Npr on driver shortage... Good info for new drivers

Settle down gentlemen. Please. I don't think anyone is offended here. I can see the respect on both of your parts.

I too attended college while my spouse got her 4 year both of us racked up 44K in debt student loans in addition to owning a home and lands.

We sold the home, all of the money went into paying off Uncle Sam's Student loans. Come to find out he's getting ready to excuse #### near a trillion and change of all students who took loans to go to a college that has consistently failed to prepare them for real world.

At one point in life being hammered by a 52 year old home requiring approximately 65K in repairs to maintain habitability made me a very stressed and tired person popping xanax for a couple years until I quit.

That is not the life I wanted for myself and spouse. It's over and done with. It was incredibly experience watching the monthly bills march ever higher in costs year over year. So much for the American dream of home ownership free and clear. Been there done that. Next!

Gentlemen, please. I think everyone has had a walk in this life for the good or the bad. If we are able to talk freely agreeing to disagree where necessary, it will be a valuable source of information for the very young ones (21 is young to me, painfully young. Still a child... but growing) getting into Trucking.

Trucking again is not a job. It's a deliberate choice to serve the Nation which is that greater than yourself.

Many will try it. But #### few will remain beyond a few years and even less will succeed as I have. Ive also starved. Been there done that. Ive seen the worst in people and the best as well. It's made me a hard man sometimes unable to offer any kind of empathy ...

At one time Trucking was a life that was very good. And a thousand dollars every sunday. I would give a limb and nut to hop into some of those older trucks again, computers and technology be ######.

What say you?

 

I put myself through college as a table dealer in Reno, no loans, no debt and came out with 2 degrees. The first Accounting, with a teaching minor, then got a BA in History to be used in association with the teaching credential. My "first" career began with the Nev Div of Forestry as a Crew Boss (inmate work/fire crews with NV Dept of Corrections)...a little unsettling being told I will be guide and counselor of felons with a bus loaded with chain saws and other sharp implements! Got a few years in and went back to school for my Paramedic credentials and moved on to a county fire agency in CA. One thing led to another and had to take a medical/psych early retirement from fire fighting...saw an add on TV one morning at 0200 after getting up to respond to a structure fire alarm (stayed with the volunteer side as an instructor/adviser) and being wide awake ... it was for truck driving school...sounded like fun!!! That was over 20 years ago...you know when you could get your degree and actually get a job in the field your degree was linked to....or just have a degree in hand and get a job that paid a living wage...

My point you are wondering? Times are so different now, actually if you were to reverse my direction in my little diatribe things might work.....learn to drive, take college courses online, get your degree and start sending resumes and applications while still working. However...you will be competing with people that have been forced into "professional student" status and have Masters or PHD's in hand going after the same job with no work history or experience...you the "self starter", still employed, little debt...could actually have a better introduction to that new employer. College isn't all it's cracked up to be actually, and everyone really isn't suited for working in the "concrete jungle".....

 

I try to encourage people to stay outta the drivers seat. do to how drivers get treated. If people are fine being treated like there 3rd class citizens. And they enjoy sleeping on parking lots.Then by all means go drive a truck. It pays the same as an average factory workers job. People wanting to drive a truck. Will have to get use being looked down on. By everyone else they come in contact with.

 

You don't think it's a valid excuse and I'd say you're wrong on that. My dad's been at this for nearly 40 years. At the age of 60 what is he going to go do other than be a greater at walmart?

Have you not reailzed that the younger generation has done nothing but push the older generation out of work? And it ain't just in trucking it's in every career and I don't care what anybody says. I've watched both my parents over the years get the shaft when it comes to work both of which have about nearly 40ears exp. in their line of work. So yes there is a point in time when you're too old to find something else to do in your life.

This is a debate that's a rather touchy subject though so I'll refrain from speaking my mind on it. Riffman no this isn't all directed towards you I just don't agree that nobody's ever too old to do something else because in some instances I believe they are.

 

Hmmmm good post ! ...I've already slowed down alot and looking forward to the day when my truck sits on weekends and doesent see the world South of Kansas city ..North of souix falls ..West of Lexington ne or east of des Moines.

 

OK then.

 

The only way to make peace with it is to find a different occupation. I clearly remember when I was in the Navy listening to sailors gripe and curse about how horrible military life is, then at the last minute re-enlist for 6 more years.
The big deal about trucking is, if a high school grad or even high school dropout is motivated he/she can make $55K-$60K their first 12 mos. as a solo driver; that's the first 12 mos. after the training period.

