Yeah 28 years in Oct...somedays I HATE trucks, but mostly I love what I do, I own my truck, run my truck....all the joys...all the heartaches... LOL

I'm one of the lucky ones, I found a good man...kinda late...he didn't try to compete with my truck, he understood my dedication (I'd been trucking nearly 15 years when we married), and THAT was a huge help!

Good luck to you! It can be a wonderful life...BUT beware...once the diesel is in your blood...it's damned hard to get it out!!!

My truck:

deadgoon:Sad as it is, this is true in some jobs, but in Trucking ... we all start out at the same rate. This is the only profession I have found that is fair to both genders.

And as for the nursing career ... it would be wise for you to finish school. It's always best to have a degree to fall back on.. You made a commitment when you started to school - If you don't finish this 1st commitment what makes you think you'd stick it out with trucking. My daughter is an LPN and I watched how she struggled while going to school and supporting her children by herself. There were times she'd sale her blood ... just for gas money. Nursing is a job that your heart has to be in it, or it won't work .... just like trucking. There's ways to make money, weekend babysitting, pet sitting, Walmart - there open 24/7 ... you just have to make be determined. No matter what you do.

When you first start out in the business you won't make those big dollars. You have to prove yourself to your company before they give out the big miles. Trucking isn't an easy job, it's lonely, tiresome, your life gets turned upside down and since you have a boyfriend at home .. it's difficult to keep a relationship going. Yes - a few women have been able to make it work for them but there's not many males that will stand by and watch their girlfriend drive off in that big truck by themselves knowing their going to be hit on by the other boys out there. ... Now saying all that .... I think it's the best job around ! But I'm single and can do as I please.

Think hard and long before you step away from nursing.

You sure are wrong, you don't know BS and stress until you have had to deal with a@$hole dispatchers who lie to you and try to use you in any way they can, shippers/recievers, DOT, traffic etc.

You think nursing is politics, politics, politics, just wait and see what the trucking industry is like nowdays, politics, politics, politics. We have more rules and regulations now than we have ever had. Some days I just want to go home and put a for sale sign on the truck because I have had it with the way trucking is going these days.

Trucking is not the dream job you might think it is. It is long hours, stressful, You think you have long hours of studying, in the trucking industry you will have long hours of sitting around that you are not even paid for. I like Wildkats post, I think she summed it up the best.

Just some things to think about before you decide on this as a career. You have stuck it out in school this long, I think you should at least finish it so you will have another option.

most of the factories I have worked at are pretty equal with their pay...I think this statistic is mostly for office type jobs...women in factories can usually get guys to do a lot of their work for them as well...never saw as many horny men in my life as I saw working factory jobs.... :shock:

I have to say if I'd known in advance how much going to trucking school and numerous tries in taking the test and living expenses were REALLY going to cost me, I would have never done it. I wasn't happy with my first trucking school, so I sat around a month deciding what to do, so I went to another trucking school. It took me eight tries in passing the test, as I live in a state that for a while had one of the toughest skill/road tests in the nation. Mercifully, the rules changed, and I was able to pass the test this summer. Oh, and figure in the additional hours of tutoring I paid for, and gas money, and food money, etc.

Right now, I'm waiting for a trainer. I feel like I've done my part in getting here, but the company isn't doing theirs.

As for not having the homelife, that really doesn't bother me so much. I'm with a company that allows pets, so eventually my little dog will come with me. But one thing I didn't figure in is having a boyfriend. I never, ever, EVER figured on meeting a guy seven months ago. I think he's not too thrilled with me going into trucking, but I have no choice but to follow through. I tried to convince him to get his CDL so we could run team, but he doesn't want to do that. Time will tell if we will last. It's hard, because this is my first relationship ever (I met him at the not so tender age of 39) and sometimes I feel like this is the only guy I'm going to get. My track record with men hasn't been great, so to meet this guy is like a miracle. As great as he is though, no one is perfect and I've noticed some things about him that worry me; I'm a writer and whenever something positive happens in that area for me and I tell him about it, he doesn't say anything. It's like my goals and hopes and dreams mean nothing at all to him, but if it's something HE wans me to do, he won't stop until I do it. That could cause some MAJOR problems, and has already caused me some embarrassment.

If you've come this far with the nursing, I'd stick it out till the end. No profession is perfect, but with nursing, you'll be home every night and if there's a crisis at home, you will be just across town, or perhaps just a few minutes away, depending where you work. Not so with trucking. I wish I had something marketable to fall back on, but I don't. The writing has basically gotten me nowhere, which is why I decided to try trucking.

Good luck! It's hard to know what to do. Even when you sit down and write out the pros/cons, and think you're making a good decision, sometimes your best intentions and plans end up messing up or taking a different path than what you thought they would. I never thought I'd have to go to two trucking schools and fork over extra money for practice and take the friggin' test eight times before I passed it. I became OBSESSED with passing it and I'm sure I drove some of my friends nuts, but at least I DID pass. And it was satisfying proving a former instructor wrong!

As another writer once said: "To thine own self be true."

Hi Trux,

Yep, that is the truth. I am not giving up on writing, but I need to eat and pay bills.

And I'm keeping my eyes open with this man. I've already had a couple of people ask me if he's treating me okay. One of those people was his mother.

In your post your wrote "I'm with a company that allows pets, so eventually my little dog will come with me." This really caught my eye as the only thing holdig me back is the idea of leaving my little Shih-Tzu. I am able to be on the road 52 weeks out of the year IF I can have my 'litte guy' with me.
Please email me when you have time [and don't mind] sharing the name of a company that allows a driver to take a dog with them.


Thanking you in advance,

~bamamom~

Or EQUALLY UNFAIR :!:

Since you already have time invested in nursing, I would suggest, very seriously, that you finish that before anything else. Get your STATE BOARD CERTIFICATION. Then, go back into the trucking and see how you like it. See if you are going to be able to make the money you need, and have the home time to take care of the normal things there. If that does not work out, you can always go back to work in a hospital or clinic. It gives you TWO options. That's far better than a whole lot of people out here have. Right now, you have quite a financial investment in nursing. To stop now could mean throwing that away. I don't know about you, but I could never afford to throw that much away.

And, if you do decide to throw that away, can you let me know where so that I can come along and pick it up???