Hi. Just an introduction from a former/future team

Hi all. The forum PM'd me and asked me to introduce myself, so I shall.

Nothing remarkable here. My name is Joe, and my wife is Julia. In 1999, we were newlyweds, and were both wanting career redirection (how's that for a fancy word? LOL) So we went to truck driving school. I was 33, she was 26. When we graduated we decided to go with Werner. Not my choice, just circumstances. Anywhoo, we lasted 4 weeks each with seperate trainers before we were "allowed" to take a bit of time together. We decided to hop a bus for home and not go back. We latched on with a more local flatbed company and I went out with a trainer for two weeks, and she went out daily with a trainer and stayed in a motel. Much better to my liking.

Eventually we got our own truck and went to work. We learned a lot and did the job for about 14 months; made good money and paid off all of our bills and got a good footing. With flatbedding it was tough though. I would get up at the crack of dawn and get us unstrapped and ready to unlooad, get us unloaded and get us to our next stop where we would wait to get loaded. I would get us loaded and strapped and tarped and get us down the road a bit until I was about exhausted. At this time Julia would be hypothetically well rested and ready to take over, so we would shower and use the facilities, eat and whatnot, and I would start to wind down for the night. Julia was supposed to drive the night.

It worked well for a while. What eventually happened is that she found it increasingly harder to sleep during the day when I was strapping and loading and whatnot. So of course it was increasingly harder for her to stay awake and drive safely at night. We always made our deliveries but we were bushed. We went to work for a different flatbed company and they put us on a dedicated run that didn't do us any favors. It was a short run, like between 750-900 miles a day, with a tarp and untarp on each end. So, the problems continued.

Eventually Julia decided shed had enough of that and we got out of the truck. She has worked different jobs and enjoyed her second career in the banking industry. However she recently lost her job of many years do to corporate downsizing.

Me on the other hand, I have been driving commercially since that time. First I drove a dump truck locally, then a local delivery route, and finally a local trash and recycling company for the last almost 15 years.

I obviously still use my CDL, and Julia has kept hers and has a current Med card.

Lately, now in my late 40's, and tired of the same ol same ol job, and Julia on unemployment, have been thinking about going back to teaming.

We are much older and wiser now. I think for a team, flatbedding in itself may not be so bad, just the short runs are a waste of time. I am thinking of a carrier that will have a larger reach that can get us down the road much farther. But if not flatbedding, then a drop and hook (for the most part) dry van operation.

We have done the job, and we know what it takes and what the challenges are. We have not committed to doing this, just are flirting with the idea.

The trucking industry has changed in so many ways since 2000 when we stopped teaming. 9/11 hadn't happened. Cell phones weren't everywhere. The internet was an infant. And we could work 4 on 4 off or 5 on 5 off or whatever. There wasn't this 10 hour off thingy? Or max number of hours in a week or whatever? What the hell is that? LOL

And teams made good money, but not apparently like they are making now.

So anyway, that is my introduction. I joined TTR to do some research, and make some acquaintences and learn. We have a very old dog, and a cat that we have to make accomodations for, and some decisions about the home and etc. But we are ruminating this stuff in our heads.

One idea that I've been floating with my wife is to get back into trucking and work it hard for about two years. (we have zero debt other than our mortgage, which is just 85,000$); I think it is possible to pay off the house, and bankroll some nice cash in two years of hard work, and then continue trucking in a sort of a less serious, casual way. Something like trucking for 6, 7, 8 months out of the year, and take long breaks/leaves of absence or whatever the rest of the year and really enjoy that time at home, in our paid off home, with no bills other than utilities?

Can it be done? I don't know.

I would love your opinions. But keep it positive!

 

Thanks Chinatown!

It's good to hear someone say something good about USexpress or one of the biggie carriers. A lot of bad and negative comments seem to follow all of the biggies.