changing career midlife

Welcome to the TTR Forum. Good luck.

 

Hey, good luck with you impending trucking career!

I, too, made a career change recently. I turned 27 a couple weeks ago and realized I'm going to be 30 in 3 years and if I don't do something drastic now I'm going to be stuck in my office staring out of the window for the rest of my life. So I did what any rational person would do. I quit my job as a quality assurance engineer to pursue a career as a trucker.

So now I'm researching every CDL academy and hoping to make an informed decision on which to attend within the next couple weeks. The funny part is, if all goes as planned, I should be able to make as much money in a couple years driving as I did in the desk job I just left. Plus I'll get to wear cowboy boots.

 

Neither of you may need my standard advice but it might have something that will help so here it goes:

You need to research and find out what the important questions are. You can make an above average living but you will make sacrifices that other jobs don't require. Read the "good companies" and "bad companies" section on this forum and get an idea of what company you want to work for and what kind of trailer you want to pull. Don't just go to school and then try to figure out where to go.

I don't know your financial situation. Don't take training from a company if you can afford it or get it with financial aid. You will be their slave for up to year. If you leave they will trash you DAC and credit record. Check out your local community colleges and employment office.

Just know that most training and trucking company recruiters will do nothing but lie to you. They will let you talk about what you want and then tell you what you want to hear. Trucking is about moving freight to make money for the company. Your home time, family, paycheck and everything else comes second.

It is not like any other job. Local is usually backbreaking delivery work 10+ hours a day, 6 days a week. Often you unload dozens of times a day or you are a salesman. In my area most dump truck jobs pay less than a good factory job. Regional is lots of loading and unloading time, fewer miles than OTR and not as hard as local but will wear on you and push your HOS limits. OTR is out 3 - 5 weeks with 3 - 4 days home, less manual labor and more miles.

You'll probably have to pay your dues before you get the gravy job. Weekends off, if you are lucky enough to get something like that starting out, may be home Thursday afternoon and leave Saturday night or home Friday night and leave Sunday afternoon. Loads deliver on Monday early and you leave in time to get them there. Often your home time will be in the middle of the week.

Regardless of your driving choice, after school you will go through company training. For OTR this can be six weeks to three months with little or no home time. The first phase is usually $400 a week and the second phase is $500-550 a week. Some pay less. One company pays 12 CPM for training.

 

unless your bored, why give up a good paying local job to go otr? as a tanker you should be doing well. starting out otr you will maybe make 30-45 grand. most of us are doing otr to land a job like yours

 

I've been researching like crazy for the past couple weeks. Hell, I've been researching my research! I've spent a lot of time on this forum and elsewhere, and I agree, putting in the research before taking your first steps is very important. I say that based only on how much I've learned in the past couple weeks just by reading here.

I'm a single guy with no kids so home time isn't of huge importance for me. I'd be prone to ask for off time in areas of the country I've never been to before. What's important to me is a company that provides thorough training, pays me a competitive industry wage and makes smart business decisions and keeps themselves in the black.

 

i'm in a similar boat. heading to crowder in august

 

I'll be attending sage in south Carolina also, I start on the 18th.