Should I even get into trucking?

After graduating college with an accounting degree and finding out that sitting in an office listening to woman gossip all day, sucks, I've done everything from drive a cab, to clean carpets, to what I'm doing now, working for a medical courier company. I'm an employee but still have to use my vehicle and I put roughly 60,000 miles a year on it. I'm grossing (commission - fuel) about 750 a week and rotate Saturdays where I usually make an additional 100 bucks. Definitely not getting rich! But I'm making it, and the opportunity to become a manager/lead courier will be there in the coming years. I've always had the desire to become a trucker, and yes, part of the lure is making good money. But it seems the hoops you need to jump through are so big in today's economy to get the skills and experience needed to get a good paying job in the trucking industry, just makes it too much of a gamble. What say you?

 

Believe me, I've done enough research to know the industry is not a permanent road trip/vacation. And I deal with a lot of crap in my job now - I've even been tested for HIV just to be sure (I handle blood samples routinely).

It hasn't really been a "dream" so to speak of mine, to become a truck driver. Just looking for something a bit better and a way to possibly support myself better.

I came very close to quitting this job and signing up at SAGE in Denver, as when I started I had all the crummy routes without many pickups/deliveries. Fortunately some doors opened and I got a whole lot more business on my route. Just like trucking or any industry, seniority gets the gravy.

 

I understand that! Before I started researching the trucking industry, I, like many others, thought it was all fun and games. I'd go to school, get my license, drive 5 days a week, and enjoy beers and barbecue on my deck Saturday evening.

Then I found this website...

I'm ready and willing to work my ### off - I do every week as it is now, working sometimes 60 hours. However, the prospect of jumping the fence to the potentially greener pasture of trucking and ending up throwing away what I've worked to build at my current job, and getting stuck working for Swift averaging 2200 miles a week # .32/mile has me scared frankly.

Perhaps the smartest thing to do is wait and see if the economy recovers at some level and the industry gets a bit better, but most of you long timers think the damage has been done and it'll never be like the good ol days.

I'm fine with CSA2010 and black box recorders and all that. I don't screw around when I'm at work. It's the prospect of some company finding a way to screw you over, chew you up, and spit you out before you can get the experience required to get a good gig. I read too many stories like that and the fact that the industry, at least for the big companies, is now based on training people and only using student drivers to keep wages rock bottom. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, I'm not really a union lover, but the stuff many corporations do so a few at the top can live high and mighty just drives me crazy.