Taking the plunge. My journey as an O/O.

What I intentionally did from the beginning is to try to do what a lot of people said couldn't be done. The number of people on these forums that ##### and moan about how terrible megas are, and how ####ty it is to work for one in any capacity, company or owner op, have always bothered me.

A lot of these people are the same ones that were saying that 60k per year income as a mega company driver was not possible.

So, as a 2nd year driver, I made 66k working for a mega and proved their doom and gloom to be ########. I worked hard for it, but I did it.

I looked at numbers based on three years experience driving, and also looked at how well my company truck seemed to be holding up.

It seemed to me that it was very possible that the trucking prophets of doom and gloom could easily be just as wrong about being a o/o for a mega as they were about being able to make 60k per year as a mega company driver.

So, I chose to experiment. Not **just** to experiment, mind you, I **DO** want to be an o/o not just an ornery curmudgeonly devil's advocate out to prove the doom and gloom anti-mega forumites wrong. Again.

I was (and still am) in a financial position stronger than most, and I have burned no bridges with Crete. If everything goes to hell in a handbasket tomorrow, and it isn't due to me screwing up catastrophically on the road, I can easily work for Crete/Shaffer and keep up truck payments on a company driver's pay till I clean up whatever is left on the truck note after the truck is scrapped/sold/whatever.

I have intentionally chosen to do this in the least-hands-on method possible. The experiment has zero validity for future drivers if I do things that they cannot.

Doing things the way a mechanically clueless person would do them also has the added benefit of showing me whether or not I can expect to survive an economic downturn in the future.

In short, I am *intentionally* doing things less efficiently than I could, partly to provide a valid comparison for future drivers to examine, and partly to see how much mechanical maintenance work I can get away with not doing. I am a few days shy of 48. I have no shop. I cannot count on being able to do all my simple mechanical work forever.

All that said, I am discovering that my experience in a truck from 190k to 443k miles is not an accurate representation of what i have been seeing from 443k to 511k.

All that said, there is definitely a grain of truth to the grumpy old farts whining about buying old trucks and leasing them onto mega carriers.

If I did do a significant part of my mechanical work myself, I would have a lot more money in my bank account right now. Maybe. How much do the tools required for a lot of basic truck repairs cost? A 3/4" or 1" drive torque wrench that can remove and properly tighten truck wheel lugs is NOT cheap. Air compressor, air tools, jacks, supports, shop materials. Some of these things I have from my time as a steel mill mechanic. Many I do not.

At this point, I am probably going to move on to Schneider because I have been in communication with a few Schneider ICs who are happy there, with their load board system. If I stay with Crete as an o/o, I am almost certainly not going to meet a level of income that will keep me from pulling the exit strategy trigger at 1.25 years.

I am listening here, but I have already seen and proven that a lot of the gloom and doom spouted by many drivers here is simply Chicken Little-isms.

I am providing more data. For my own benefit, and for others.

 

I keep thinking that I've surely caught up with all the deferred maintenance. Then something else bites me in the ###.

I am going to start doing oil sampling at 10k intervals, and replace when the oil degrades, or at 30k miles, I think.

Semi-synthetic. Not full synthetic. Full synthetic is the plan if/when I ever get a new truck.

I am still considering the new truck angle. After all I have spent on this truck, i don't want to just trade it in, but at the same time, if it keeps being a money pit, I will need to get out of it.

 

I have listened to everything that looked like a good faith criticism.

Just because I did not immediately discard my plans to instantly follow those recommendations does not mean that I have not listened.

Just like most places on the internet, this site is rather full of people with opinions that do not play well with reality.

You criticize the Schneider IC program. Did you ever actually spend time as part of that program?

 

By that logic, nobody should ever work for anyone else. In any industry. For any reason.