Hanging it up for real

[silvan]

Lots of talk, but now a real walk. I actually start at Wal-Mart tomorrow. After joking about that for years, I actually did it.

I'm almost certainly going to to bankrupt, and it's worth it to cut my losses and abandon this sinking ship before it hits the bottom.

I like driving a truck, and there's a lot of stuff I will miss, but I won't miss any of it that much.

This job just ain't what it used to be, and it never will be again.

[countryhorseman]

Good luck! There are hundreds more just like you everyday doing the same thing!

Lots of talk, but now a real walk. I actually start at Wal-Mart tomorrow. After joking about that for years, I actually did it.

I'm almost certainly going to to bankrupt, and it's worth it to cut my losses and abandon this sinking ship before it hits the bottom.

I like driving a truck, and there's a lot of stuff I will miss, but I won't miss any of it that much.

This job just ain't what it used to be, and it never will be again.

[Phantom433a]

Good Luck Silvan, I'll be hanging it up in 2 years when the old lady graduates from nursing. HVAC here I come

[Evinrude]

Good Luck Silvan, I'll be hanging it up in 2 years when the old lady graduates from nursing. HVAC here I come

I will be joining the otr carnage this summer. Not sure what I am going to do but it won't be otr. My time on this earth won't be living out of 8 foot box, not for that little cash.

[jiptwoo]

Well gang I went back to the pipefitters union, I can work either way as an hvac&r service, installation tech or as an( A) book fitter the pay and bene's are the same. Everyone told me I was crazy for leaving to drive a truck, but the last 20+ years have been a blast, up and down but nevertheless a blast. I need 7 years for my full union retirement which right now is $4400 a month plus social security so it is a no brainer. I miss hauling that old produce, yuma,nogales, salinas,oxnard, santa maria, brawley,la, bruces, barstow, and that high speed ride across the mojave heading east,(already three hours late )to the coast. Hunts. pt or chelsea, on a three day jump. Turnaround with a load of dry freight floorboard it and 3 days back to cali just to grab that old produce and do it again. I think of trucking all the time and smile as I see the fellas shagging those trailers scooting down the boulevard and me in my 4 wheeler looking up watching the boys ride. To that I say, "ride baby ride" keep the dirty side down, and the shiny side up.---Goodbye.

[silvan]

Good luck! There are hundreds more just like you everyday doing the same thing!

Thanks to you and everybody else on the thread so far.

I definitely have mixed feelings. My old boss has a gig where he hauls trees once in awhile on the weekends. I might try to get a line on something like that, but as far as doing this for a living anymore, it just isn't fun very often anymore, and it's a whole lot of aggravation, and too damn much time spent working.

Even though I'm home every night for dinner, I barely see my kids. I'm too tired to do much of anything, because 12+ hour days behind the wheel don't leave a lot of energy for anything else.

I'm not getting any action from the ol' lady any more than I did when I was on the road either, and it's usually me who is too tired or has a headache. How sad is that?

The only bad part about this deal is going broke. I've been trying to find a better paying job that wasn't trucking since about the middle of 2005, when it really started to stop being fun. I can't find one, so I'm going back where I came from, where from the other side of the docks I got the crazy idea to go do this in the first place.

It was an interesting ride, but I'm just done with it. My life is like that movie Big Fish, complete with all the women on the side (even though I only fantasized, and never actually crossed the line, although there were a couple where I definitely would have if I had had half the chance!!) I've got enough wild stories to last for years, and I don't need any more stories.

I just want to go home, and work 40 hours. Just 40 hours. With labor laws that keep my employers from f***king me without paying me for it.

The worst part is going broke right in the short term, but the best part is that I will stop going broke over the long term. Every year, I earn just a little less relative to the price of everything than I did the year before. The raises in this business get you up to the top fast, and you stay there forever. The only way to ever get a raise after a certain point is to quit your job and find something more dangerous or more distasteful in some way.

Maybe it's different for the union boys, but you can't get an IBT job in this town unless you have the right Daddy, and my daddy is the wrong daddy for that.

Hey, I'm going to a better place than McDonald's anyway. I'm looking forward to everything but the paychecks. (Going because there is actually more BS to get a job at Wal-Mart than to drive a truck, believe it or not. Or at least the BS takes a lot longer. I haven't made it through all the hoops yet.)

