Things I've learned my first 2 weeks OTR

People who drive cars on the interstate are either brain dead or just don't care about anything. I 81 south was backed up for miles yesterday from 2 separate incidents of incompetent 4 wheelers cutting off tractor trailers in the rain. I'm an optimist, If the drivers of the cars survived I hope this will be a learning experience for them and they will teach they're offspring not to drive like autistic orangutans until eventually natural selection does its job and everyone drives responsibly.

The road is lonely and the fabled lot lizards are either extinct or an outright myth. If you aren't teaming with your significant other you'll be beating off until home time. And most of the time you're too tired from 11 hours of driving to even do that.

11 hours a day is a long ### time to operate a 40 ton vehicle. All my driving so far has been in the Appalachian mountains. 30 mph mountain climbing followed by praying to all the gods that you can keep control of the truck on the way down. My 10 hour reset consists of 9 hours of sleep.

After 6 PM? Good luck finding a place to park for the night. This may be a regional problem her in the densely populated east coast. Parking at rest areas sucks because there's no showers and the only food is from vending machines which may or may not dispense your $2.50 Snickers bar.

DC workers don't like you. When you show up they have to work and they resent you for it. The Amazon logo is a smile but good luck finding one on any of their employee's faces. Home Depot gives tells you which spot they want you to drop your trailer but some dingleberry from Werner already took that spot and didn't tell anyone.

My truck is governed at 65 which is extremely frustrating when someone is in front of me is going 62 because, sure enough, as soon as you try to make a pass they speed up to 66. And of course some ### wipe in a Honda is going to try to pass you on the right while you're passing on the left.

The pay sucks. Most of the people in my orientation came from some $8-10/hr job and were really stoked but this is my fallback from oilfield and holy cow does it hurt working so many hours and seeing a check with no overtime pay. I'm keeping my spirits up by thinking of this job as a paid internship rather than a job. I'm working for the experience on my resume. Thank every god that I saved my money.

 

That's good advice. My trainer has a little truck stop pocket book. I want to pick one up when I'm solo. It seems most weigh stations are entering and exiting a state. Maybe I'll write down the mile marker of the odd ball weigh stations

 

I knew going in to this profession it would be a rocky start, seems it is for everyone.