Why do people say "don't be a trucker, go to college instead"?

Correction: a degree isn't better for you if you get it in something like fashion design or something stupid like that.

 

Especially when they're an academically struggling student, but don't want to give up, or jump on the loan bandwagon. 2-3 classes a semester and full time work with the right pay will get it done quite easily. And most colleges even have payment installment plans for tuition and book rentals.

I'm one of those struggling students who's been off and on with the college thing since graduating HS in 2001. All other subjects I'm good at but the maths. And sadly, that's where most of the degrees that are worth any amount of salt are concentrated in.

I'd gladly go back on a regular basis and get it done while working my current job. But the only thing is class times conflicting with work times and time off. I usually try to seek out those one day/night a week classes and sprinkle the study/project time over the rest of the week. But with so many science classes doing that M/W or T/Th thing, and no Friday or Saturday classes, I pretty much have to remain-on-station(ie,. no road trips, stay in town) all the time.

 

Growing up rather fast in the 60's and 70's I was exposed to adult sex predators by the time I hit 8. It also was a exposure to xanax, pot, alcohol believe it or not, smoking cigerettes and so on. I was getting quite degenerate by 9 really fast due to certain persons in that part of Baltimore City what with the businesses we had.

I was exposed to trucking from probably as far back as I can remember and there are a couple things before trucking I have memories of. But not too many. When you seperate out the difficult things that young and fast forward slightly a few years until I got tall enough to climb a fuel tank step or battery box to get to that cab and stand on the seat holding a wheel larger than I am tall. (Ha....) it's pretty different. Particularly one or two sticks taller than me standing on the floor. (Transmission stick or sticks) with all those buttons on them. And the switches walls and walls of them plus gauges. And so on.

I tried coffee one winter at 7 and change that was a revelation. First it was very good coffee and second that much coffee in a adult cup makes bed bye bye go away really fast. The people that came and went were involved in basic blue collar stuff, and trucking more directly and they were heroes in their day. *(Now we are layering the BS a little bit thick... but from a kid's POV in those days back in the 70's it was quite something.) And some of the women were lessons in high heels and mini skirts etc. I think it is fortunate that I was not grown enough to do anything with one if I happened to have caught one. Those are known as baby sitters. The queen of no, no and no. Spend all night chasing us around no no no no no. land of no ugh. It would be years before I discovered a secret land of oh yes... but that's not something I should get into here.

Anyway.

I knew I was going to be a trucker when I got out of school. By then I had had pretty much been fed up (When you feed a falcon too much it wont fly and hunt for you. it's fed up with you and cranky to boot) with the evolving educational system. Some of my parents clung to the dying pension era where you work over a desk all your life get promoted and at 65 told to go home and sit on the porch with more money than you can spend in a month through someone assigned to give you a allowance due to various mental health issues by then. Ugh.

There was a trucker or three in our family and one of the biggest and absolute final irrevocable points in my life that determined in stone that I will become a trucker came late in my teens around 17 or so. Someone sneered at me at our Fairgrounds while i was going over a couple of then retail new OTR sleeper trucks in some detail. One sneered at me saying, FORGET IT KID, you are DEAF you WILL NEVER drive one of these. HA. so there. nyah nyah nyah.

I did a slow burn. And walked away from him. What a jerk. Actually what a discriminationary idiot. At that time the Deaf aint permitted to do a darn thing with flying or driving (Not very long, FAA has started implementing some very specific transponder codes of that time plus additional really detailed traffic rules versus say KBWI, Dulles etc airspace and that of the POTUS and Camp David and so on and whatever other boxes of sky that is deemed active control in those days. A deaf could fly. But that one had a stack of rules to follow to stay safe and keep all others airmen in the sky safe as well.

Trucking started to allow Deaf as well. One of the things I cannot stand absolutely is being told no, you aint doing this and that is the end of this converstation, what part of no don't you aint understand yet? The other final push came from my father. Normally deaf kids are issued drivers ed at 16th birthday or nearly so by the State of Maryland as part of high school course work. And they would be issued a car license upon passing in a few months. Easy peasy. What I did not know then until late in life was that My parents made war with the state starting at 16 and working until 19 saying no. He aint driving *&^%, Finally the state said look. He's over 18, going to either age out or graduate this year. We are putting him into the drivers ed, you no longer have power over his decision to continue or move to a different course. So they caved and I had my license in a few months. I was already working on the Class A side which I got about a year after I graduated high school.

The day I decided to follow through with trucking at the expense of FAA Ground school and actually stopped flipping burgers at home and started working at the Tavern in Baltimore for 4 months until the course was finished was a important day. In those days deaf people did *(&^%,. Emphasis on doing nothing at all but sit and look out the window while the world and life passed them by. (And did for so many) When I got my Class A with the endorsements etc. I lost half my family who essentially displayed a pretty hard conviction that they will be ###### if I drove a 18 wheeler around them on the beltway. So that pretty much writes off 300+ people. Very few remained.

The good side is that when they started dropping like flies, I did not have too many funerals to go to. Just the very few important and valued ones is all that was needed now and then.