[Professor427]

I hope the 40-hour work week will give you time to get back to writing. Maybe your protaganist could be a truck driver; would be nice to see a trucker as a hero on the big screen (once your book is made into a screenplay) and your name on the New York Times bestselling list.

Best of luck to you,
professor427

[vavega]

good luck silvan!

[movinit]

Good Luck to you!

We may be following in your footsteps within the next year. My wife says she is tired of watching the world go by thru a window instead of being an active part of the world.

[silvan]

I hope the 40-hour work week will give you time to get back to writing.

Yeah, so do I! I haven't done diddly squat since I took the gig I still have for awhile longer. My old gig was a lot better for time off, because I worked absolutely ragged when I worked, and then I had like 3-4 days off a week. That's my speed. (And no, nobody has a 7-on 7-off thing that runs around my area, or I'd think about it.)

Maybe your protaganist could be a truck driver; would be nice to see a trucker as a hero on the big screen (once your book is made into a screenplay) and your name on the New York Times bestselling list.

I do have a novel brewing in my head somewhere. If it ever makes it that far, I promise to do everything I can not to let it turn out like all those other stupid trucker movies.

Best of luck to you,
professor427

Thanks neighbor.

[RedRaven]

Good luck Silvan, though I think your going from the frying pan into the fire. But, hey, if your still interested in driving, maybe there is a towing company you could locate, and still get that 40 hour week, better pay, and possibly benefits. Don't know your area, but it's just a thought... Or, maybe consider some job retraining, if there is something you might be interested in doing (through your local employment, and training office)...

Well, what ever direction your career ambition takes, I wish you lots of luck, and good fortune... :wink:

[Windwalker]

I'm working on a couple of angles to get me out of a truck too. I've known for a long time that as long as you're working for someone else, you just a "running dummy". I get out of the truck, I'll be getting paid for what I KNOW, not for what I do. That means, I'll be getting paid whether I'm actually doing something or if I'm fishing.

Last summer, I met a guy I used to work with years ago. Back then, he rode a bicycle because he could not afford even the cheapest car. But, when I saw him at Ft Chiswell, VA, he was driving one of those HUGE DIPLOMAT MOTORHOMES. He told me just a couple of things before he realized who I was. Like he's got a patent on an epoxy compound and he's trying DESPERATELY to survive on a meger $500K a year. When he realized who I am, and it's my idea he pantented, he disappeared very quickly.

I have another idea that's worth far more than any epoxy compound ever was. And, when I get a working model together, it's going to be MY TICKET to one of those motorhomes, and two parking spaces at Wal-Mart. I won't have to work for a living anymore.

[silvan]

Or, maybe consider some job retraining, if there is something you might be interested in doing (through your local employment, and training office)...

I went around that bush when I got laid off last year. Here are your retraining options around here:

1. truck driver
2. hairdresser

The unemployment office pretty much laughed at me. "Why don't you have another job yet? There are 97,000 ads in the paper right now."

Yeah, and 96,999 to 97,000 of them are all crap.

But anyway, I get what you're saying about out of the frying pan and into the fire. It's crazy that I'm this happy to be taking a 52% pay cut.

But I look at it this way. I hate being a cashier. I really do. Barf. Puke. When they told me they were going to start me as a cashier, it was almost a deal breaker.

When I went through the training stuff, I did everything but the cashier stuff, and saved it for last. I put off actually going out there to the floor for as long as I could, and I did not want to touch that stupid register.

But after about an hour, my smiles weren't fake anymore. This is pretty much the worst they can do to me, and wow.

It's all I can do to finish out my time at my waning day job now. I just don't care about it anymore. It's my past. I'm stuck between two worlds, but I know which one I am heading to for sure.

Well, 99% sure. It's still damn hard to take a 52% pay cut, just in case I snap out of this and it turns out it was all bad fish or something. But at least I got a good starting rate out of them, comparatively speaking, and it's better than the 67% pay cut I was looking at when I put these wheels in motion.

It's still not remotely enough, so the only way I can get through this is to kick ass and take names and climb, climb, climb.

F**k a truck. It's going to be all I can do to make myself crawl back inside that thing tomorrow. My other life already feels like a bad dream, and I'm still living it for now. Or I will be again, tomorrow.

I promised the owner I wouldn't leave him hanging out to dry with no driver, and that's going to be a damn hard promise to keep.

Oh yeah. This is a strange road I'm on, but I know where I'm going, and I'm absolutely positive I'm going to get there.

