Trucking graveyard

[Admin]

Ghosts of Trucking pasts



When you've reached the end of the line and are just tired, tired of the exploitation of your labor, the long dangerous hours, tired of never being compensated properly, tired of snobby management, that lack maturity, always mocking your labor, efforts, and need to progress in life beyond a rolling mule.

When you're just tired of the whole game, and have walked away or are about to, then this is may provide reading you may or may not can relate to.

It's a graveyard of sorts, where tired souls end up, or people/drivers, wanting a new birth, justification to get into something else before it's to late.

If you wait till that 'to late' moment, than it truly does become a curse, something some had great passion for suddenly becomes a cage tucked away inside a dark dungeon of circumstance.

There was a brief time in American history when companies, employers were actually interested in seeing their employees prosper

Sadly that hasn't been true in a while, that old verbiage 'hard work will get you ahead', is not really true anymore.

Companies aren't local entities, and now are global, have global interest, the investors, some of which could be from China, Pakistan, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, could give a dern about how some guy/gal in Nebraska is living.
These global investers are jet setting and could give a darn whether Fred can pay his mortgage or not, or whether Mary can earn enough to afford dream home, none of that matters in todays global markets.

The only thing that matters is that you, the driver, are pushed to your physical limits daily, to maximize profits to company, and minimize expense, which includes your paycheck, which is an annoyance to most companies now days, even though your labor is what generates the profit to begin with by carrying the goods and making good with the profits.

So no, you're not being paid to do nothing, you're simply paid a small % of the profits you generate for company.

In trucking you got few choices for obtaining normal schedule.

1. Either be willing to spend weeks of your life on the road every month.

2. Own own truck and hope it doesn't fiscally break you, you'll have your own truck but it's a gamble whether it will be profitable, lots of variables, you could earn $80,000 on paper just to end up $20,000 in the hole.

3. Or get local delivery job (semi or box) and be worked to the limits of physical stamina, 10-16 hours a day, lumping, humping, carrying, unloading and loading freight, then also driving back to terminal so that when you do finally get home, there's absolutely nothing at all left, you're spent just to come home and hear Hannity or some other ding bat on talk radio tell you that 'Err, duh, you just need to work a little harder if you want to succeed, der, get 5 more jobs then you'll become a millionaire, der'

Both of these options are appealing to less and less people other than newly arrived immigrants looking for work...bingo!

The more available labor, the less incentive companies have to raise pay.
These decisions are made way way up at the top, so can't really blame local management for your pay.

Have you ever seen any driver lately, who has done so for say, over 20 years, that looks healthy upon their retirement?

(there are a few companies that compensate their drivers well, but won't discuss that here)

Anyways I'm in no rush, have plenty of time, years worth of looking back to lay out.

[Admin]

I will slowly begin changing the theme of this blog forum to better reflect current mood and ghostly outlook towards trucking, the labor end of it, the slavish side of the industry.

We're all different, thus we all seek different things from our careers, jobs ect.

Me, I tend to be more on the 'Hollywood' production, creative, side of the spectrum.
I like standing out in a positive or sometimes theatrical way.

Trucking kind of use to allow that avenue, not so much anymore....what I mean by that is truckers, OTR types of days gone by, use to dress with a lot more flavor, like WWF wrestlers, or biker vests, every driver made a statement by what they wore.
Ye the majority of drivers have always been the John Deere types, the main stay, but none the less back in the 80's, 90's, and probably 70's, drivers were much more theatrical in style and personality.

Those theatrics no longer exist with drivers or at truck stops.
Everything is standard and dry now, there is no more trucking culture other than on print, or in pockets of areas around the country.

You're basically just used as hard labor now, expected to push body to limits of durability, and is why when truckers get off work, or work constantly for a week, begin looking sickly and tired, and stop caring about how they dress, and basically become road bums.

I mean when all you do is drive for hours on end, have no one, no co-workers to speak with, always dealing with people who don't know you, may not like you, your moral can begin to drop, and slowly a driver will stop caring about how they dress or appear to others.

