Question:
A poster here in this wrote that he/she wasn't getting much positive encouragment or feedback from some of the posters......
Well, maybe its possible that people should not just read the words, but also the hidden inflections, and possibly the motivations behind the post.
Frankly....in every realm of life, every career field, and everywhere in general you will have naysayers....ah, you have to love the "breastbeating-naysayer". Whatever they say is best for all....just ask them, they will be sure to expound on it and do so with "repetitive redundancy" and to question their veracity is heresy! These same people would complain about how the powerball lottery paid out their winnings, or even if they took Michael Eisner's job at Disney and got his salary and perks.
Ignore them. Find out for yourself. You will never get 100% of the answers to your questions unless you go out and find the answers. Especially not if you are relying on a website where people have multiple identities and some of them like to post drivel just to try to get a rise out of someone. Maybe some of the "naysayers" are what they are because they were failures in their attempts in the OTR industry, maybe not...maybe it just wasn't their cup of tea. In truth, its not for everyone.
Myself, I am here out of choice, I like it. I enjoy what I do. I get paid a good wage.....way above "sub-minimum-wage". The fact that I am not at home swilling beer and staring at the TV is of no consequence to me. I have only had one job in my life that did not involve alot of travel....and it was probably the most unrewarding job I ever had. And to boot....I was in management for a major US corporation. I make more now than I did then, less than when I owned my 3 businesses....but then I don't have the grief and aggravation of 37 employees and all the rest....especially the receivables vs bills worries.
If "trucking" sucked as much as the naysayers professed....why are so many people doing it, wanting to do it, and why are so many people so successful at it? Its really quite simple......it works for some people, and doesn't for others.
Its not an occupation for the really young who want an active dating or social life cuz' you're not there to have that kind of lifestyle. If you have a wife and young kids at home....its tough too. You will miss much of their growing up.
But if your motivation goes beyond the next moment of immediate gratification and are geared toward long term rewards...it could be a different issue all together.
Me, kids are all gone, wife rides with me alot, or stays home. When we met I was travelling 28 days a month in the Medical Equipment field....so she had to come to terms with my travelling very quickly. Been like that for a quarter century now. I get home every 3 weeks, and in the meantime talk to her every two days unless she calls me about something.
You can make good money. More than you might make at home. I am well aware that not everyone in this country makes $40-60K a year working jobs at home....and I suspect that most people who look at this industry are doing so because they feel or sense that they can move up a notch or three income wise by driving professionally.
Truly....if you divide the number of hours you spend with the truck into the total amount you make...you can wittle down the "hourly rate".... but then, who cares.
If I'm not here....I'll be somewhere else anyway. I tend to look at what goes in the bank every two weeks and I don't sweat the small stuff. Whether I sleep in my sleeper berth or my own bed is immaterial. When I'm driving I average $24.05 per hour based on my per mile pay. Yes, sometimes its higher, and some times its lower. And yes, I drive more than 40 hours a week..... But when I look at my deposit at the end of the pay period....I'm smiling, and thats the bottom line. Driving has earned me enough that some years I have taken 6 months off and stayed home and worked on my sailboat and had nothing but fun. And there aren't many career fields that allow you that kind of freedom.
After you get past "having no experience" and you establish a good service record and a good safety record, you will become a valuable commodity. Sure, you can't expect to be treated like royalty, and the CEO won't know your name, but hey, as long as the check hits the bank when its supposed to... all is well.
Besides.....you don't get paid to have coffe with the boss.
This "job" can be the easiest or most difficult one you'll ever have. There is stress involved and long hours. The demands placed on you may seem large, but can be taken in stride, but you have to learn how to deal with them.
Schools don't teach that. They teach you just enough to get a CDL, thats all.
If you do "due dilligence", meaning really getting all the information before hand and talking one on one with drivers....not just listening to what they say, but also how they say it...and watch their body language...you may be able to sort the "wheat from the chaff" and have some good information to go with.
If you are interested in a particular company.......those are the drivers you need to talk to..... I think in the archives there are posts that list the questions that should be asked.... find it, print it out, then ask the questions and record the answers. Compare the answers....see if there is a common thread....if not, maybe something is strange in "wonderland" and more investigations is in order.
This is a many faceted industry...and no one person knows it all. It would be virtually impossible for one to be a know-it-all.....but by golly there are some out there. Beware of "trucker's stories", and be aware that the difference between a "trucker's story and a fairy tale" is that the trucker's story starts out "no (edited) man, this is the truth...and the fairy tale starts out "once upon a time" ...and thats the "only" difference.
Lest anyone accuse me of telling a "trucker's story", I don't want you to believe a word of what I have posted....but use what I have said as "thinking points" and go out and seek out the knowledge you need to make an intelligent decision.....make up your own mind....and then let us know what you think.
Good luck to you in your pursuit of the truth....it can be elusive....but its there.So I like what I do, you don't, too bad, get over it. Get on with your life, I am.