I don't think in those days there were more than half a dozen including some of my classmates in that time block of years that got into trucking and did well. One was driving combines with tires taller than my truck lolz as soon he got tall enough to reach the ladder to climb it. He turned out well. I think for what success he has had in life he is a valued friend because being deaf as he was no one gave him anything. He had to go out and do it right twice as good the first time to prove that yes. He knows what is what.

That is the other part of trucking. In my trucking school class of 24 + 5instructors plus 3 mechanics and so on, at least half questioned my deafness. It turned into a teaching time with a very powerfully condensed crash course between the hearing culture and the deaf culture. And I told all of them that as long you are profane and saying WHOA YOU SOB! WHOA at me in the cab about to slap the dock at a very bad angle and break something I'll #### well WHOA don't you mind that.

One of them got up and said, I hope you do. Because if you don't Ima taking you around back for some beating until blood. You will learn this correct and do this right and pass that state test because you know this stuff. If you don't then you are really stupid and I or we will be sure to hammer that out of you. So which is it?

Even the instructors questioned my deafness and ability to learn or hear etc. I told them hearing aint half of it. They cannot do anything with the body language, tone of voice, actions of hands and feet and expressions along with the eyeballs tracking here and there etc. In short if I can see it I can work on that information. It's not all by ear.

It got settled one day when a ball came out from between cars with a kid behind it. I managed to work on that poor old transtar and nurse it around that little bouncy problem followed by a really seriously squealing problem in two pitter patter feet.

The entire sleeper gasped out the entire air content in that cab, suffered a thousand deaths as that ball took a bounce while I waited for the application of air to take hold and worked the wheel just a smidge. Instructor he simply froze. Just like a deer in headlights. You could tell he wanted to do 10 different things right effing now but not just yet. Still working on that ball, kid and trailer wheels.

I horsed her across the intersection and allowed her to stop right there completely screwing up two seperate 4 lane traffic of cars. They quit yelling and honking with the sight of ball and followed by pitter patter from under the trailer. It was not long before kid was corralled safely, a big ahoy down the entire row of homes with porches revealed many people come out of doors or windows to see what's up. One of them ran up to get the baby. Oh my BABY YOU OK!? alternating with profanity about how stupid to run out into traffic. Then when mommy got a good look at me, she had eyes as big as saucers and said OMFG YOU ARE DEAF. How did you not hit my baby.

Why not?" that big bright ball for one and staying three steps ahead of the problem. She was so happy she could care less. But you could tell that she was scared pretty badly at a potental loss.

We had to get moving again when the people had enough of the greetings and emotions, we were in the way and it's time we fix that quick. And so we did.

I have many more stories related to being deaf as a trucker but bottom line, I managed to get away with it. I did not cheat, steal or lie about it. And fought some really powerful suits over that problem. And so it goes.

So many of my classmates were either in the work shop taking care of bulk mass mailing in letters or doing dishes so they can have a dollar to spend on friday night outside of what the housing group required of them each week.

 

Ever notice the posts where someone inquires about becoming a driver?

So, what does that guy look like?

A neckbeard. Fat and effeminate, lived in his grandmothers basement but granny died and now he needs a place to live. Hmmm, where do fat, antisocial losers go to work when they need to start working? TRUCKING!

We all grew up knowing some old school driver who made good money, wiry and tough as hell, roaming the earth in an 18. Coolest uncle we had. But we stopped into a travel center, and saw these fat, smelly behemoths who stank to high heaven plodding around. We asked the girl behind the counter who the hell are all of these fat, stinky people in this place and she said, "Those are truck drivers." Any parent that loves his kid will try to persuade the kid to do something else.

 

I have an engineering degree from a respected engineering school. Really only used that for a short time of employment. As with any type of education, the value is only what you make of it. Employers can pick and choose these days. The type of work I was doing tended to be project oriented, this was usually followed by a short layoff when that project was completed and the next one started. Do I regret going to school? No, it was worth it. So college may not be your thing, no problem. Consider a tech or trade school, get the paper and do what you want after.

 

You're right about the installment payments. That's how I did mine, then in the summer time, I got a second job

 

See, I think the bottom line is, everyone needs a training or education if some sort to make decent money these days. There will be some that say screw cdl school, use someone else's truck for a price and pass the exam. These days that won't even fly. Some sort of education never hurts

 

I got my license solely to have options. I wrench full time so a commercial license is an asset in this business. Having options is great. I can wrench, operate a few types of equipment, drive (probably need a refresh course at this point), manual labour etc. All that fails, McDonald's is another option

 

I love when those fries are hot

 

I have advanced degrees in archaeology/anthropology and wound up owning an insurance agency for 30 years. Now I drive truck. Life has a way of creating a lot of forks in the road. I told my kids to go to college if they have a career in mind. Don't just go for a standard 4 year useless degree. Told them all I would pay for college if they chose a field first. They all decided to work instead and all are happy, adjusted and making good livings. Kids their age today get out of college owing tens of thousands in student loan debt. In the years I had the insurance company, I hired at least 6 people with masters degrees who couldn't find work in their fields and were answering phones and entering applications for $15 an hour. Professional students waste a lot of years and money for nothing.