Go visit any truck stop and you'll see what I mean, most drivers, these days, look defeated emotionally, and carry around a self loathing that they project out unto other drivers.

(It's why I can never go over the road again, I can never subject my spirit to that anymore, I've paid my do's out there)

There really is no easy trucking job, you either drive for hour, spend days, weeks, away from home, or you get local cdl job and work odd schedule, like waking up at 2 a.m., just odd shifts, and have a route where you load and unload up to 18 times, by the time you're off there's nothing left, I mean even athletes don't play games that last that long.

In trucking you're basically buried in labor, your individuality begins to fade, and you simply turn into a mule, with no say in schedule.

continued on next post...

[Admin]

Continued from above

It becomes a very bland environment, but if have other life on the side, like a family, not so bad, but if you do not, and trucking is the only social outlet you have, it will depress your spirit after a while.

In todays trucking environment, truckers are not the most social types anymore (accept for Hispanics, they always stick together and their culture is intact) but as far as regular red white and blue generic drivers, there's really no commrodity anymore (misspelled).

And if there was, drivers are ran on such tight schedules, there's really no time to socialize while on the job.
You simply pull into truck stop to fuel, are already grouchy and impatient, then gotta wait in light for 30 minutes as driver in front takes forever getting back to truck, now you've lost 40 minutes of drive time which makes day that much longer.

Or you pull into lonely rest area, where absolutely no social encounter takes place at all anymore, you sit in truck or walk to restroom, vending machine, and that's it.

No where to exercise, no recreational activities, no friend, no wife, nothing.

Years of that will turn one into a road zombie.

And less and less drivers are willing to do that anymore.
And they control the trucks like remote control vehicles now so driver has no say in what route to take, can't explore, like in the olden days.

I'm so use to being home daily now that after 8-10 hours in a truck (even local) I begin to get really annoyed.
And nor am I into driving more than say 150 miles one way, cause then you got to turn around and drive back, and seems all deliveries are to the most congested areas of a city where traffic is thick.

I just look back at all the years I wasted time and talent out there buried in labor, operating as obscure labor, not developing any other area of life, not making friends, and looking and being around drivers that have hygean issues, or dress sloppily, or are very old, out of shape, long scraggly beards that make them look like civil war relics ect.

All the while my own peers (use to be peers) are at sophisticated clubs, bars, ball games, the beach, taking classes, and around a broader more romanceier group of people.

I know that sounds snobbish, but after a while you realize life is short, and the window to be young, romancey and attractive is even shorter.

And being around old scraggly chunky men all the time just doesn't cut the muster after a while.

Or being around urban minded type drivers raised on rap, who cannot hold a conversation for nothing.
Always walking around with headset in, yapping about nothing.

You just don't matter out there anymore, and good for those who still like that environment, but I certainly do not.
Whatever life I have left I want to enjoy it at home, nice calm evenings.

I mean even a gay person would be turned off by the scraggly older spent males industry attracts, no style, no fashion sense, just blandness.

I'm not your average driver, so if you expect the regular routine dry stuff, wrong read.

And if I can't drive own truck, doubt I'll continue to do it in any form, but if going to switch careers need to do it now while still healthy.

Really, just not sure what I want to do anymore, wish I could just be a performer, stage performer, actor, go to Hollywood, like the olden days, and just act in movies, theatrical productions.

Trucking has kept me away, separated, from a lot, and now that I'm about out of it, the idea of burying myself back out in that labor for 10 + hours just makes me angry actually, resentful.

I have nothing else to give to trucking other than years and years of reflection.

Much more to follow.

[Admin]

Mindless labor makes me feel like nothing

Mindless labor makes me feel like nothing.
And I think stepping away from it for a while really highlights that to thyself.

Unlike most, while in school, never had a chance to explore theater, other sides, artistic sides, all that was suppressed do to external circumstances.

