Trucking can be like a bad marriage...

Discussion in 'Road Stories' started by ghostchild, Feb 4, 2009.

If you could do it all over again would you...

  1. *

    Have stayed with the 1st company you started with?

    14.6%
  2. *

    Became a lease or owner operator when you first started?

    14.6%
  3. *

    Left the industry long ago?

    15.3%
  4. *

    Tranfered into the admin part of trucking?

    5.7%
  5. *

    Would change nothing about your trucking career.

    29.3%
  6. *

    none of the above..but...

    23.6%
  1. ghostchild

    ghostchild Road Train Member

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    Don't think trucking is still like this...

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    back during the hey day...when truckers were like movie stars...and TV shows were made about us, movies and songs....
    (today when they work truckers into scripts, it's always as some kind of creepy villian type)

    BJ and the Bear, would be totally unfirmiluar with todays trucking enviornment...for one...DOT...would probablly not allow BJ to have that Chimanzee....and or various shippers and recievers....

    I reckon BJ and his pet, wouldn't last long in todays trucking enviornment...satellite tracking, scales around every corner, truck stops that now resemble Seven Elevens...

    In BJ's day...truck stops were custom built with truckers in mind, and all the things they would need while away from home....

    The older truck stops had lounges, pool, big tv rooms, some even had clubs attatched...where entertainers would perform....

    Truck stops in the past were the place to be, in many smaller areas...the local towns people, women, would come hang out in hopes of meeting a truck driver...

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    Locally ran custom truck stops like this are a thing of the past now...long gone...except on the most desolate of back roads...and now more likely to be owned or ran by Asad...instead of Joe or Mark...

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    Just a sign of the times I suppose...not that Asad can't serve up a good hoggie sandwich...

    Yes, if your thinking your coming out here to enjoy some wild Jerry Reed old style Hnky tonk get down boogie oogie type of enviornment...

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    Forget about it...those days are long gone...back then, drivers would park, then party all night...then drive...

    Now...forget about it...you will remain attatched to your trailer...and if you unhook, all sorts of alarms will go off back at your dispatch...so instead of venturing off into town like the old days...with like 5 other drivers to raise Kane....instead now...you will sit at a pilot, alone...around a whole new class of driver, which old timers would not be able to recognize...

    Let me make this clear...

    Don't mistaken an older driver for a 'old school driver'....

    For the two are not the same...many older in age drivers, are not 'old school'...they weren't out here say 20 years ago and back....they may be older...but their 'new'...or 'newbies'....

    They are not the long haired hippie cowboy rowdies of the past...most of that type have left trucking all together...but I caught the tail end of that crowd, as they were leaving or being flushed out...and boy was trucking totally different when they were out here...

    They were a different breed...showmen...I can't explain it...
    I guess they came from the woodstock generation...all I know is their gone now...replaced by quiet, stoac loner types...replaced by older quiet men who have just ran out of gas...and have no interest in dialogue or trying different things...

    These new type of drivers are old and conservative...they don't like to play...their like Ward Cleavors...vs Willie Nelsons...

    But that's ok...that's what companies want now...very conservative compliant safe drivers who obey....:biggrin_25511:

    Anyways...thought I was done writing...

    This thread is never done...it's a place to lay down real though for whatever reasons...

    It is U4EA's and mines closet and or basement place here on this forum...
    People enjoy reading our stuff, but don't really like interacting with us...I guess their afraid we're going to jump out of the screen and pull ya in or something...

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    Don't worry, we're harmless...and besides, you might like what you find inside should I do decide to pull you in....
     
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  3. ghostchild

    ghostchild Road Train Member

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    Ok what is it about laundromats that just drive guys crazy??

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    I can't be all that much of a 'sissy' if even I recoile at the idea of having to do laundry...ok...that is definatly a guy thing...a universal dislike of these places....

    It's like I'd rather just buy new clothes, than wash the ones I have, if it means going to one of these time consuming, waste of perfectly good time, places...

    And the calibur of people you run into at these places is like wow...

    There's one right up the street here...and I dread going to it...I feel like it's such a waste of time...lot's of single moms with kids, standing around staring at you...I guess it would be a good 'hit up' spot...for guys who are looking for that...

    But with me...I just like to get in and out as quick as possible...people think your as ignorant as they are when you go there...

    I miss having my own machines, when I use to have my own place...oh how I miss that...

    Anyhow...it's Saturday...and I still feel kinda guilty, mixed, cause I've decided not to go where I was suppose to go...and turned phone off...

    One of the bad effects of trucking is even when your off, if your not careful, you will still live your life as if your still in the truck...

    And I fear that's what I'm doing now...even though it's Saturday...I find myself thinking about tomorrow...and telling myself I can't do this or that, cause tomorrow I have to leave....not good...

