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Post by Admin on Nov 18, 2015 13:09:12 GMT
My problem is there's nothing else I really want to do.
Being a regular full time employee for trucking company actually scares me, I feel like once I do that life is over, my dreams will be over, and I'll just become a generic soulless worker.
And obviously that's not a good way to look at it.
I can never work for a company where I have to show up, have to work when I don't want to.
I'm just very use to being in charge of own schedule.
If I'm going to be lower rung, lower income level, at least I want the power to determine when I work.
In trucking, there's really only 3 ways to do that.
1. own your own truck
2. work locally for owner as 1099 or sub contract, where you drive vehicle of owner operator. They'll expect you to make money for them, but you still have a lot more freedom of schedule than you would if you were a company driver.
3. Work for Temp agency, On call truck agency, basically truck driver labor ready...which basically allows you to work when you want as well, but pressure can often be put on you to drive odd weird schedules when you don't feel like it. And with Temp driving jobs, often little to no warning to when you may have to work. So if you've already been up for 10 hours, could get last minute call to run 12 hour shift.
If can wear you out after a while, the unpredictable schedule, especially on weekends when you might want to relax and drink a few beers, then suddenly get call to go work.
The best option is owning own truck, the other two options are inferior to that option.
Just not trying to work every day of my life until I die.
I want to enjoy life, relax, along the way, so that when older I have no regrets and not just left with old deprepid body.
Like so many drivers I see at the end of their careers, nothing left, body all beat up and worn, at least some.
City drivers and LTL drivers look the best, cause they're home daily, have side lives.
But OTR drivers look the worst, where they can't exercise, often get depressed, alone all the time, moral falls, OTR drivers look the worse. No one was meant to live their lives cooped up in box with wheels on it. Driving for 10 hours a day is just bad for you, you need movement, just sitting that long is bad, bad for your health.
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Post by Admin on Nov 20, 2015 6:30:23 GMT
Odd turn
Things have just taken a odd turn, I'm probably going to severe ties with last company I was leased on with. After I lost my truck, they then, by accident I'm sure, gave me number to a Cuban owner, who was my competitor, and has done better than me cause dispatcher feeds or fed him better paying loads.
I found it insulting, it would be like McDonalds CEO losing job, and then coming back to work for Burger King.
Not happening (well maybe for millions yes)
But I wouldn't be making millions, I'd be making 50/50 split, slaving away for a Cuban.
Can't do it, not cause they're Cuban, but mainly cause we were competitors and it would be humiliating for me to come back and work under him, driving his truck.
Can't do it.
So now, well things will get even more interesting.
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Post by Admin on Nov 20, 2015 20:32:22 GMT
Years of driving, driving alone, out there alone, away from people, away from life, leads to this.
No contacts, no friendships within industry, no future outside of continuing to drive (unless you change it)
24 year old managers telling you 'your not qualified' to be exploited by them and more, it all leads to the trucking cemetery.
And is why I so resent the idea of stepping back into a truck driving long distance, cause it leads no where.
I mean if all one wants is a check, ye I suppose.
But if one wants more, forget about it.
You'll simply sooner or later end up in the trucking graveyard of nothingness.
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Post by Admin on Nov 22, 2015 11:13:29 GMT
Once you step out of loud noisy truck for a few weeks, your body just starts to heal.
You don't realize how stressful that environment is until you step away from it, how you're just whisked along, go go go, like a mule.
I have a fellow driver I know, who runs night shift, guys always wore out and exhausted on Saturdays, eats like a truck driver, has truck driver body, and gets truck driver sleep, which isn't much.
I can't go back to that.
I could maybe do it seasonally, temporarily, for a month or two, but that's it.
whatever years I have left, I do not want to spend it in that environment anymore.
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Post by Admin on Nov 22, 2015 11:21:15 GMT
Just sitting here in the dark, and enjoying it, so peaceful, so quiet, I'm thoroughly enjoying it...
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Post by Admin on Nov 22, 2015 11:56:42 GMT
Changed the background theme to better reflect my view towards trucking, and happy with new choice.
The background theme now reflects how I look at trucking now, and how this industry has left me feeling on the inside, gutted, and socially desolate.
Just like the background theme now reflects.
The factory was once up and running, full of potential, buzzing with life, energy, now look at it, desolate, and maybe even haunted with strange spirits of the past, stories to be told, relics.
That's how I feel now.
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Post by Admin on Nov 22, 2015 14:46:13 GMT
You know, as I sit here on this Sunday, studying some stuff, one thing I realize now is how dumb trucking makes your brain.
Driving for hours upon hours, yet concentrating on nothing, really does kind of make your brain lazy over the years.
When you drive, you see the 'big picture', and that's important, cause it keeps other people alive and safe around you.
But years and years of only seeing the big picture can hurt you when say you're trying to learn something new, in school, and actually have to focus on the small, actually have to 'think', concentrate...
In trucking, they really don't want you to think, all they want you to do is follow strict protacall, obey, deliver and be on time.
That's it.
As a driver your personal input is never requested or desired, you're looked at as pure labor and nothing else. \ Labor, your physical energy, is the only value you have to company.
Over the years I've learned truck companies really could give a dam about your brains, or other assets you have to offer.
Trucking is a very 'us vs them' type of template
Admin is 'us' and truckers are 'them', or vice versa.
And is one reason a lot of older truckers, say in their late 30's or 40's or even 60's, resent when they've been driving for over 20 years, and are being managed by 24 year old straight out of community college or less.
