Stopping in Fargo??

What and end the strike?

 

I said I MIGHT have to go do that. Will I really?

One guess.

 

I get up to Fargo maybe once a month, usually fuel at the Hook (better price) but I always park/eat at the Sta-mart. They have a restaurant I really like and the parking lot's cleaner. Sure I'd be happy to have a meal with you. Ya don't have to buy though. I'll post here when I get a load coming down from the elevator located right near there.
If we were chatting, I'd tell ya to stay in school, kid. Get a degree in something that requires some brains. I can't imagine why anyone with a brain would aspire to be a truck driver. The hours are long, the pay for the most part is below average considering the time you'll spend on the road (unless you own your own equipment), and the job can be dangerous.
As far as not having a boss breathing down your neck, what a joke! Hell son, everybody is your boss; dispatchers, shippers, receivers, cops, other motorists, etc, etc. You are only in command of mundane driving tasks and in most cases you won't even be in charge of your own time because your dispatcher will dictate where you'll be and when you'll get there. Remember also, in any situation whether it is at some warehouse, in an office, or even at your own employer a truck driver is always considered low man on the totem pole whose time is less valuable than pretty near anyone else's.
So you want a window office with a view that changes every day? Let's be real here. You'll be trapped in a cubicle measuring roughly six feet by eight feet for about twenty hours a day when you're on the road and after a few years driving a truck all the views look pretty much the same; hour after hour and mile after mile of non changing interstate. Any interesting scenery that you happen to pass can only be looked at for fleeting glances because you're driving something that can weigh as much as 80,000 pounds at 60-75 mph, remember? If you don't give the road just about your undivided attention you could wind up killing somebody!
So you're young; let's talk about the future. Chances are good that the industry as we know it won't even exist twenty years from now. Long haul trucking makes very little financial sense now with costs for fuel, insurance, taxes, etc. being what they are. Can you even imagine what will happen when fuel hits 5 or 6 dollars a gallon? (believe me, it's coming and sooner than most people think, too) I think you're going to see most freight that is moving over three or four hundred miles with the exception of some specialized instances moved into containers and onto the rails. Almost all trucking will become regional in nature, strictly between railhead and destination. Don't think the railroads can do it? Think again. The railroad companies, unlike the truckers are embracing 21st century technology, and remember they are inherently more efficient and have much lower energy costs per ton-mile.
I found someone's statement about people with graduate degrees getting into trucking to be laughable. Oh there might be a few that try it for a few years, but apply some logic. Why would anyone who had the skills and capability to do anything else and who was accustomed to earning a middle class income want to do this for more than a couple of years- except maybe as a break from real life- like me.
As a final note, I'll say that most people who have a lot of enthusiasm about this business seem to be beginners; guys and girls fresh out of school who have never earned anything resembling a middle class income. I notice also that the general intelligence level in this industry seems to be below the average of the general population (all people who post on this board with the exception of a few excluded of course!) I can say with certainty that I'd strongly discourage either of my sons from entering this business with the exception of a position requiring a degree in transportation management.
I can't resist a question. Why would anyone go out in public dressed as a psuedo -cowboy and drive a truck with fake teeth on the grille? People must see things like that and assume all truckers are semi-retarded.
rx

 

Rex, you're a hammer that hit it right on the head. That's telling it like it is, brother. It's good medicine.

I loved some aspects of trucking. I mentioned one scenario that was truly awsome. Yeap, loading up 22 Coca-Cola machines two days before July 4th in Martinsburg, West Virginia and yanking those all the way to Seattle over the next 5 days without communicating with my boss was cake. I had a few of those in my time.

But those runs were indeed few, and very far between. Most of the other runs didn't come close to the few I consider cake, and some required waiting all day for them and then running them all night on little short hops of 400 miles or less. Others were aggravating in other ways. Screw that lifestyle.

Good to hear someone else is reading the writing on the wall. I believe OTR trucking will die much sooner than 20 years from now, though. I think it'll be gone in as few as 3 years from now, 5 at the outside. OTR trucking is going the way of the Doh-Doh bird, like it or not, so it's something I'd get into only over the short haul. Warren Buffet just made some major moves into the rails, and he's going to see a return on those investments. OTR Truck drivers will be the sacrificial lambs, of course, as more freight on rails means fewer trucking jobs. And I personally don't think we're just talking merely 'fewer' here. I predict OTR will be gutted, and many an OTR driver will be unemployed fairly soon.

No, if you have a brain, there are other avenues open to you if and when you get the degree. Most people I know who have a college degree wouldn't be caught dead driving rigs, and for good reason. I drove 18 for three years total (over 8 years), and I got rid of my CDL when I quit driving. I don't see myself getting my Class-A back ever. I prefer solo OTR driving, and that is the very segment in trucking about to get the guilotine.

 

What spoils truck driving, ultimately, is the human-being factor. If you didn't have to deal with people, it'd be a great job. If you could simply work your 80 hours a week and get paid for that 80 hours of labor without some vulture picking your pockets, ripping you off, or making you do some stupid #### you shouldn't be doing, it'd be a good job. With higher pay, it'd be a #### good job.

But as a truck driver, you will find lots of people's life-of-reilly lifestyles depend on your labor. And those idiots rarely, and I do mean RARELY, say "Thank You".

I predict that if someone with a college degree gets into trucking, AND he doesn't have any skeletons in his closet holding him back (such as a criminal record), in a few months he'll be gone from the industry. He won't put up with the incredible, jaw-dropping BS he'll have to face as a truck driver when he has the degree.

 

For what it's worth gang I am from a very well educate dfamily, and am very well educated myself, but the BEST education I have recieved is in the street and on a truck...I mad eseverak mistakes as a young man and have paid dearly for them, and continue to do so today...as AmeriKa tightems the reigns on its' citizens, I find myself more and more marginalized due to my past...but if you ask me it is for the best as I would rather fight the boredom, yet have the freedom and the fatigue and to quote a CLASSIC "the white is getting longer, with no aces in the hole...I'm much too young to feel THIS #### old..."

bottom line...you've got to chase YOUR dream...and to your advantage you will have your BA or BS to fall back on so you'll be fine...

-M-

 

I'm scheduled to go to work for both the first few days after doomsday. Hey, I keep my promises. I'll go to work for Swift the first day after the world explodes, and them mosey on over to JobHunt. May even throw in a stint with England later in the first week after the end of the world.