Answer:
Skywalker;
You just violated the first law of AntiTruckNet BY POSTING SOMETHING POSITIVE ABOUT THE INDUSTRY!
May God have mercy on your soul because the naysayers darned sure won't!

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Nice little writing except it leaves out one fact. Alot of what the "breastbeating-naysayer" has to say is truth. Dismissing them and painting a rosey picture of a not so rosey job would be just plain stupid.
It doesn't matter how good some one thinks the job is or how much money some one thinks they'll make as a driver. There is still one major fact that outweighs any opinion. A very high majority of new people entering the industry most spending large amounts of cash and going into high debt will quit within their first year. I prefere posting honestly about the industry even if it doesn't sound so rosey. The fact is it isn't very rosey for most newbies and will never be for many.

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Very nice post Skywalker, informative and motivating

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For real truth about the industry to be posted then all of it needs to be let known. There is good and there is bad about it, and from the way Skywalkers post reads to me all he is saying is that those who only can say "Dont' do it", "You are stupid" etc are not projecting the total truth about trucking any more than someone who pretends to be totally blind to the negatives.
The only real point in his post is that anyone thinking about entering the industry needs to ask lots of questions, try to learn about the good and the bad, and make an informed decision and then apply this same strategy to finding a company to work for.
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Now whether skywalker wants to believe it or not, most of these failures, naysayers and trolls have been in the industry 15 - 30 + years. How long have you been in, skywalker ? And today's up and coming driver has it far worse than when I started out (forget the condo, air ride). I don't know how they put up with it 2 weeks.
Who are you going to believe ? Sure, some people don't know a pile when they step in it, understood.______
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I'd rather die on my feet like a man than live on my azz hiding in a truck.........Sir James Brown

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As always, Uturn2001, you boiled the pearl out of the rest of the verbage. Information is power and the more you know, the more you are able to make a balanced decision. I ride for those who can't! POW/MIA - You are NOT forgotten!!
Lead, Follow or get out of my way!!!

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While this is absolutely true, the problem with OTR trucking is that it's as alien from 'most jobs' as the military is from civilian life. As a result, even when a newbie/wannabie is provided information, it doesn't translate well since he/she has no real basis of comparison.
In other words, if a couple of staff NCOs are discussing the merits of various duty stations/posts, their comments are easily understood by other staff NCOs yet can be entirely misinterpreted by an E-1.
There is a reason why so many people (85% is the number that comes to mind) don't get through their first year of OTR trucking after paying thousands of dollars for training.

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I think a lot of those that don't make it in this industry expect a lot of glory and get disapointed when they see reality.
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Yup, Glory don't pay the bills that's for sure,that's the reality today.
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I have seen some of the bad in the industry. It is not a cake walk by any means. But I think I have found as close to a trucking nirvana with my present job as I ever will. I work for a great company, last year they only had 30% turn over. Last week I drove to Detroit MI, took me 2 days because I decided to stop and sleep over night at Lake Ottawa MI, this was Tuesday/Wedsday. Then I had to run from Anderson IN, Muncie IN, Kokomo IN, back to Anderson IN. Total miles I drove for the week were less the 1000 hub miles. My pay check $950 gross, the same that it is every week. All other days I had my but parked at home. Driving a company truck, and averaged close to $1.00/mile, yes life is good for me.

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Well said, Skywalker.

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I am a trucking naysayer, and i would not bi+ch about getting Eisners perks and wages. One of the things I naysay about is the fact that trucking pays less than Eisners janitors make.

No, dont ignore them. One cannot make an educated decision or form an educated opinion about anything by ignoring one whole side of an issue. Closing your eyes to the negative doesn't make the negative go away. It just allows you to be blindsided by it later on.

Are you sure?
Some drivers claim to be in trucking for the money. Fact is the only reason being a clerk at Wal Mart doesn't pay what trucking does is because Wal Mart doesn't let people work 125+ hours a week.

Because they are incapable of doing anything else.

Because they think trucking is like it is portrayed in those movies of the 70's.

A monkey can be successful at driving - it is a no brainer job.

So wanting to be home with the wife and family is short term gratification? Bwahahahahaha.....