    Almost like aftering being married for 40 years...even after the divorce...you find yourself kind of paralized by habit...and have to teach yourself how to live again...to enjoy life, your off time, without always thinking about your mate...

    Kinda like the business man who takes a vacation...but while on vacation is constantly on the cell phone working...
    So I guess it's not trucking exclusive...

    And why did Boise State have to loose??

    Anyhow...I've got a lot of little meaningless things to do...back soon...
     
  4. ghostchild

    ghostchild Road Train Member

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    I've been off for a few days now...and feel better with each hour that passes...

    Not having to ride this thing here for 18 hours a day, does wonders for the nerves...

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    Ok, I'm not Debbie...and this isn't Dallas...and I wasn't meant to ride stuff like this all day long...it just wears on your nerves...accumilative stress...it builds up all throughout the week...noise!!

    Thrashing...rough roads...who needs it...

    It's so calm and quiet right now...I feel myself healing...I don't want to go back tomorrow...and feel resentful that I've already been dispatched...

    I mean how do they know I even want to go out tomorrow?? They don't...but they did...and I just can't live like that anymore...

    But I know with any job you have to do that...

    Or maybe I'm just being a big baby...

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    Maybe I should just grow up and count my blessings....

    But I could of been a star...I could have been a star...remember earlier when I was auditioning at that club...and doing well...and then do to the selfish, hoggish greedy scheduale of trucking...I had to leave...I had to sacrifice my showbiz career for dirt lots and long hours away from everyone...

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    I should be performing in Vegas right now...my own dressing room...whatever...but instead tomorrow I'll end up at a chemical plant where the security guard likes to violate me by searching inside of my truck.....

    I'm doomed, unless I change course...and fast..

    I just want to be like everyone else...wake up, go to work at 7 am...get off by 4 pm...and then spend the rest of the evening doing whatever...away from job...

    Why can't my life be normal like that?

    With normal neighbors....

    Why is my life so out of wack??

    I wish I could just go back in time...and change things...

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    Oh, I so would not be here right now if I could....

    (Hang on for a minute while I scratch this lottery ticket)

    I won $2.00....$2.00 freaken dollars...what the hck can I do with that...
    Why does God so not like me???

    [​IMG]

    Good-by folks...I'll be back later...I'm having a nervious breakdown....





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  5. U4EA

    U4EA Road Train Member

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    But I'm going to make a change...

    I'm tired of saying I'm going to change, then not doing anything about it. It's a vicious cycle - I'm miserable, want something more, more fulfilling; yet I procrastinate, and nothing ever gets done. If I had just made that change when I was initially miserable, I'd probably be where I want to be right now, or at the very least, a hell of a lot closer....

    It's easy to justify your reasoning behind holding off - "I should be happy to just have a job in this economy", "I'm too old to go back to school", "my possessions/bills won't allow me to take the risk".

    In my mind the only valid reason for not following your dreams would be financial obligations; if you have a family depending on you, bills, etc. - putting yourself in a risky situation is one thing - but risking your families well being isn't acceptable.

    But I have nothing holding me back...I have a "ride or die" kind of woman who'd be with me until the end regardless of my path.

    I have to make this decision now and follow through with it. I have no time to procrastinate any longer....reading my own posts saddens me and made me realize all the more, the changes I have to make...

    There long over due...
     
  6. ghostchild

    ghostchild Road Train Member

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    If you leave...than...well...darn...my situations a bit complicated...

    If not for a .........I'd head out to ............and go live with my........for a while...anything but this...sometimes the only way to resesitate your spirit back into life is to suddenly and violently thrust yourself into a totally new enviornment with a whole new set of challenges...but joyful challenges...

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    Obviously, that's what we both need...to resisitate our lives with new challenges...

    If you leave this industry before I do...please stay in touch...I can't be all alone here...then I'd truly loose my mind...

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    Do not leave me alone in this asylum...please...

    I know you won't...and I promise, I will break out soon myself...

    Not sure where I will land...but I've done it before...and will do it again...
     
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  7. U4EA

    U4EA Road Train Member

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    Perfect - wonderfully expressed.

    I'll definately stay in touch; I like writing here. This has become a sort of venting thread for me.....I know my threads are totally off topic but, writing and reading your posts have been like therapy for me; better therapy then alcohol or anything else.

    This change for me won't be over night and in all honesty, may never happen. But it is up to me to get the wheels rolling...I know everyone can't just "get up and go", like maybe I can; but there are much more to the equation that I have to take into consideration - I really need to sit back and think.

    Local, contruction type driving tapers off during the winter...if I feel like I've landed on a good path and am heading in the right direction, I may never look back...

