10 Things you Wish You knew when you were a rookie.

Discipline. In order to be at the top of your game, you will need to learn discipline. Limit your TV watching. Only 1 plate at the buffet. Do not worry about things you have no control over. Use it or lose it. Keep that left door shut. Stick with the plan. Hang up that phone and go to sleep. Know when to say when at the watering hole. Patience, son...we will all get a parking space.

Right Guard. Watch that right side. There is an idiot in a car that's matching speed with your right steer tire. You're jumping out to pass a slower truck, bet on the biggest imbecile in the world trying to squeeze between you two. I like to see them mangled, but I hate if I'm involved.

Learn how to listen. If someone gives you directions over the phone or CB, or the cute waitress gives you her name and number, you should be able to remember them if you listen. If people have to repeat things for you, it is because you never learned how to listen. A lack of listening skills makes the job difficult.

If you need to be home, shoot for the house early. If you need to be there on Thursday, tell them you need to be home that Monday. If you need to be there Monday, aim for the house on Friday. In your travel agent's mind, you're going to the house means that you are available, and it always seems like there is some dire need to cover a load when you are within 500 miles of the house.

Keep your business, your business. Do not discuss your personal life with yr travel agent. They do not need to know anything about your wife and kids. Do not have a Facebook account in your name or with any picture of you. People get fired for that stuff nowadays. What an incredibly stupid thing to do.

If you are a decent person, you will meet decent people. If you are a Hole, You will meet the other Holes. If trucking is what you make it, why be a Hole?

Give a young man respect. Yes, he's a whipper snapper and you've driven more miles backing up than he has driven forward, but you were young once.

 

Hi y'all,
I'm a rookie... Just started OTR yesterday with my trainer. Make sure to stay ou of my way. Still haven't figured out which pedal is the brake.
Thank you for all the wisdom/knowledge you each have shared in the forums.
I've been reading a lot of different perspectives, about the joys of driving for a living.
I will let you know along my way what things I wish I had found out prior to the lesson learned.

 

Welcome to the industry and hopefully this will be the only trainer you have.What made you wanna drive truck?

 

Really? What about the Phelps? Im not completely mindless. Just mostly.

I'm changing my name to Moses, get me some more followers!

 

Sit down, shut up, haul your load, don't kill anybody.

All those other distractions is called life. Just deal with it.

 

I wish Someome would have told me all pilots suck!!!

 

Keep the shiny side up.
Deliver the load in the same condition you got it.
Never work for someone you don't respect (that is INCLUDING yourself).
Work to live, not the other way around.
Get it in writing.
Problems are only problems because you haven't solved them yet.
Just because everyone does it.....
Your truck is what makes you money, treat her with the respect she deserves.
Your reputation is a great investment.

 

Sit down in your drivers seat
Shut up unless using a headset
Haul your load......haul your load
Don't kill anybody, unless you absolutely have to.

Your welcome TankerP

 

Denzel Washington was a great pilot.

 

i haven't seen that movie yet...

does the plane crash land and explode and bodies fly out all over onto the ground, and is there blood, guts and gore..?????