Some of us actually like our wives enough to want to be with them in person more than once a month.

Depends on what or definition of "good money" is.

And after a driver quickly moves up those notches, he stays there for the rest of his driving career. Pretty depresing to think a driver uses up all of his "promotions" so soon., and aside from the times the company decides to raise wages again, all that driver will ever be is just a driver, the bottom of the food chain.

People who value their time care. I suppose if you don't value yourself enough, and you are content with giving your time away, then you are right - who cares? Nobody will care about you, that is certain.

First you say money isn't everything,then you say it is.

Hmmm....let's see...sleep in my own bed on my queen size mattress and box spring in my own bedroom with a bathroom nearby, or sleep in a glorified coffin on top of a matress that some other sweaty fat truckdriver slept (and did who knows what else ) on, and be forced to pee in a bottle or get up and put some clothes on to go to some skanky public bathroom. God what a tough decision.

Would be interesting to see how you came up with that figure. You criticise the naysayers, but here you are doing just the opposite, painting an unrealistic rosy picture.
Because just off the top of my head, to get this figure, means you average 660 miles a day at 40 cents a mile. I suppose you either never sit at a dock, or you get paid that same $24/hr to do so? How much are you bending your logbook? Because you cannot legally keep this up for long. And how is some rookie going to feel when he reads your rosy picture, while he is sitting in his truck , waiting for the shipper to load him, and getting very irritated because he has been there over 6 hours already and his company doesn't pay for that time? And that unpaid time spent waiting is going to mean he doesn't get to run 600 miles today, which is going to cut his weekly mileage down. To say nothing of the time spent at the other end lumping his trailer all day for the $50 his company pays because no lumpers are available.
He gets home after a couple weeks, after working hard, but only driving 2000 miles each week, and sees his pay deposit of $600 each week for well over 120 hours of work . His time at home is spent sleeping, because he is so tired, and about the time he has caught up on his sleep, he has to leave again. But $600 a week is the best money he can make. Yeah right.
Work 100, log 70, get paid for 40.

So again, money is everything.

Damn, bro, you've been inhaling the corporate glue too long. Please don't tell me you actually believe that recruiter crap? Truck driving is unskilled labor, and not even worthy enough to be included in the labor rules that protect other workers.

TRANSLATION:
As long as the money pays the bills, it's OK to be treated like crap.
Sorry bud, some of us respect ourselves more than that.

