Wondering if I should pursue trucking

Indeed.

 

I can only guess that the censored word started with a B?

 

Wouldn't it be nice if this place would just let us speak our mind and have done with it?

When, in the future of a perfect society, will it be acceptable to simply say what one means and mean what one says?
With no offense taken on either side, but just understanding as to the context and intent.


Censor censorship!

 

That place gives me nightmares to this day. I would joke that it gave me PTSD, but that's not a joking matter. I got that elsewhere.

 

I think females are fully capable of this job, but not usually (stereo-typically speaking) well suited. I mean that my feminine side loves to garden and cook and craft, have a dog, use my sewing machine, can my fall produce, paint walls, decorate for the holidays. Read a book with a cup of tea. I really do miss those things. And if I had financial options I might prefer to work a day job so that I could have those things in my life. But I live in a place with poor job options. If I had more family in my life I might not do this job. But my kids are now in their 20s and in 2018 I was on my own with a brand new mortgage and no money...
And I think I'm in the minority in my comfort level with mechanical things and thus less intimidated by learning, observing and interacting with the actual big truck aspect of the job.

Add to that the training styles that predominate at least the megas- high pressure, male structured training. Industries that train for both genders don't approach training anything like trucking. They don't subject employees to the abuse that trucking accepts as acceptable (some companies,not all) it's more like boot camp than skills training, the whole attitude that the body in the seat is only a tool, should be treated as a tool, keeping him/her under unnecessary pressure for no gain, ridiculous punishments for minor training 'infractions' like a DAC report for tire damage on a 4 month driver? that's absurd. no other industry behaves in such toxic ways and I think most women can't relate to that. Not sure how to put it in words but my observation is boy culture is heavy on the 'strive to please the dad/master/boss' thing. It's like a quest, many guys thrive on 'proving themselves' . plus guys are big on hierarchy, everybody gets ranked against everybody else, so that striving makes sense in a male brain because you're always comparing yourself to all the other guys so you have to keep pushing yourself.
Girl culture is not like that.Not so much hierarchical, or competitive. Human psychology has shown that most learning is accomplished better without the extra stress, but the high proportions of extra masculine voices like I see here would decry any lowering of the stress level as probably sissy-fication or some nonsense. because getting into trucking is supposed to be like gang initiation I guess LOL

once a woman finds her regular job in a somewhat nontoxic company it's not a bad job. but I can imagine most sane women wouldn't be willing to run the gauntlet to get there.

 

If you are a nester, OTR is not for you, doesn't matter if you're male or female. It helps to remember that driving truck is not just OTR, and even if you start OTR, it's not a life sentence. You can stick out anything if it's for a short period of time, including horrible training scenarios and crappy starter companies. Do the drill, stick it out for a year or two, and then move to a company that allows a life style compatible with your personality. Local, regional, private carrier, LTL, the options are truly endless.