Admin thinks they have the brains, and simply look down on the labor.
Like a 3rd world caste system or something.
In trucking you will never be valued for your brains, just your bronze.
So as I sit hear studying, I realize how little I know about other trades, disciplines, ect.
Trucking, driving for hours upon hours, turns your brains into mush.
Yes, you see the big picture while driving, you're safe ect, but when it comes down to actually having to rememorize details, intricate mathematical structures, the mind cannot do it after years of just being used for labor.
And that's OK, dandy and fine for some, as most don't care, as long as they can earn a pay check and cover rent or mortgage.
But others will never stop feeling they were meant for more than to just be used for blind labor, mindless labor, with never the chance to switch over to admin side do to glass wall.
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Post by Admin on Nov 23, 2015 14:38:33 GMT
Hello, it's Monday, big wow.
The clock continues to move forward, people have been on this Earth for 1000's of years, nothing I feel is new, it's all been felt before by millions scattered through out history.
I've officially severed ties with last company I was leased to.
So now I have no choice but to look ahead.
It's sunny out, but cold, that's kind of true about life right now, sunny out but cold.
Don't really have anything to look forward to right now.
The news on TV is just a distraction.
This will be a very pivotal week.
Either way, 2 months from now this period of transition will be well in the past and I'll be writing about different issues.
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Post by Admin on Nov 23, 2015 17:18:55 GMT
It's not easy, for many reasons, but I must take this period to possibly transition out of basic labor driving, if not now than when?
I'm sort of fortunate in that I'm still fit, and when clean shaven still get carded at times when I want to by a cold one.
I have kept in shape, working local helped me to do that.
In other words I still have the 'corporate' up and coming look, or established look, if I so choose to go that route.
I have endured the years of trucking, yet some how managed to maintain my health and looks.
In other words, again, I do not look like your typical driver.
Maybe a Fed Ex driver, or UPS driver, or a few other LTL carriers, cause their drivers tend to have strict grooming standards.
But as far as being fat, chunky, bald or balding, wolf man facial hair, 1970's John Deere style of dressing, no, that's not me.
Although I do need to go purchase some dress pants as I make transformation, I am use to wearing jeans or shorts, but as I transition over neither are appropriate when trying to impress people.
In trucking, you really don't have to impress people with your looks or style of dress
But in other fields you very much so have to.
In trucking it's all about your labor, in other careers it's about first impression, in order to get that labor later.
It's why truckers tend to look so scrappy, cause in trucking they could care the less how you look, your hygiene, as long as you can drive 5000 miles per week.
What do they care, corporate never sees you, they just track the freight you're hauling.
You could cross dress as a woman and they wouldn't know it, you could drive naked, and they wouldn't care (until you arrived at customer, than you'd better dress).
But ye, luckily I still have very young look, and is why I don't want to waste what's left of those young athletic looks in this dark mentally environment of just being used as labor.
For to many years I've ran, been afraid to try anything else, cause trucking was always an easy way out, quick money.
Now look at me, have had so many jobs that it's near impossible to get hired anywhere.
And the people making the decision to hire or not hire you, if I ever meet one, I'll probably beat them up, for myself, and all the others who's careers they have harmed over the years.
If I ever meet you in person, please never tell me that you use to be a hiring manager or that you ever wrecked peoples careers by putting bad marks on their DAC.
Please hope we never meet.
You people who sit behind desks, and make judgments on others, disgust me.
I speak for many trucking ghosts from the past, when I say that.
And I'll never ever ever forget how this industry, those behind it, exploit our labor, and then discard us in the end.
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Post by Admin on Nov 24, 2015 1:40:54 GMT
The further you get away from trucking comfort zone, the scarier things can getLet's face it, trucking is easy, for the most part, mentally easy, but physically very dangerous. In trucking you have to be alert all the time, but rarely do you have to be a rocket scientist. The people who engineer the parts do, but the driver does not. So over time the mind becomes lazy, forgets how to figure out the most simplest of thinking problems, like math, fractions. And over more time, driving conditions self to not really want any other challenges, where income isn't automatically guaranteed. One of the main reasons why some drawn to trucking is because they figure the income is guaranteed no matter whatAnd for the most part that's true, you get paid for what you do, but at the same time under such a system, income has a ceiling. Labor will always only be worth so much, and you can never multiply it or cheat it. You get paid for only what one body can do at a time, your own, and that's a very non efficient way to build wealth these days, but it does pay basic bills. In order to move above and beyond labor, one has to, especially today, learn to use their brains. You have to create value in your brain, rather than your bronze, as most drivers do. And that's what can be scary, is finding out that after years of driving, being detached from 'brain jobs', that you've basically reverted back to a 9th grade understanding of technology and other fields around you. And it's fear of not being able to learn it, that makes many run back to trucking, where at least there's that study check coming in, and you can just be dumb and eat food all day as you drive, park and sleep (If OTR). I did that for years, I ran, I used trucking as a way of running away from the challenges of life, running away from Algebra, from taxes, from responsibility, from details. And all those years of running has left me unequipped to deal with the real challenges of life and or unequipped to compete with others outside of trucking who have been in the game for years, and who's minds are years ahead when it comes to technology, computer systems, word, excel, you name it. All these years of running have led me to a dead end. I just out grew trucking while still young and healthy enough to do other things. Some never outgrow trucking, or have other things in their life, side life, to take their mind off of it while off duty. I wish I were one of those, cause my life would simply be a lot more simpler. Oh well, that's enough for this session.
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