Salute To You OTR Drivers

@Chinatown ??

ps: Thanks, Velli. I did about 5 years OTR before I found a really good intrastate / local gig. Sometimes we have to pay those dues, but not always.

Any LTL jobs near you?

 

Look into Old Dominion, Saia, Fed ex....all the ltl companies.

 

I second those accolades in spades!

 

Mcklane , sysco, beverage. Look at who delivers to your grocery stores

 

You need to pace yourself.

As hard as you drive, you also need to use time off harder. It might not be home time with the kids but taking three days off now and then wherever you might be with a chance to take in a downtown ball game for example and decompress away from that truck at least for a day at a time and sleep at night in a nicer hotel rather than the sleeper helps minimize the so called burnout.

You can literally ruin yourself running too hard long enough. Completely and totally burn yourself out that the simple concept of getting into your tractor trailer again is a source of physical pain and a mental refusal to go to work again with that truck.

With regular times to decompress, at home or even away around the USA you can run years in that truck and not burn out. I actually burn out quicker in local work when it's a constant problem to get home at 6PM to get up at midnight and 1 am to fix food and make ready again to go out until 6 PM again every day 5 days a week. Ive done it. But it's not for me. One company transferred me to a sleeper truck division and sent me regional which pretty much eliminated the need to get up like that every day all week. I would return home each weekend until monday or sunday night and made the same money. But increased in retail expenses as far as truckstop food etc. I did have a apartment to pay for that year with a roommate who thought that all the housework fell on him. I told him not to worry about it i'll get it when I got home. It's fortunate that he went back to school and I moved on else where, it improved both of our lives. quite a bit.

 

I got about 30 plus years more or less. Medical stuff took care of that future possibility to make it 40 or 50 years even. I have about 5 more as a Temp CDL Supervisor part time when it was time to sell trucks at the auction house. Teach those automatics and manuals and impart some how to run older trucks like with air start systems etc.

I can try to use some of that time to teach people here what I can, but many of the things I consider are already not acceptable in our PC (Politically Correct) industry or perhaps deemed too inciting of trouble in companies determined not to have a driver work force that gets uppity now and then. If I was to run again (Not happening...) it will have to be with a rough outfit that don't mind a few knots from a tire thumper now and then to keep everyone (Including me) in line. Last I checked that sort of behavior is not lawful.

Trucking has also changed. The amount of plush and luxury is unbelievable now and the wussiness and lack of self initiative among our younger ones is not acceptable. So I consider myself a casualty, literally a dinosaur best kept in the institution so I don't ruin our most recent crop of driving school graduates. he he...

 

If I were forced to run "other than" the old school way, with all these nowadays impunites, I'd be retiring, too. I was lucky to land this outfit that still believes we "mature" guys do it better, LoL. If I ever were to train (ha!) I'd be out of a job, for sure.

Hats off to you, bro. I always enjoy your writings and wisdom!!!
Tom

 

Averett (LTL) takes new guys.......
also, look here:
Search Truck Driver Jobs, Careers in Jackson, MS | Indeed.com

and here:
Apply for Truck Driver Jobs in Dallas, TX | Indeed.com