Where's the *good* bits?

Trucking is not for everyone. Consider this...

100 wanna drive truck. 60 will fail within a month or two due to a mind numbing variety of issues. 40 Left. 20 will be ironed out and fired or made to quit after getting worn out in 90 days trying to keep up with a dispatch determined to see what they are made of or break em. 5 will be arrested, detained or find a problem with the law. That leaves 15. 10 will make it the first year. Then think about something else. 5 is left after 2 years. These will go on for life.

as long 50 people fill the orientation each week, this kind of turnover can be sustained.

Your warehouse job at Amazon gives you a start time, a quitting time and a chance to have a life in the area on your days and nights off. Your rate of pay minus taxes determines your standard of living. If you are eating raman noodles trying to be cheap, stop piling up debt. If you are eating out every day and night and always tired you are already spending far too much and are unfit for trucking's demands physically. (Obesity etc)

Trucking is incredibly rewarding. I rave about reefer work, flatbed work, military depot loads and so on. It is something I will always treasure. Im not sorry for doing it all these years.

What Im sorry for is this...

Increasing oversight and telling the driver, that's you... what to do, what not to do and when. You cannot stop to rest, you cannot go visit family somewhere. You will find yourself dispatched away from family if they find out. There is a file with your name on it in the company you hire on to. That file will accumulate every little. Mistake. Curseword, service failure etc until it gets thick enough to get you fired. An empty file on you means you are a good driver and are a asset.

Certain areas of the USA is very dangerous. If you are obese 50 plus and unable to withstand fight flight chemical stress into your body when someone shoves a gun into your gut then don't go into trucking. Ive been held at gunpoint before and find that time slows for me, giving a very large amount of space to work with mentally and physically speed up to deal with the problem. For others time speeds up too fast to deal with and you freeze. Thus becoming prey.

Also...

Culture in trucking has changed. No longer are women knocking on your door for dinner and company. You now have LGBT etc doing the same. If you cannot deal with that kind of trash hanging around some of the bad parts of the USA in trucking and at the same time protect your own physical health against STD infections or any infections that threaten your future, life or even doing the driving then trucking is not for you.

You might have people prey on you in a variety of ways. To be a newbie trucker is like a babe in the woods to be taken advantage of. It is incredibly hard with a harsh learning curve. Im not here to scare you. But you seem to have family with children in your life. Stay with them. You will be rewarded for it. Trying to soothe a angry woman 2000 miles away via telephone is not going to cut it and might create a mental situation setting you up to crash.

Trucking is a joy. Always will be. Im one of those 5 left after 100 have tried it. But out of that 5 Im 2 who is on the porch medically because I cannot contribute the last 45 plus years to continue to do so. THAT creates a problem.

Just as well. The way things are going we all will be replaced by ROBOTS driving the #### things remotely. No humans anywhere.

 

@ethos will know.

 

I've never experienced any of this, even at my first driving job at a mega carrier. Sounds like this driver has been fired from a few jobs and is bitter and paranoid because of it.

 

LOL!!!!

wtf kind of truck stops are you hangin out at?

@ExtremeUnction please ignore this yahoo. The experiences he so colorfully describes are not at all common for an OTR driver.

 

Reminds me of the old Paulsboro,NJ Union 76.

I miss the old Mass 10. Remember WWL New Orleans truckers station advertised Mass 10 and also Melton Truck Lines, "Home of the Running Rabbit."

 

Did he just say trucking is like a babe in the woods that you'd want to take advantage of??????

Hmmm.

 

LOL nothing. My experiences is my own. I share them because they are what they were.

If it is not PC (Politically correct) to describe these then we are in a wrong forum.

Many of you thankfully will have quiet careers running the miles out in your own lives without any of the problems. Blessed are ye.

 

Thank you

I live in Maryland, I don't drive and I am looking for drivers, please I need help with company to go to and how to go about getting drivers, it looks like everyone wants to go local.

I don't know what to do because these notes keep coming and the trucks are not on the road working.

Please help

 

Even the blessed have their own deamons.