Turned off by the trucking industry

I've had quite the opposite experience.
My schooling was excellent (PTDI certified)
I did well there and was accepted at Crete, which is not always easy as a student.
I had a great trainer, still talk to him at least once a week.
Really enjoying the job, other than I wanted to get home for turkey day and it didn't work out.
Miles have been good considering, i'm going to have around 2750 this week.
Don't give up yet

 

You find what you are looking for. There are plenty of great, encouraging posts on here along with the negative ones. If he is ready to give up without even trying, he is probably one who would give it up anyway.

 

toolmangkk,

A job is what you make it to be. There will always be complainers saying the grass is greener elsewhere. That might be their case.....find where your grass is greenest wherever it may be.

Cheers

 

You will never know until you try. Give it some time and you will find out if you made the right decision. You will be suprised how far an open mind will take you. Good luck!

 

Besides, if you wanna take a pessimistic point of view, at least be an optimistic pessimist!

Realize that your hours and pay are going to bes hit right now and this is perhaps the worst its gonna be.... that once the economy picks up in a year or two, we'll be going gangbusters! and just remember that transpo is a leading economic indicator for good or bad... so we'll be one of the first to recover!

(okay now, pollyanna.... get back in yer box!)

 

See YA!

You would not have made it out here anyways. It ain't easy, and the money sucks till you "pay your dues". Besides, as slow as things are out here right now, there are many jobless and very experienced drivers and O/Op's out here looking for work. Freight volumes are some of the worst in years, and rates are not good. Thank God the fuel costs are dropping.

Myself, I parked my authority two months ago, and have leased on to Schneider of all places. If you would have told me that I would be here a year ago, I would have laughed my tail end off! Funny thing is, is that they have some darn good rates on their new "choice" program. And I get to dispatch myself. Rates hovering around $2 a mile. And all light loads to boot! Going from KC MO to JAX FL for $2 grand with 20,000 lbs, drop and hook on that end and up to Tifton GA for another 4 bills. Hey, it gets me out of Florida!

Trucking is what you make it. It is all about attitude. And driving the fewest, lightest miles, for the most $$$$$$.

It beats starving to death.

Mike

 

There's a saying...something like "have a good experience and you'll tell 1 person about it, but have a bad experience, and you'll tell 100 people about it".

It may not be that numerically lopsided, but it's the truth.

You read mostly bad, but there's far more good that hides in the shadows.

 

Lots of good, lots of bad. Such is life. It is what it is. But I would hate to be a newbie out here right now, especially if I had a family to support.

Mike

 

deciding to become a truck driver is what one does when one has completely given up on having a REAL career where you have to know how to do something besides sitting and steering.


"The companies screw you when your new, working long hours for less than minimum wage, the trainers are a bunch of derelicts, the trucks are junk"


it's not just the new drivers that deal with this. I did it for 3 years and my pay went down DRASTICALLY in the 3rd year. I enjoyed a lot of the aspects of the job, but I don't know if I have the heart to try to break in another company.

if I had it to do over again, would I have forked out $3,000 to get a job making $8/hour? uh, NO!