I deserve better

I learn every day. Until I was about 25 I knew it all. Talk about tough learning. About the time I turned 25 I figured out I didn't know #### and I've been learning every since. Now I learn something every day in or out of a truck.

Trucking is not a very forgiving profession especially for a know it all. I started when I was 22 and every little while I'd start thinking I was really making a hand. Then wham, a humbling lesson in humility. So many unexpected things happen it is impossible to plan for all the contingencies. As you overcome the challenges thrown your way often against bad odds, your confidence and skills grow.

A prudent driver always knows his limitations and never operates beyond his skill or confidence level. There are many things much worse than hurt pride.

 

A few years back I started driving skate boards for a company with about 625 sleeper cabs and another 40 day cabs, not real big but not very small either. Most of their equipment would pass a level 1 anytime except some of the older flats and specialty trailers often needed some work done before they would pass my pti. Oh ya we had 3 divisions flat, dry van and house haul. I was green as hell but making good money at .33/mile plus another .03 for flat, and still more for ANY permitted loads along with hub mileage(practical miles on all other runs). It was a pretty good outfit to work for but in the beginning I didn't realize it. I was pulling my hair out,getting frustrated,getting ulcers and constantly going over my reasoning for any decisions I made "in case " I ever got called on something. In other words I was worrying about everything I did. Not because I was doing anything actually wrong but more because I was soooooo freaking green I was scarred of making a mistake. This went on for over 8 months till one day I got into a major "discussion" with my dispatcher. He was a "difficult" person to work with and we had had a few heart to heart discussions, 4 in 8 months to be exact. This time he had really gotten under my skin and I was up to my ears with all the worrying. In the middle of a sentence I suddenly blurted out "...SCREW YOU and FIRE ME if you think you have to but I'm TELLING YOU I can't make this delivery on time tomorrow. I'm too tired and I don't have the hours left on my 70 to make it and there ain't NO LOAD worth dying for I don't care who it's for!!..." Then I hung up, shut off my phone, pulled the 3 fuses on the qualcom, drove 30 miles to to a Super 8 motel and treated myself to a steak with a really good bottle of wine. Next morning I called the Operations Director, told him I was taking my reset and would deliver tomorrow at 09:00. He asked why I was telling him all this and I told him to talk to Dan the dizpatch man. From that point on I decided I would continue to do the best job I could on everything I did and STOP worrying and playing the CYA game. If asked to do something not "kope a zetick" I'd just say sure with a smile and then do what I knew I should do and the way I should do it. I also called my trainer to tell him I thought I may be fired and to thank him for all the help and breaking in he had given me the first 2 weeks with him and the last 8 months by phone. Of course he asked what had happened so I told him the WHOLE long story. From that day on everything started falling into place. I realized I was still VERY GREEN, which lasts at least two years with a deck trailer before the VERY GREEN gets changed to green and three or four more until green becomes has some knowledge of flat bed procedures!!I actually started enjoying what I was doing most of the time;but I still don't like tarping hay loads with 8 ft drop wood tarps in a 40 mph wind with tarps that were folded when wet and the temperature dropped to -15F last night.
I guess the morale of the story here is hang in there it gets better with time, maybe, if your really lucky, if you catch a break, if you sell that land in the everglades you bought before the market slumped a little, if you unload that used Yugo you bought for $5,000 because you thought it would be a collectors piece, if you win a trifecta with three 100 to 1 shots, etc.
If it ain't fun anymore it's time to get out. Good Luck

 

No I mean net, after fuel, insurance, permits etc.

$1K of the $2,800 goes back for maintaince, taxes and whatever else comes up, I get what's left. I gross a little over $5K.

The rate on this load has also been cut by about $800 round trip over the last couple years too.

Posting this isn't meant to brag, but I'd really like Walleye to tell me how much better I could do working a truck for someone else. I keep hearing company and union drivers talk about there being no money in driving your own truck.