ? Data cost ? What is your inverter rated watts ? Thanks[/QUOTE]
I run a gaming laptop. It's a beast of a laptop. My inverter is 1500 watts. Runs it fine. I also run an external hard drive that holds tons of entertainment data. I currently run a data plan that allows me to use 10 gb of tether data. Never have hit the cap. I'm unlimited on my phone.

 

I've signed up to start at Werner but now I've come across this thread and having second thoughts. After I got my CDL, well we really have little choice where to start, I applied to many smaller companies but got no where or some contract deal came up where if you left you would pay training back.

My choices:

Werner
Western Express
Swift
Schneider (I hear they are getting bad these days and that one week OTR with trainer isn't enough to prepare you for the real deal which is why someone said Werner)
Abilene (I live on the West coast though and they are based in Virginia. long way to go)
Freymiller (Reefer)
Haney Truck Lines (Was told they are ran by an insurance company so best to avoid?)
CR England

Only choices I have at this point unless I take a160 hour refresher which I can't afford.

 

I'm pretty sure that they all do this. Your best bet is to get your CDL through a school that is not affiliated with any specific carrier. It still costs, but sometimes you can get help from your local employment development office, veterans affairs, or traditional student aid (like you would apply for, if you were attending a college), to help cover the cost. Sometimes the carrier that you wind up working for will contribute something, monthly, to helping you pay down your student loans for driving school.

There isn't one single magic bullet solution for this problem, and it's important to note that the overwhelming majority of new drivers leave the industry - not just their first employer, but walk away from trucking, in it's entirety - well before they have completed a year in it. Whatever deal you have to agree to, to pay for your schooling, if it involves spending more than a year driving a truck, then there is a 90%+ chance that you are going to wind up on the hook for failing to complete your part of the contract.

Fair warning...

 

Or you could drive OTR for some time to get ahead money wise until you figure something out but it's not easy.
I am doing it for 2.5 years and I gave myself time till the end of the year.

 

I'm in the same boat. Oppressive driver regulation doesn't make it any easier. @deisel drinker is right; I have always approached this job as an interim thing, to help me get on my feet and stabilized, financially, before I have to go back to being broke all the time. Every few months, something else threatens to make me leave the industry - mandatory sleep apnea testing is only the latest, but mandatory prostate examinations are coming, for me, soon, as well... and whether I should or I shouldn't, no one gets to climb up my bum and tell me I have to, as a condition of my employment.

Since the day I started CDL school, this has been a temporary job, to me. It will eventually end. If I can manage to be debt-free, and own my home and a decent car, when it's over, then maybe I can slide my way into Social Security on whatever crappy job I have to do next, without suffering too much from poverty.