So I often hear truck driving sucks but consider
I spent 5 years as a machinist which was the bet job i ever had but here in Ohio from 2000-2005 about 250,000 jobs were lost in the manufacturing field and unfortunately mine was one of them.
I began to pursue a career in the medical field, there are plenty of jobs in the medical proffesion that pay extremely well ex, nursing, radiographer, respiratory therapist, these jobs have a starting pay pay ($32,000-$40,000) nursing starts around ($45,000-$50,000 and even higher).
You must consider that trucking may have its downsides but the medical field and all jobs do. In medical field you have to be in daily physical contact with patients who are dying, wounded, bleeding, intoxicated.
Imagine having to take x-rays of a 1 year old who was burned of 75% of thier body.
Having to clean people who cannot control thier bodily functions.
Watching a 13 yr old kid die of a heart attack.
Watching an 18 yr old kid die right in front of you from gun shot wounds.
See 10-15 people a day who are dying from cancer, many you have become friends with.
Having a patient spit on you or attemtp to attack you.
Having to clean a man's underpants after a drug overdose.....
Imagine sitting in a room for 5 hours with a guy who just hit a telephone head first on a motorcycle while going 45 MPH while the docs try to revive him.
Witnessing death on an almost daily basis and the effects it has on others
Imagine dealing with these types of things on a DAILY basis, maybe not everyday but many times a week
Plus having to work 3rd shift for the first 5 -10 years of your career.
Whats my point? All careers have thier good and bad sides, after going through some of the above...........driving a truck might not seem to be that bad
It would be an intersesting experiment but if you took 25 disgruntled OTR truckers and gave them jobs in an hopital ER and pay them the same amount of money that they made OTR, after being in close contact with ASS HOLE doctors and relentless nurses (both of which could have you fired easily) You might find many of these truckers would break thier necks to get back into a truck and be happy they did so.
Many careers thay pay well ($35,000-$55,000) have thier downsides...
I basically wrote this after reading the "Newbs be warned post" in which this person writes about the horror of OTR trucking......
Here is a little part of that post;
Got it? This job SUKS unless you're a little crazy and have nothing to lose. It's an irresponsible career choice if others depend on you, or you want anything like the "normal life" so many truckers come to miss after the novelty wears off.
40k may sound like pretty good money, but it's crap for the quantity of work, the responsibility and risk, the toll on your mind and body....and most of all, the family who'll see precious little of it from the dad who abandoned them to go live on the road.
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Originally Posted by roadhog