When I was younger really never had the chance to feel young, so never really got to explore what it was I was good at or happy at doing.

Was a misfit, per say, within the environment I was raised.

I think until you have four years of high school fun and adolescence, you'll forever try to seek it, claim it, at later times in life.
The only times you may forget about it is when caught up in hardcore laborious job, which depending on stress level in life can sometimes be a welcome distraction, but only if you know it's temporary.

For years trucking was a way to 'run away' from issues or responsibilities I never wanted to face. It was a way to run away from maturing and daily responsibility.

If I didn't like a place, instead of learning how to cope, to fix the problem, I would simply be gone within a few hours or days.

Didn't really have to commit to anything or any one, and for a time that suited me just fine, suits a lot of people.

Many people use driving to 'run'...to just keep running away from it all, maybe not for my reasons but for their own.

But it's only when you get older do you start thinking about it all, asking the why's?, especially if life isn't turning out the way you planned it.

But then you realize you never really planned anything, just hoped things would turn out right by accident.

Trucking has kept some single, and has destroyed the marriages of those who were married.

Todays trucking maybe not so much in this day and age of electronic communications.

OTR trucking works best for older couples who have already raised their family.
Works worst for younger couples just starting out.

____________________________________________________________

I walked into place I work for, still, sort of, and funny how right off the bat you're still seen automatically as labor, that is your only value to a company, not what you've been through or going through or mental well being, just labor, when can you work, when can we put another harness on you, assign you another truck, piece of equipment.

Nothing else you say or express is really heard.
But that's the nature of work, to earn those at the top money, and to work out the other stuff is what social or family time is for, or 'off time'.

But what I'm saying in some drivers case, cause they ran so long and hard earlier, they never got a chance to develop that other side, that off time side.

Their off time was spent at dungy truck stops, around grungy roadie types, scraggly country and western types who all have inferiority complex, who get all their views of life from talk radio or rural environment, where they think the whole world is rural, and where people talk with a sickening fake country slur all the time on the CB radio, as if that gives the cred, the same way you'll here urban types use urban slang or slurs.

It's all ignorant to me, whether a white person trying to sound extra country on the radio or a black dude trying to sound extra urban and hip when they speak, to me it's all ignorant, and that's all you're exposed to out there anymore.

Stupid people keeping each other stupid with myths about one another.

I find it deadening.
When driving OTR actually fascinated me, the adventure part, you just tolerate the other stuff, but when the driving part becomes routine, and you've seen it all, then all you tend to notice is the ignorance.

I'm at a point now where I just would really like to go back to school, and immerse myself in those four years of un interrupted learning and exploring.

But sadly unless independently wealthy that's not possible, or unless willing to live out of vehicle, or become homeless, that's not possible, so you have to find compromise, have to find a job that you can earn enough to survive on, a job that when you get off work, you still have enough brain energy to persue own interests, a job where the weekends are yours, where you have time to be bored and to create, develop that artistic side, learn to play an instrument ect, without being interrupted by work schedule, without some dispatcher calling up and yanking you out of your zone unexpectedly.

Wish it were that easy.

And is why it's so important to love what you do, to plan out a career early on so that you can manifest your gifts or talent through your job.

But if you're stuck working a job that buries who you really are, you'll be feeling everything I'm writing about, on the inside.
It might not be trucking per say, but same thoughts and reflections will arise.

Find out what it is you want to do and plan, go to school, do it while you can before it's to late, other wise will spend rest of short healthy life stuck in a dark realm of regret.

Working around people you can no longer relate to.

People who are whole on the inside, complete, where you might not be yet.

[Admin]

I think I'm ready to severe ties today with current trade or situation.

I need a job with normal hours and benefits (don't we all)

I'm just mixed about trucking right now, sometimes you need to walk away from something to redevelop fondness or an appreciation for it again.

Trucking has left me bare and without nothing.

It's like all or nothing, there is no cross training, nothing really to transition into, accept other driving jobs.

