And yet another new guy, checkin in..

Congrats on the decision to join the ranks... Welcome to TTR and Merry Christmas to you..

 

What have you been doing? What kinda money you been making? Do you have kids? If so, how old?

 

Okay, so your having a bit of a mid life crisis. Let me help you out.

Please don't take this as a joke or as an insult; you need to get your head screwed on straight.

As a newbie you will be lucky to find a job that pays more than .25 Cents Per Mile (Don't listen to the schools or recruiters BS - Unless you don't mind losing your house) and will be lucky to average 2000 miles weekly over the first year or two. You are in insurance and work with numbers; do the math. It's not near $40k...

You will ONLY find training companies like Swift, PAM, Werner, etc willing to hire you as most companies do not want to spend the money to train you. Those companies that will, have low pay to compensate for the cost of training. That training is AFTER YOU HAVE A LICENSE AND FIND A JOB. As a newbie in this industry you WILL drive for one of those training companies unless you are VeRy LuCkY... Buy a lottery ticket if so. Most trucking company insurance companies will not allow a trucking company to hire a newbie due to rate discounts, liability, etc.

You will be leaving your wife and kids, not to mention your house, to live in a truck; not even a new truck in most cases. Yeah, yeah, she supports you in whatever you want to do as long as you are happy, yadda, yadda, yadda. Till you are not home the first weekend she wants to do something and then you will hear a small sampling of her real thoughts about it.

And when you miss her birthday she will tell you the whole truth about how you are wasting your life, she is embarrassed that you are a truck driver and you don't make enough to pay the bills.

If you are usually home every night and see the family:

- - - - - - - Your kids WILL cry every day you are gone once you are not - - - - - -

One of them may even suffer from emotional problems as a result of you being gone so much; nightmares are common in children that have a parent gone a lot; like my daughter (never even knew it existed till I spent $3000 out of pocket with a child psychologist to find out).

Violent rage and alcoholism / drugs often occurs in teenagers whose parents are regularly gone from the home.

A parent leaving for 5 days or more is akin to a child going through the mourning of a lost parent; only they go through it every time the parent leaves not just once.

If a truck driver who is gone for extended periods has a child that is normally adjusted, does not have problems socializing or a problem with intimacy, they are the exception rather than the rule. There are some kids that do okay, but usually ONLY if the parent started driving before the child was born and if the child has another male to bond with such as uncle, grand father, etc. Children as a rule need BOTH parents in the home regularly (Daily). I suggest you talk to a knowledgeable child psychologist prior to making a decision to drive. Your order of responsibility is your children, wife, yourself, and family.

Your in laws will ask her if you have lost your mind and laugh at you behind your back (This has happened to many of my friends that drive). Possibly, one day, you will hear that she is divorcing you and she has been banging the guy down the street you thought was your friend. What did you expect? she did not marry a truck driver, she married an insurance guy.

When you go out and drive for 5-6 months and start to find all this out it will be too late to go back to your career in insurance because you will have destroyed your resume' by adding truck driver to your list of experiences and some other guy will already have your old job. Sucks to be you at that point.

In addition, You will go days without a shower, eat greasy truck stop food till you get sick from the smell of it, and look through bug splattered windows as you drive into the sun till your eyes bleed.

This is not about fun and games. It is a hard life. It is not like you see on Ice Road Truckers; yes, you do watch it. It is not like going to a real life Adventureland.

Now quit watching IRT and the other crap on tv. Go out and buy a little red sports car like the other insurance agents do when they go through a mid life crisis.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, have your wife read this post so she can see for herself the things that can / will change in her life.

I wish you and your family the best.

 

You missed something skip1965, he wants to go straight to the oilfields, where there is a demand right now with top pay. If he's local or willing to make a move with the family, I must say he has a head screwed on right. I just don't know if the oil fields are looking for expierenced driver's. It all depends on that. And he's going to a local college to get his CDL, not a mill.

 

Yeah I read what he wrote; I'm trying to save him some heartbreak. We've all seen it happen many, many times.

I have talked with a few guys that have looked at the oil field stuff and they were declined; good records, no incidents, over a year experience hauling various cargo, have hazmat and TWIC, good shape = told they did not have enough experience by multiple companies.

My step-brother has been an oil field rough neck for over thirty years. Oil field stuff generally pays good to EXPERIENCED workers; the poster is not even in school yet.

A couple guys I ran into that haul frak tanks out of Jersey up to ND stated 5 years experience required for their company... they ONLY haul brand new EMPTY TANKS to the fields in ND from Jersey.

He will end up driving for Swift at .25 CPM till he gets experience. Those experienced drivers currently on the road have ALL applied to the good paying gigs. Oil fields not going to hire straight out of school and spend time, money,and effort to bring a newbie up to the level of the LOWEST experienced driver that has already applied.

Back in 2010 at the Mid America Truck Show the director of operations for UPS gave an interview that was carried, not only by Road dog, but several news stations as well; saw it on CNN after hearing it on Road Dog.

In the interview he stated that "UPS was facing a critical driver shortage and they [UPS] were re-evaluating the pay scale and driver experience requirements for drivers starting out." They talked on other issues for a few more minuets, then returned to the topic of pay: "increasing to $72,000-107,000" and the "requirements were [said to be] slated to be reduced to 6 months for some tractor trailer drivers and 1 year on others.

I have talked to many drivers and students that heard this said and several got into trucking as a result; they are not with UPS. They are with Swift, PAM, Schneider, Werner and making .22-.27 CPM; gotta work somewhere.

That from what I have heard drove people to truck schools in masses; along with a high wash out rate. Oh, and those high paying UPS jobs.... "part time", "seasonal", "not to become permanent", and still require a minimum of two years experience for something like a feeder driver job. Also, the only real way to get into UPS in my area is to be a college student and work sorting packages for a year or so part time while watching for someone to retire.

Oil fields are not going to hire inexperienced and pay them .35 CPM or $25 an hour while sitting waiting all with 6 weeks working and two weeks at home straight out of school. I've seen the people on this forum that are getting hired in those jobs; experienced.

He needs to think about ALL PARTS OF THE MOVE.

 

If you are going to make near next to nothing, or a lot less than 40K a year, and have no quality of life, and be mocked by family and friends, Why Does Anyone Go Into This Field? Not trying to be a smart arse, but if this is the reality, then, why do people pay good money for training/lincensure and jump thru hoops to go into this industry?

Jack