From the road...

I shower EVERY time I take the Browns to the Superbowl.

You just laughed when you read that, but that's why I don't drive a truck right now. Well, that & I make too damn much money at this shitty job I have now.

 

Mansfield ohio

 

Don't think I've been there.

Drive after you retire.

 

O Fuck that. Not everybody can drive truck. It's like a teacher,takes a special person to do those jobs.

 

I thought that meant to take a shit!

 

Anybody can drive. It's dealing with being on the road, away from family.

It's realizing that you could easily go from not being needed at home to not being wanted at home. It's a fine line.

 

Damn, that is one way of putting it.

Trucking is pretty easy to get into. If you want to do it, go for it. I promise you, the novelty of "being on the road" wears off pretty quick.

I'm coming up in 2 years OTR. I've pretty much have been living in a box on wheels 300 days a year. It's not cute. It's not exciting. It has more of a feeling of you pissing your life away being a slave, while people around you actually get to live their lives.

I'm better off financially and am able to provide better for my family but my overall quality of life and my mental health has dropped a good bit. I got two young kids at home and they don't even bat an eye when I leave. And my wife really doesn't either. Think about that for a moment.

It's a very weird job and unless you do it yourself I don't think you can ever fully understand. I can write a book. I'm sure Darrin can too.

YMMV

 

Some weeks, the money is good (it's a new experience for me to clear $1000 in a week), and sometimes it's bad (that $1000 week was followed by a $400 clear week).

It's not a five-star, 40 hour a week job. It's every damn day.

 

Many years ago I did OTR for a couple years. I learned very quickly that it's not just a job, it's a lifestyle. And you either eventually love it or hate it. I hate it.

 

Man that really does sound like it would suck. Even if you were a single guy, I'd imagine you'd have to get caught up on everything when you got home, unless you had a condo or an apt. It would be hard for me to have a good relaxed quality of life even when home. I'm gone for 24 hours at a time for work and even just with that I feel like I have to catch up on housework, lawn, etc etc when I get home in the morning.

I drove a quad axle dump and hauled heavy equipment for a couple years, never did OTR but even that is stressfull. It's tough always being behind the wheel of 80,000 pounds especially when I was almost always in a city, never did much hwy time.

 

I wasn't even over the road but most of my life when I did that for a living was spent driving, there was almost no life outside of work. What you just said is 100% of the reason I got the fuck out of it and have never once regretted it.

 

You have more than enough time behind a wheel to get a local driving job or a designated run that gets you home every day or every few days. They don't pay as well but you will be much closer to your family. If you live anywhere near an oilfield (Texas, New Mexico, PA, OH) finding that job would be pretty easy.

 

That's one of the reasons i left OTR. I went to the oilfield during the boom and was making more per day than OTR paid me per week. I remember my OTR company(Crete/Shaffer) called me one day months after i left and asked me to come back, I had just finished up a well that had me doing two runs a day at $330 per run. I asked if they could match that and the lady on the phone actually laughed at me and said "no way". I will admit i was away from home for months on end, but the big checks help with that. Now after the boom ended i can still pocket over $1k a week and still be home once a week.

 

One thing I do like about this job is the power to move to another job.

I'm coming up on my one year anniversary at my current company, and am scheduled for a whopping $.01 a mile raise. I am already asking who will be doing the negotiating for their side.

 

I'm in Atlanta. Problem is where I live and where most trucking company terminals are located I would be looking at a 120 mile a day commute that goes through ATL. I did apply at Saia but I guess you need a secret handshake or something. I might try other LTL companies.

I do have line on hauling water out in the oil patch on a 28/7 schedule but I don't wanna go out there and have the bottom fall out. So I'm still on the fence about it. I just went through Odessa today and it looked busy and plenty of hiring signs around but who knows what that shit is gonna do.

 

Just at a much slower pace...

 

Oh.

Ok.

You are appreciated by more people than us lowly truck drivers are.

 

I don't know about all that. People shit on him in here all the damn time.

Pretty sure the WERA RV is a bit bigger than my 48 inch sleeper tho.