Not everyone will have my bad fortune in trucking, let me make that clear, some, many, have long fabulous careers driving semis, box trucks, working for UPS ect.

Just depends on what you want and where your passion lays.

And naturally as you age you want to progress, trucking doesn't really allow that. Basic labor is basic labor.

And when you get over the fascination of seeing new places, driving a super large vehicle, than that's what driving becomes is basic labor, with a lot of risk and danger.

Irony of it is everyone is running from one career or job to the other, there are people who have never driven who have all sorts of fantastic ideas about it who are in training now and want to do it, and they're coming over from different careers and trades, and there's a lot of drivers fed up, who are looking to learn new trade.

The grass always looks greener on the other side as the old saying goes.

Some are a perfect match for trucking, heartland types, who have families, who have relatives that drive and all, who have vast support system.

People who have family into trucking, like mechanics, drivers, farms with room to make own repairs, mechanic junky types, they'll do well as owner operators.

But if getting into trucking just to make money, as a Owner operator, with no understanding of mechanics, or taxes or economics, than eventually you'll go under.

My problem is I relied to much on luck, and not enough on careful planning.

Oh well, Mondays here, decisions must be made that will effect my immediate situation.

Not like being a kid where you can just hide under the blanket and all issues go away.

As an adult the whole bed will sink, if you try that, and bury you with it, so you have to get up and keep moving, keep on keeping on until hopefully you find what you're looking for in life or at least find a happy medium, middle place.

[Admin]

Of course they want my labor, who doesn't.

In this industry, your mind isn't valued, just your labor, like a mule.

Never mind what you're going through personal, your own personal dreams, hopes, and aspirations...just get in truck and drive and don't question 'me'.

And 'me' is always someone who never drove before, never been pushed to limits of physical endurance, never driven over icy roads, black ice, desert conditions where you're miles away from nothing should truck break down, heavy loads down steep mountain passes, pass terrible accidents daily where there are casualties and more.

Instead just hop in truck and drive, you're not human, just a robot.

Never mind personal development and growth, that means nothing to dispatcher or anyone in logistics train, they just want you to drive drive drive, out for weeks, until either injured or to old to do it anymore and then retire with no recognition.

I have some major decisions to make before week is up concerning my future, and what road I want to go down.

[Admin]

could probably take the next month off, not do anything, and just concentrate on school or something with no interruptions, but by doing so risk losing employment ties I have now to trucking that would give me schedule I want.

I'll have to decide soon.

I look onto Craigslist, and none of the driving jobs offered give me the type of schedule I desire, not trying to be out there for weeks, or days, off on weekend type stuff.

Or driving long exhausting day schedule where you come back spent, to tired to have a life.

None of that appeals to me anymore.

Nor does team driving appeal to me, can't imagine being in truck, bunk, for weeks, with average trucker type, no way.

Right now trucking, being company driver, doesn't give me a lot of options.

But can't wait in lingo forever.

[Admin]

What amazes me is how dumb hours upon hours of driving has made my mind lazy, unable to concentrate on simple math problems.

Trucking is a 'see the large picture' type of job, sure you're concentrating, but you're not really micro thinking, cause everyone else, technology, is doing it for you, all you're basically doing is being safe, and operating advanced equipment and hardware other thinking people invented.

It just amazes me how ineffective my mind has become when it comes to micro mathematical problem solving.
How it's hard to retain stuff.

I can read something, then forget it seconds afterwards, it wasn't always like that when younger and in school.

It's like I can think in conceptual terms easily, but when it comes down to actually numbers, fractions, formulas, brain doesn't seem to want to remember, or care to.

And this is how those who run things get over on the masses, cause they expect the masses to be 'generally educated' rather than detailed orientated.

Trucking trains you to just want a paycheck and nothing else, all that matters is getting paid for your labor.

But it doesn't teach you how to design anything, how to sit down and formulate a plan.
At least not with me.

Trucking, driving, has always been a lazy way out of learning anything.

In other words 'Oh, if I just drive a truck I don't have to worry about being smart at anything'.

