narrowing down the list

If possible I would avoid CR England & Swift like the plague. CRE from experience and Swift by reputation.

 

Congrats! You've made a good choice. Feel free to join us over in the Millis OTR journal thread. Quite a few of us post there regularly, and if you have any questions feel free to post them there. Im a trainer at Millis so I will try giving you any info about your training that I can.

 

You are going to start at the bottom unfortunately.

Even I would be shuffled to the bottom myself after half a life on the road which no longer exists for all intents and purposes on paper or databases.

If you want to start at the top. Find a wife, go to CDL school together, get the licensing and then apply to be a H/W team. You will then understand that you will be given everything at the top to start off. Excepting the actual pay of course which will be pretty low.

Inflation is the problem. The wages I made in the 80's while trucking was the same standard of living for the wages I/we generated at three times that amount 20 years later.

They are still paying people high 20's and low 30's per mile to start. As they have paid for decades.

I hate to be difficult. Trucking is a journey in a way of life. It is not something like buying a RV and drifting wherever you like to stay at for a while. You are going to understand that you are already late, get going.

If you can pass a DOT medical exam at whatever age you stand at now, count yourself very fortunate. Many have gone off the road by the time they reach a certain age due to a variety of disabilities as a result of the work involved in trucking.

What I do like about your spirit and desire to do something with your time is that people who retire and then sit on the porch, they pass on relatively quickly. Boom dead. Not much of a life. But if you enjoy life and are interested in being put into some really complex situations as a trucker, have at it. I can think of many other things in life that would be more enjoyable than that myself.

 

Let me make a suggestion.

I'll use Armarillo Texas as a example.

Wife and I sometimes took a day off or rather half day into the night. What we would do is literally park truck and be a tourist. OOO, Ah, nice, etc maybe learn something. FFE Dispatch gave us a day in Mesa where spouse helped visit a deceased sibling and visit her elementry school and so on. We bobtailed around. The reason FFE Phoenix Dispatch was very nice and generous with their Bobtail is because Nogales was the main shipping point later that night for us to go get the produce when it's ready.

In those days Nogales for us was essentially a combat posting. Gunfire, illegals trying to smuggle, stash drugs into your tractor and trailer and in all sorts of ways interfere with you to gain a chance to get inside past the Customs (Prior to 9-11... I watch Nogales on Dish in Border Wars and understand now they have seriously beefed that area up.) and protect the spouse who stayed in the sleeper while I ran down there and got load and get out not stopping until Triple TTT Truckstop for eastbound near what I called Adams Mountain. Spouse would begin her first 10 hour driving (Remember we were 10 hour driving days in those log years)

Once a month we would take two or three days off wherever we were at. Literally become tourists. Leave the truck and trailer stashed legally somewhere call enterprise to bring a rental to us and we run around the Dutch Country enjoying the good food etc. Totally nothing at all towards the truck, towards work or nothing. Absolute vacation. A mini kind.

I discovered that the Spouse was a foodie in Louisiana. Cajun Food etc.

I would wake up and find that she managed to put the truck into some very tight places to get that food. Crawfish and so on. After profuse apologies to management and everyone else I would stand there really angry and try to get that semi out of the puzzle without hurting nothing.

I do not blame the spouse in those days. If she AINT happy. NO one is happy. But there are things you cannot do with a semi. Oh no? (Aww jeez... Archie bunker style)

We had fun. But there were brief moments of fun against a entire country full of problem drivers in need of rescue and frankly our pay was about half what it might have been because of that. But... we did it and it's done.

Cancer came long not long after and a stack of medical issues finally caught up with me. I went and did some tests to see what is possible with that spine this year but the medical battle is a losing one against the fixed income for my thinking about any kind of rehab. I probably at some point in the future end back up as a crew boss herding temp CDL drivers around. That should improve finances a little bit.

Anyway, I did not mean to blather or talk too much, As I do sometimes. Trucking offers many good things in life if you know where to get it. Or discover it. And sometimes trucking as bad as it is with the pee bottles and overall refugee style behavior among the new ones today makes me almost willing to turn my back on America and say I never knew you or lived in this filthy land. (Note, I said willing to....)

That is going to need a clean up at some point.

 

Just announced Monday that we are getting a 1cent raise as of May 2. Still waiting for confirmation that it applies to new hires starting pay, but sounds like it does.

 

Were ten years and counting past that.

We already know that if it comes back Hospice will come right here into the bedroom and establish a IV and let nature take it's course. Death holds no horrors for us. Someday there will be a enteral morning without the pains, tears and worries on this wretched old earth. Until then each morning is a gift and we try to do something good with it.