[quote="gigaball"]I'm looking at possibly changing careers to truck driving. I found one article

http://www.career-opportunities.net/...rOpportunities

with information about what it is like...are there any others I ca research?[/quote



check out http://www.newbiedriver.com/ good site dedicated to helping out new drivers. hope this helps. she had a book you can buy too. its worth the money to get it

 

cuz it's so easy a caveman can do it... :lol: :lol:

 

some people were brought up around trucks like myself, and some have found a itch for it,

others cant think about making the same type of cash they do as driving truck, and some people needed a total career change from what they did prior, and then there are real motivated people like myslef who decide when and where to work and for how long.

 

thanks for the links got mud

 

I just found this thread, or I would have opened my mouth on this topic sooner.

Why indeed. It's a great question. I've just been through this myself. I got laid off in February. I had been thinking about hanging it up for some time, and I decided to try my hand at something else since I was laid off anyway, and had had the "keep doing what you're doing" card removed from my deck.

I'm a published author, and my first idea was to get into writing full-time. Great idea. There's even a "career angst" thread on another forum here where I talked about the ups and downs of it all, being torn between driving and going off to be a technical writer in a cubicle farm somewhere.

Well, here's the bottom line. I know several programming languages, but I have no CS degree, and the only job opportunities for programmers hereabouts require a degree in some medical field anyway. I have sufficient field experience as a technical writer to call myself one, but there is only one employer hereabouts, and regardless of whatever personal turmoil I may have gone through deciding what I would do if they called, the bottom line is they didn't call.

I know a lot about plumbing and carpentry and electrical and so on, and the guy at Lowe's was practically pissing in his pants trying to hire me, but he could only "get close" to $10 an hour, which was the absolute rock bottom minimum I could live on, barely, maybe. "Close" isn't close enough.

Retail doesn't pay anything. Manufacturing jobs SUCK, and they're hard to get, and hard to keep.

I could go work in a technical support call center earning close to what I make now, but I would never see my family. The job was all nights, all weekends, all holidays.

I don't have any management experience, and I hate trying to manage people. I'm extremely independent, and I hate office politics.

I like telling lies on the CB radio, and scaring the piss out of fourwheelers with my Jake brake.

As unlikely as I am to wind up in this trade, A) there isn't much else to do around here, and B) I kind of like it. Sort of. It has its up side.

In any case, the job market has spoken. There's nothing else I can get into right now, so I may as well hammer down and make the best of it. Fortunately, I'm doing OK. My current job is boring as all get-out, but it pays plenty, and I'd rather be doing this than working at Lowe's for "close to" $10 an hour, and putting up with all the layers of management crawling up my ass all the time.

Plus I have time at home every night to bitch about my job, and bitching about your job is what trucking is all about.

 

Yeah, i WAS a machinist here in Ohio. When the year 2000 rolled around manufacturing was wiped out. If you listen closely you can hear that big sucking sound, they claim 250,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in Ohio from 2000-2004. I started in the machining trade in 97 not knowing how bad things would get. I was laid off in 2004 from a Tool and Die shop for the 3rd time and sold all my tools and will never go back to that field.....it is all going off shore anyways.

I enjoy driving a Semi

 

Very true. I believe the John Deere Foundation did a survey a couple of years ago that stated that: The "Average" American Truck Driver....was actually better educated than the rest of the American population.

Very true also..... :sad:

Ditto!

I do believe you are right..... 8)

Well said!

Me, I just like what I do. Now that I am pulling a tanker again, I'm even happier. But, while I could do other things, as I am educated... I still prefer to do what I am doing.

The biggest issue I think, is that you have to really find what makes you happy to do. I like yanking a tanker, others like skateboarding, others like dry van, others like reefers.... You have to find what "stokes your furnace and run with it".

 

Yes there isp lenty of truck driving songs and cds availabile. just go to www.walmart.com type in under search music then..truckdriving songs
in search..tons of good ones for like 7 dollars a cd us.

 

gee whilikers. i love this LIFESTYLE. money is good. i outlived my wife and kids are all growed up. made enuf cash first year to buy a place in new mexico. we are just doing a job that has to be done and trying to make a living. don't know about the whiners, but, i am enjoying myself everyday. i like trying to make shippers and recievers job easier. i always tell them to take their time, i ain't going anywhere until they are done. i tell clerks and cashiers same thing. hey, it is all just a joke called life, enjoy every minute of it.

 

Truckin' rocks! It's got its ups and downs like anything else, but once you get it in your blood, doing something else is unimaginable. I love it because you don't see you coworkers enough to hate them, and nobody messes with you if you do your job. I can't ever see myself working a job where there's a boss around all the time.

That said, it's great for some, lousy for others.