Or else I've gone insane now, and this is all just a manic episode. I wonder. I'm not used to being happy. It's not my natural state.

i used to be in grocery for 12 years before driving a truck. at the end i wasa store asst. manager, store did 250,000 a week in sales...i made 39,800 a year to deal with the 100 employees under me and endless **** from the customers. i also was putting in about 12 hour day 6 days week. now i have no headaches, no one to worry about but number one, work around 45-48 hours a week and make 20,000 more a year. and i am not a pain in my wifes ass when i get home cause i am bitching about the store.

[Pony Express]

I wish you luck Silvan!
It's funny how life is, you can't wait to get out and I can't wait to get back in. I thought I could give it up aswell. 8 yrs later and I can't fight it anymore. I start my new job on Monday OTR.
If you are a true driver at heart, I think that you will get the itch again like me.
Hope you find what you are looking for.

[vavega]

sometimes it's not about the money, it's about how you spend the coin of your life.

will walmart give you the time to write? as well as you do it, i hope it's what gives you the most happiness. :wink:

[Syncrosonix]

good luck in your venture with wally world. i remember working at the supercenter in north scottsdale as an overnight stocker in the pet department. man, the overnight management through safety out the back door and had me doing all kinds of crap. a brand new high wall shelf that was said to withstand a few tons collapsed on me one night. what a lovely code white that was! i was out of commission for an entire 2 weeks as i recovered from it. they had me put 40lbs arm & hammer kitty litter top to bottom, left to right. as i was working on the final 3 boxes, a loud crack, and next thing i knew, i was covered with boxes of cat litter and my fellow associates helping me out from under there. it felt like the worst hangover ever.

the overnight crew at that store was the best paid for being non-management, but treated like crap from the management and customers. gawd, i hated dealing with the friday and saturday night crowds. i tried going back to walmart a few years ago, but i didn't get through the personality assessment portion of it. that's such garbage. meh, i suppose if i ever become tired of the otr game, i could go drive school or city buses in the greater scottsdale area.

[silvan]

Well, after doing both jobs for a 40-day marathon during which I only had one day off, it's officially official.

I got everything settled up with the O/O I drive for and the company he's leased to. The company will miss me sorely, because I'm competent as hell, but my DM understands where I'm coming from, and he isn't being a dick about this. The O/O is just barely managing to stay civil, but I think he'll be able to be honest and give me a good reference if I need it down the line. I did the hell out of that job, and I did everything I said I would do, and not a hair more, just like the O/O did for his part.

As of now, I'm retired, and I start full-time at Wally World tomorrow. I'm moving from lawn & garden cashier to service tech in the TLE, which ought to be an interesting change of pace, and pays a lot more.

I don't know if it's a new career or just a lifeboat, but I'm really pleased that I managed to hang it up after all these months and years of inner struggle on the matter. My wife is happy, and we're determined to make a go of it. She makes good money now, and the tables have kind of turned compared to how they were a few years ago. Now she's the primary breadwinner, and I've got some catching up to do.

It's going to be really tough. Maybe too tough. But we're going to try it, and see what happens. If nothing else, I'm glad I only have one job now. Keeping my feet planted on both sides of the fence for that long really chafed my nuts. But I had to be really sure I wasn't just caught up in some silly daydream.

No. I actually like working at Wal-Mart, and I want to go back. I've wanted to go back for a long time now, and the only thing stopping me was fear of going broke.

[Morning Star]

[/quote]I do have a novel brewing in my head somewhere. If it ever makes it that far, I promise to do everything I can not to let it turn out like all those other stupid trucker movies.

Best of luck to you,
professor427

Thanks neighbor.[/quote]

I've written a novel about a female truck driver, and I have a screenplay about trucking that I just finished. Let me know if you need anybody to proof read that manuscript.

[silvan]

I've completed my first week at ol' Wally World, and my wife and I have taken stock of everything.

I haven't been this happy in years, and I feel better than I have in years too. My hips and knees aren't bothering me nearly as much, and I just don't miss driving a truck that much. A little, sure. Maybe by Christmas I'll try to hook up with a part time gig hauling trees or something, or maybe I'll try to pick up some extra work hauling plants next spring, or maybe I'll never drive a big truck again.

Not being so damn miserable with my life doesn't suck. Now I just have to figure out the ugly problem of making ends meet on less than half the pay I used to earn. Ugh.