 

I'm not sure it's fair to say if they are motivated. A whole lot will have to go a newbies way to make that their first year. Folks can say what they want, but when it comes to the money, this is not a "what you make of it" industry. You have to have efficiency from others to make money. That can be extremely difficult to receive.

 

I think I can help here a little bit.

When I got out of high school, my parents preached college, preached pensions preach preach preach.

I did not want college debt. I could not pay the car insurance bill sometimes. How in the world would college do for me. Military is out too. Ergo Trucking.

Then China came along after 1994. Thankfully some heavy industry stayed around. But we have lost so much as those who own industry and answer to wallstreet stock holders reduced and slashed costs everywhere they can including shipping entire factories out. As in out out and out across the US Borders.

My parents preached and taught lessons based on old school goal of working a good job in industry for 20 or 30 years, retire with a good pension and a large family all raised up and so on. All a pipe dream. Actually a Fatima Morgania (Mirage)

I found my place running war freight to the ports during the spring and summer of 1994. I was prepared each morning waking up with a military load on my deck thinking whatever happens will happen. God is my stronghold and there is no being afraid. Essentially going to war with a 18 wheeler.

Thankfully the senior North Korean Leader had a heart attack and dropped dead, the next day's dispatch had me back to running ordinary freight like shoes...

Seeing a truckstop full of war freighting change over to ordinary machine parts, toilet paper, snacks, food products and so forth in one week was amazing to me. And not a word in the media. That tells me the US Government will keep secrets from the people until approximately 3 days or a little more before the shooting starts in the next war.

Fast forward to 9-11. If I was not running for McKesson hauling million plus dollar value medicine loads I feared the bottom would have dropped out of the freighting. I began to think about a life off the big road. If Im not trucking what do I do? Go back to college?

Let me tell you something. Sitting there in College as a 40 something year old in a room with 50 young hard bodies, some of whom were leaving to go to war in Iraq. I gave it a good shot. Why did I quit college?

The State of Arkansas indicated that there is a number of H1b visa students coming here from India over seas to do the work I would be doing if I graduated or interned with a datacenter or other internet, computer, technology area. I was trained on our old Telecommunications, Computer systems and discovered my limitations in programming. Binary easy. HTML pretty cool. But Java and others ugh. Then I discovered programming really hard due to the necessary breaking big rocks into little rocks. And no mistakes or it will not work.

I discovered I build computers for desktop very very very well. I spent the last 17 years building my own computers, very powerful machines some of which are approaching 10 years of service and others burned up because the motherboard or other parts failed under normal conditions (Heat usually, another path to failure is the use of inferior metals inside the motherboard's power connections which began to literally fray like a bad string towards each other until they shorted out. It takes a electron microscope to see this kind of failure. Every time you applied power (Converted to heat) to the metal circutry you literally bend it back and forth like a paper clip until it fails in a few years.

See where Im going with this? I was a trucker, will die a trucker. But Arkansas encourage me and wife to retain in something else entirely literally rehabbing ourselves so that we may be productive.

But after learning the extent of the Indians coming here to do my work caused me to abandon it. My spouse? She got her 4 year alright,. But it's a worthless arts type degree. But she is first in her family to graduate college. She does not have a issue with me dropping out however what I did retain and learned freed me from the inferior crappy computers you see in the walmart, poor things.... I build my own. But can I make a living doing that? Get back to me in a few years and ask that question again.

Back to trucking. Not any time soon, if ever. As I stated, until they bury me with a manual in my hands I will always be a trucker.

The problem becomes one of many issues related to time. Driver time, truck time, Dispatch time, traffic time, time and costs. Recievers insistnece in JIT delivery only to have driver sit on trailer all day throwing the planned reload completely away.

Wait time. And so on.

We are under enormous stress as a Industry. It's unfortunate to see that because all of us are individuals. To get 10 million People in the Trucking Industry focused on one thing would be a miracle. It's not going to happen.

Am more than happy to keep tossing my two cents in if it helps one person do better on the big road.

 

I've accepted the fact that due mostly to my career choice and my inability to tolerate woman who can't deal with sacrifice I'll have to work till I die ..I am however making this landing as smooth as possible by having my truck paid off and doin local work 4 or 5 days a week ...laying the ground work now .