Shuffler wrote:
Newbies: You see me write a lot about the importance of craftsmanship and responsible profession behavor, and the going-rate wages and benefits for new drivers. Here's another side of the story:
OTR takes you away from your family and home for weeks at a time, and when you subtract even minimal expenses living on the road, there's precious little left for the wife, kids and home expenses.
You can make more net money for your family, work fewer hours, and at least sleep in your own bed every night with TWO full-time fast food jobs. The novelty of being a trucker and living on the road will wear-off pretty fast, and what's left is a disgraceful wage for the responsibility and risk, and in most cases, a family and home left abandoned and broke.
If you've got a wife and kids that need you and your support, DO NOT get into OTR trucking with Werner or anyone else. The number of tragedies -- guys who end up in divorce and living hand-to-mouth on the road while most of their paycheck goes to child support -- is staggering. They thought they could be a dad and husband with only a few days home a month and could eat baloney sandwiches most of the time and send most of their money home....WRONG! It rarely turns out this way.
No matter how much your and your family is dedicated to making this plan work, the fact is it will turn your relationships and finances upside-down. Few can make the stress and pitiful financials work -- and even if you do, you're missing the baby's first steps and the little league games and everything else you supposedly got married for. If you got married and started a family, stay home and be a husband and father.
OTR trucking isn't a "mission" to protect the public or your country like being a soldier or cop or firefighter. We're not heroes -- that's just what the industry tells us to take their crappy jobs. We just move paper towels or produce or little boats from one location to another -- just a low-wage worker doing relatively dull, mind-numbing work. Your body will get soft, your mind will suffer from the irregular sleep/work cycles, and your life will fly by with nothing much to show for the sacrifice. There's no retirement, no sick leave, no significant recognition for your efforts, and the trucking labor pool is increasingly dipping into the "working poor" class. This is no longer the middle-class job it once was,and the moment you make a poor decision behind the wheel that gets you in trouble, you're out on your azz facing possible criminal charges and civil action. The company will cut you loose and let you hang.
I could go on and on and on..... But the point is: This is a terrible career choice for a married guy with a family and home life.
You effectively disqualified yourself for living on the road in a truck when you started a family. If you're going to go on the road for weeks in a truck, you might as well just sit down with your wife and tell her you've changed your mind and are leaving for good. Hire a lawyer and get it over with before dragging her and your kids into this charade.
For a single guy...? That's another story. You can give-up your permanent residence, live out of a post office box and put away some money for a few years while living relatively comfortably on the road with all the cool gear. But there's no point in having a "real" home if you're never home to enjoy it. Your car will sit 26 days a month for all the payments and insurance, etc. And you'll effectively lose most of your friendships as you disappear from their lives.
But hell -- if you're single, want to destroy your health and set your course on slow suicide, who cares. At least you're not dragging anybody else down with you. And if friendships don't come easily anyway and you don't care much about a "normal" life -- OTR is actually a pretty good way to escape that reality. That's MY reality - to be perfectly honest - and I love this life. I'm a social misfit and a perfect match for this nonsense. But I wouldn't even consider it if I had the slightest responsibility beside my own admittedly self-destructive selfishness.
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.
Stay at home where you belong. Pretend you're an illegal immigrant and get into construction...ANYTHING but abandoning your family trying to be some hot-shot young buck again. Open your eyes and see the reality. The turnover is way over 100% a year -- even higher among newbies -- because most first-year drivers realize they've made a mistake and leave the industry, a little embarrassed and a lot poorer having been fleeced by a truck school and everyone else along the way.....
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believer7 wrote:
Thank u Mr Shuffler for so eloquently and truthfully depicting the life of a OTR driver. Would luv to buy u a cup of coffee. Ive read ur msg many times while here in Iraq, u brought back all the memories of 9 wasted yrs on the road. I fell into OTR by accident, and never intended to do it very long. Was in debt from a costly lawsuit and answered an ad offering big bucks... a scab for a grocery chain while teamsters were on strike. After strike ended I hired on to the big franchise carriers and spent the worst 9 years of my life....Im now 52. Have heard truckin was respectable good payin job about 20 yrs ago, dont know, was earning a military retirement. The Aggravation, low pay, DOT, traffic and tickets, no friends, family or social life whatsoever, poor health one acquires sitting on (edited) all day, working 15 hrs per day and getting paid for 7, hostile 3am warehouse deliveries, worthless 401k, bla bla bla....you have already cited why not to choose OTR trucking but as we both know, your message will not be read by those who need it until too late. Both my kids are in college, not because trucking put em there but they earned full scholarships because my wife raised both of em right, I hardly ever saw em when i was OTR. My only consolation is that I finished my driving career at the top, I worked for Walmart and it was absolute heaven compared to the franchise carriers, drop and hook, uniforms, gr8 people, top pay, better than unions because of the people there. And yes, at walmart you can actually raise a family and be there with them on important days. Best truckin job in the industry. (my opinion)The only reason I left em a couple of years ago is because Ive been working in Iraq making more in a day than I did in a week of driving a truck and living in it....everything Mr SHuffler says is true, if you have family, ambition or brains do not take a OTR job, like sin, it will keep you longer than you planned, and cost you your life as a husband, father, and citizen. Freedom of the road is another way of saying child abandonment, escaping reality, and avoiding responsibilities....your not a hero as an OTR driver...plan your escape from the dweller society and make it happen..just like quitting cigs, you gotta have a plan....
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Originally Posted by im4flst8