And now that I'm taking online classes that do involve math, figures and thinking, I feel ashamed of how weak my mind has become.

Weak when it comes to math, for math is everything.
Everything evolves around math, income, business ect.

If one doesn't have a good grasp on math, it will reflect in their life, they'll waste 1000's per year, they'll get ripped off easily, exploited.

And that kind of sounds like me, to lazy to focus on the math.

It would be so easy for me to jump back into a truck for income, (not as a owner this time).

Where brain just kind of goes into hibernation, and just drive, deliver, do what others tell me.

Years of that have left me to where now when I read a story problem, brain doesn't want to concentrate.

Before I'm even done with equation I'm already day dreaming.



I got issues.

I'm creative but not focused.

I've allowed a part of my brain to become dormant.

The trucking lifestyle, mentality, has done this.
Not that trucking has same effect on others.

But it certainly has diminished my drive and ability to 'think' out complex problems, which effects ability to learn technology.

Cause all the high paying jobs require you to think, and to be good at math.

Accounting, Real Estate, medical, attorneys, Insurance, taxes, ect.

For the first time in a long time I really feel dumb, stupid and deficient.

I feel retarded.

But yet someone how I've gotten by, cause all I cared about over the years was a pay check, as long as I got a paycheck nothing else mattered.

And you know what, I don't like being dumb, cause I feel like I'm cheating myself, and putting up a front to others.

I want to sharpen my mind again so I can evolve beyond basic labor type jobs.

And so income can increase, without physically killing body.

I have a lot to think about right now.

[Admin]

Post job depression

Because I haven't completely let go yet, meaning I haven't committed to anything else, post job depression has set in.

In other words haven't cut possibility of going back to where I was, but in a lessor capacity, and less stress.

I haven't said 'no' yet.

I have to decide soon though or will loose credibility.

It's like being in a relationship where you've been exploited by spouse, yet you get use to it.

'Trucking can be like a bad marriage'

Trucking is a very simple job, physical, but simple, in that all you do is drive, listen to radio, talk on phone, no supervisor looking over your back, you're solo, can stop to eat anytime, talk, go to bathroom whenever.

You do get use to that independence, or privacy I should say.
I've gotten use to it, dressing as I please, no one caring about my hair, how I look.

But that's not how most jobs are, most jobs your held to way more physical standards.

(I do happen to look good or decent cause I've always been in shape)

But still, with most jobs you're really no longer free to show up when you want to, most jobs are alarm clock jobs, where you absolutely have to be there on time.

That may seem normal to most, but to owner operators it is not.

But I realize in order for my life to really change, to start being in an environment that caters more to my personality, allows me to shine, that I probably do have to shift to a more controlled work schedule and take on a bit or a lot more administrative responsibility.

But when you've been a outcast driver for so many years, that's easier said than done.

Where you don't have to really learn anything new.
Trucking I have mastered for the most part, a new job, or position within logistics, would mean becoming a freshman again.

Going back to old job in lesser capacity simply means garunteed income, and familiararity (not a word)

I'd be going back to something I'm familiar with.

I've been off for about a month now, and the trade I thought I wanted to learn is proving to be a bit more difficult in the time I have to learn it.

So yesterday kind of lost my cool and wrote instructor long email.

Things are very complicated for me right now.

Even this blog forum, I don't want it to be a trucking forum anymore, even though I drive, I feel very distant from trucking.
In trucking you can work around people forever, and in your absence not one call of concern.

I have fallen into a mini depression right now.
Until I totally make up my mind on next move, this can be expected.

more to follow.

[Admin]

It's important I share this, most would not.

And that is mood, the effect being out of work for near a month has on my mood.

The effect of not being able to transition out of trucking, or not having the drive to.

The dread of filling out other application, knowing ahead of time that within months will be burned out, and end up resigning again.
It's not a good feeling.

Eventually needing a salary, yet dreading the environment in which you make that money.

to be continued.