Company driver pay

Happiness is the key. I remember when I was running trailers from Memphis McKesson into Little Rock so our Teams wont have to run 400 miles doubling back for loads west. My responsibilites were very few. And I slept every 12 hours for a while. Not too much, just enough to get safe and a meal to do it again tomorrow. No schedules to keep either. Run two trailers into Little Rock, nap and do it again. Easy peasy. Yes they are a million dollars and yes they are secured property with gaurds etc and yes to other things like memphis scales and traffic etc. But all of that is not a concern or stress at all. The money? Well It's not a thousand a week back in 2001, maybe 500 something net. But for the work? Easy money. And wife was happy with the 2K a month I brought in.

What I really hate is my own body, the medical issues that have become apparent from a lifetime lumping freight and white line fevers and so on. If I did not abuse it so much back then for .24 a mile or some nicky picky BS .34 a mile I would be a better driver still rolling under a Tier One even in today's stricter medical stuff. Best I can hope for is some spot of farm to market work without a medical anything. I am working on that problem as I write this. So if it works out I'll be back out there. I'll have to stop my medicines and wait 6 months. But it's better than what is going on now. Arkansas has effectively made sure that the medicines I have now are no good, ineffective and essentially it's better to buy a 5th of Bourbon for the evening home time before bed and take care of it right then. No more doctors BS etc. I'll be sober and bright eyed come morning.

Make the best of whatever you do. Do what you can to reduce the BS or better yet eliminate it. And ride easy, you got a long way to go yet and not much of time for the BS stress and unnecessary problems that make you unhappy. You only get one life. (And one spine.)

 

Well said I am 2 years 11 months from a retirement I've worked hard for and spent a lot of time planning for. The bodies just not holding up. I have another option but that will put off retirement for 2.5 more years, but I'll be happy and healthier. Just a hard decision.