    I have too in the past...up and left everything. I just hope if I do it this time, something great will come out of it....
     
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  8. ghostchild

    ghostchild Road Train Member

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    One flew over the cuckoos nest...

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    A friendship forged under odd circumstances...
    Two guys, two souls, who suddenly realized they didn't belong there...and beggin plotting their escape...

    Nurse Ratchet...translates into all we can't stand about this industry...

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    Nurse Ratchet = DOT, weigh stations, dispatchers, HOS, TSA, shippers, recievers, rude cashiers, Pilot, Subway, bears, city kitties...and everyone else gunnen for us...

    Yes, it's as if we've been transposed into this movie...two guys trying to escape a over bearing unreasonable industry full of sadistic, power hungry, controlling nurse Ratchets on every level...

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    Escape while you can...before they do the brain lobotomy thing...

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  9. ghostchild

    ghostchild Road Train Member

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    Happy Holidays people!!

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    Just because I'm going through issues with my life right now...does not stop me from hopeing all or most of you get into the Holiday Spirit and just relax and enjoy...(Don't worry be happy!)


    It's Sunday evening...I'm half way to my destination...decieded to take a break...Eagles are trailing the Bears, 16-31...come on Vick....

    Here's what I'm looking at doing...I looked at last weeks check...

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    And to be honest with you...with all the time I put in...like today...and all of last week, hardly ever being home throughout the week, sacrificing quite productive nights at home...that check...it's really not worth it...

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    That check is basically paying me to spend money on the road, stay in social isolation all week, exclude family and neighbors from life cause I'm always to tired or on the go, missing out on going to clubs...like Jazz clubs or other entertainment venues, playing guitar, volunteering my time...on and on...that check in no way compensates me for all I miss out on, or the toll it's having on me...

    (I never swear or curse too myself, until i get back into the truck...I just noticed that today)...

    I mean yes, I try to make light of it...but it really is taking a toll...one the amount of pay I get, really just doesn't or can't justify...

    At the same time though, I've been broke before...and so a check period, is better than no check or pay at all...

    So here's what I'm going to do...I'm going to send out resumes to various places of interest...and just see what happens...I don't want to leave, unless I have something solid to go to...(I've made that mistake before too)...

    You quit your job, and people suddenly change their mind...and then you want to choke them...:biggrin_25510:

    So, I will send out resumes, fill out online applications, call people, places...and see what's out there within jobs that interest me...and if an opportunity arises...than I'll take it...

    But if it's going to just be another 'job'...it has to be one I'll enjoy...one catored to my strengths...which is the public...dealing with people...(I'd make a great tour guide cause I love to talk, and sound like I know what I'm talking about.:biggrin_25524:

    My other plan was to start my own business...by either purchasing a cheap big truck...or shuttle van and starting my own Airport shuttle type of business...

    [​IMG]

    Again...I would enjoy something like this, cause when it comes to custimor service...I'm second to none...I make everyone feel like 'The Howels'...a Millione bucks...(I'd also make a good Bus line driver)...

    By working for myself...I'm only limited by the amount of energy and enthusiasm I put into it...when you work for someone else...no matter how hard you bust your bubble...your pay is already set in stone...

    At this point all I can do is speculate..and hope for the best...and try to maintane a positive attitude until such time arrives...

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    As I sit out here in my truck, in this dark parking lot...it just feels I'm around lifeless cold industrial equiptment...it's the same lifeless cold equiptment that was out here years ago...only back then, it was the characters in the trucks, that gave life to this industry...and some of you are still that life...(Ahh...that's so sweet)...

    Anyways time to end this post...
    And again...Happy Holidays everyone!!

    [​IMG]
     
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  10. xlsdraw

    xlsdraw Road Train Member

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    Happy Holidays to you also Ghostghild! Have you ruled out Driving School Instructor or even Dispatcher? Both would provide plenty of interaction and home time within the industry.
     
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  11. U4EA

    U4EA Road Train Member

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    Exactly, it's a "no lose" situation. Your not quiting your job wrecklessly, in frustration, with no where to go; if your job searching and applying while still earning your regular pay, it's only benefitial - with no downside......

    You might just find something great! You never know......



    I've done that before too....although I curse myself for doing it, in most cases your driven to the point of quitting, frustrated and sickened....

    Sometimes peace of mind and your own sanity is more important then a job that only gives you a mediocre paycheck.

    Finding something that will help you regain your quality of life is your number one goal priority....sometimes even taking a job that might require you to take a small pay cut is well worth it, if your life will improve by being home, socially, etc....

    Put your resume out there, make those call, you may be surprised with what you find....Maybe your New Year will really be worth celebrating......
     
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