Trucking can be like a bad marriage...

Trucking can also be like a good marriage...

Yes, can you believe that's coming from me...
A change of attitude I suppose...and a change of partners...

I've been married and divorced from more companies than probablly most on here...

Some companies weren't worthy of my hand, some were, but I left anyways cause I was younger and chasing other dreams...

But for instance...the last company I was with...I got paid $60.00 for a load that grossed $950.00...sorry...but that's highway robbery...:smt068

All that aside...I realized at this stage in my life and or career...I am no longer compatible with the big A B C companies...

It would be like a 12th grader going back to kindergarden...with all the rules, the dispatchers and their attitudes, idling rules, this rule that reg...yuk...

It's like walking around in a harness....

So I've gone off the beaten path into the world of independant owners...
Yes, you can still get burned...but also theirs an air of freedom and respect that comes to it, that you don't get from large 300-1000 fleet companies...

There's something nice about being dispatched from one location...and only having one or two dispatchers, that you can see on a daily basis...

It's so much more humanizing...
Also that whole qualcom crap...all that had to go...there are still companies out here who don't touch that crap...my advice...stay away from companies that do...it's a bad sign of how you will get treated..like a remote control car or something...

Also...with the qualcoms usually comes this 'smart fuel' hogwash....

Anyways..to shorten this up...trucking can actually be a good marriage for you...if you do it right...

I'm looking at it now, more like a 'business'...a means to an end...a trade, that if done right, will allow me to do all the other things i want to do...

There's no other industry or job, at this stage of my life, that will allow me to generate the type of reveniew and or possibly be a millionare in 5 years or less...

I've sorounded myself with some very succesful people who will hopefully help me obtain this goal...

Ok, i'm done..

 

When working for, or being married to, a owner operater, a successful one....(Don't worry, that's just a metaphor I use to maintane continuity with the thread title)

You soon learn or observe traits in them that make them what they are...

The main things I have observed are.

1. Consistancy...staying the course or path...

Where I would of quit, walked away or gotten bored...they do not...succesful owners are very consistant...they stay the course....something I've never been good at doing...

2. Very detailed orientated...

Succesful owners are very detailed orientated...they notice every little thing about their truck, finances, you, your habits, your moods. They pay attention to everything...

Again...a trait I don't have naturally...I'm just the opposite...I like the big picture, and haven't much patience for the smaller one...

It's like they follow a formula...and just stick with it...and some how it works...cause good ones keep getting more money and trucks...

their only down fall being finding quality drivers...so when they do find one...they go out of their way to court or keep you...

Which can be nice for the driver...cause then you can directly measure your importance to the company...
But it can be annoying too at times...

But imagine how it must feel, to own a truck or two or 3 ect ect...and trust someone else to drive it, and not wreck, to show up on time ect ect...

You pay $30,000 for a truck...and then turn around and put a stranger in it...so to speak...and what if that stranger wrecks, and crashes into a greyhound bus?

Again, that's why succesful owner operators don't just allow anyone to drive their trucks...cause putting the wrong person in your truck could cause you way more than the business could ever earn...should they do something reckless and stupid...

To be honest with you, modern trucking isn't in my blood anymore...I can honestly say that...that's why I look at it more as a means to an end...

a ladder wrung...a step up, to obtain something else...a business...

Cause once I get what I want, I'm out of it...

I just know I can save up money alot quicker driving a truck, than I can being a Wal-Mart greeter....

 

You obviously haven't read my last 3 new post's....

Please read before you comment...

I'm not whining anymore...read what I've been saying...

I still don't like trucking...the enviornment...it's even worse now...keeps you in isolation...tired all the time...removed from regular society...like your in some kind of insulated time capsule....it's sad what it does to some...

But I've come back with a new or different perspective in that it can be a means to an end if done right...

In other words if done right, trucking can be your ticket to freedom...but that means changing attitude and looking at it as a business...a business that can gain you independence....

I'm now 'married' to a owner operator....

I still don't like trucking...but I like them...they've given me a model to go by, if I want to be successful....

Listen to what I'm about to say....

Poor dispatching is the number one thing or cause, that wears drivers out...poor dispatching is the reason behind more driver burn out than any other cause...

Dispatchers burn more drivers out, and are responsible for more drivers leaving and feeling miserable than any other factor...

Eliminate the dispatcher...or become your own....and trucking can once again work for you...

Read what I just wrote 5 times...then feel free to comment...

 

Trucking indeed use to be 'independent'...

Sloppy dispatching...without regard to your personal needs, is what burns drivers out...and makes you feel miserable...

When your dispatched by another person who doesn't seem concerned with your personal needs or rest cycle..it has a way of wearing you down, destroying your moral....

Dispatchers could care less about your personal life or needs...they dispatch with accordance to a business quota...

A program...as if your a robot...Data...on Star Trek or something...

They dispatch you...then go home..at 4 or 5 pm...have a big steak dinner, go bowling, go to the movies, eat pizza, go to a ball game...while sending you on some miserable late night red eye trip into the bronx New York...where Mike Tyson and friends are waiting...

I'm telling ya, that poor or sloppy or inconsiderate dispatching is the sorce of most drivers grievances....

 

You know what...your 100% correct...I've tried...believe me I've tried...

I tried the comedy club thing, I've tried going back to school, I've tried this, I've tried that...

But trucking just won't let go...

After I got this job...another job that I kinda wanted more called me...

But I had already commited to this job...just my luck...

So I just figure, If I must do it...I should learn to do it right...in a way that will hopefully benifit me...

It's like trucking has a ball and chain effect on you...

Once it get's ahold of you...it doesn't want to let go....

It's so wierd...like a jelious spouse or something...it just doesn't want to let go....

 

Go ahead and puke than Red Fox...I won't stop you....

I can't help it if you have a hard petrified grouchy heart...puke till your hearts content...

Life is about learning, growing, and over coming....and yes, even forgiving and moving on...

If you can't see that...than feel free to drown in your own puke...

Good day...

 

The guy or owner I work for, told me that if I don't like the company he's currently leased to, that I could look for or suggest a different company that he could lease his truck on to for me...wow...

That's really cool....

In other words, he, they, value me so much as a driver...that they're willing to lease their truck to another company, if it would make me happy or stay...

I suggested landstar...

I could definatly do landstar...If I could choose my own freight and where I go...it would be Florida to Vegas and back...

No...Florida to Vegas, to La to WA State...back to Fl....

You see, this is what I'm talking about...if you get hired by a responsible owner operator...and do them right...they will go out of their way to keep you content and happy...

Good drivers are hard to come by..and when a owner operator finds on who is honest, safe, and treats his or her equiptment right...they will return the favor by extending courtesies to you unimagined by large fortune 500 companies...