Smart people do.
Answer:
$24.05 is 65 X .37. Its easy in states where speed limits are 65 and higher. Its not a cut in stone amount....some places it averages less, some more.
I can do it all day....and do it. And yes, my log book passes scrutiny and audits.
Never had a problem in that area. Its easier if you keep the left door closed for about five hours at a time. Since the change of HOS, we are doing alot more drop & hook, or the shippers and receivers are getting charged detention, but more than anything...we are getting loaded and unloaded much quicker, our stop pay has gone up dramatically. 3rd drop on up is at $75 a drop. I do see detention pay in my pay check. But as I said, some days its alittle less...like in OH, CA, OR, IN and WA....you reduce the amount accordingly because of their speed limits. Its not cut and dried....but its a pretty accurate estimate. Oh, if the rare occasion happens that I have to "touch" the freight....its $17.50 an hour with a minimum of two hours....and if its over that, I tell them how long it took, plus I get paid for # of peices and wt. On average I clear far more than $600 per week, and my company knows my threshold....and they know if it gets too low....I'm looking for another job. If all a company can give its driver is 2000 miles a week......they're doing something horribly wrong and probably heading for bankruptcy. Additionally, we get a safety bonus, and if I don't screw up over the next two weeks...I'll get a nice check before Christmas. I don't pee in a bottle, unless its a mandatory drug test. I carry a porta-potty...and in truth its because I detest skanky bathrooms....and you're right, there are too many of them out there.
Look guys, I realize that trucking is not the easiest place to make money, and alot of companies take advantage of their neophytes.....thats where we come in. I think its our obligation to give both sides of the equation. Obviously our perceptions are somewhat different on the issues. I've been at this since Dec 31, 1994....so I'm not a neophyte. I've done dry van, and hazmat tanker. Tried gasoline/diesel delivery....now that sucks, and if you are payed by the load its alot like being an indentured servant...and dangerous....at least with FL Rock and Tank...in 97. How one deals with life in this industry is entirely dependent on the individual. But its no more right for you to "trash" the industry than for me to try to make it seem like "utopia". Whats important is that newbies get a balance of the good and bad. The industry is constantly changing, and some of the changes are for the good. Of the top of my head I can't think of any bad changes, at least not that affect me.
There are things that I detest about the industry. Like food warehouses, and some other places. But I'm fortunate, in that we very rarely have to deal with food, and when we do I pay lumpers with a comcheck. I don't sleep on a mattress some one else slept on. And I don't like relays that start late at night and require me to drive all night. But its part of the job, and I knew that coming into it. When I was assigned the tractor, a new mattress was put in...still in the plastic wrapper. But then maybe thats an example in the differences in companies. I do get treated with respect by my company....and if I want to have coffee with the boss...I can, but I see no reason to. When I'm at the home office I have more pressing things to take care of....and its not something that interests me. Besides, I prefer being below the radar.
There is no doubt that some companies take advantage of their drivers, but employers in other arenas will do the same if given the chance. The trick is to get into the learning curve quickly by finding out who those companies are and stay away from them. Thats where we come in. Generic diatribes are of no value to anyone.
I was a salesman in the Medical/Ophthalmic industry....and I was on the road for 20 to 25 days a month. Stayed in motels every night....ate in restaurants and fast food places....drove 70,000 miles a year in a car. I made usually around $85,000 + a year....... so I guess by your thinking I only made $9.72 an hour.....and I had to sleep on mattresses in motels other people slept on and ate lousy food, cuz' frankly not all restaurant food is all that good, and you burn out on it real quick.
Now granted I had a bit more autonomy on where I went, but my employers had alot to say about it as well.
I guess then what you are telling some one who is looking at trucking, possibly as a way out of a "dead end job", or lower paying job is: Stay at home, suck it up, and be miserable..... Cuz' truckin' ain't no better. I beg to differ. Its no pleasure cruise.....but neither was my sales job in the medical field, and after being employed for as long as I was, I owned my own business for almost 10 years.....now you want to talk about "long hours". Try making payroll while carrying "receivables", paying all the bills, and then cover health insurance cost, et al. Forget 40 hours.....can't be done. And if I used your formula for hourly compensation....it would be a sad sight.
Being home with the wife and kids....I think its great. But here again, my wife prefers to be at home in the winter, and will go with me in the warmer months. She rode with me non-stop for 5 years... When she met me, I was travelling all 48 and Canada by air....was gone 20 to 28 days a month. She dealt with it then and deals with it now. I realize many people can't do that or would not prefer to, and I respect that, but you need to respect that other people don't have to conform to your ideas of how life should be, any more than I can expect it of you. I know people who can't be away from home because of family, some are happy the way things are, others aren't...because they know they could increase their income with a travelling job. There are some people who won't take a travelling job of any kind...even for a kings ransom. Thats their right.
No, money isn't everything....but then....I don't have the "average debt load" that the average American has.....I have the luxury of not having to work all year long if I choose not to....so money is not everything.
Trucking is not included in the same labor laws as Wal-Mart cashiers and others because of an exemption legislated on behalf of the owners/companies in the industry a long time ago. Thats why almost all companies pay by the load or by the mile. Its funny though how "nail technicians" and "shampoo girls" are skilled labor....isn't it? So whether or not truck driving is skilled or not is really determined by legislation....not skill levels.
I can't stop you from saying anything any more than you can stop me. But I will venture to say that my method of delivery may get alittle more consideration than yours..... Stand back from yourself and read your style.... maybe you can see what I mean, maybe not.
I just don't want someone to shy away from a potential job that they may well fit into, and be happy with. Its obvious that your priorities are different than mine, so it stands to reason that the same may be the case with others.
Have a good one!!
A driver with Zero experience or little experience cannot go to many companies, and even experienced drivers with lousy service records have a difficult time with changing jobs. All I'm saying is: If you keep your nose clean, and do a good job, you can move to better companies that pay better. Its like any other job market. If you suck as an employee or the quality of your work sucks.....your paycheck is gonna suck. And if you have no experience, getting a good job is going to be a challenge. The game is the same, only the names change.
Treated like crap?.... Not I, I won't tolerate it. Not from the company, which has never happened in 6 years, nor anyone else.
Coffee with the boss....on that one I'm tempted to say "brown-nosers do", but I won't. Depending on what kind of boss you have, in a corporate environment can actually work for you, or very much against you. But if your job is at all dependent on your "friendly relationship" with your superiors....you live on tenuous ground on a daily basis. Been in that environment before, for too long, and didn't like it all that much. Never did like groveling "yes-men".So I like what I do, you don't, too bad, get over it. Get on with your life, I am.

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Of course it does. You are saying what they want to hear. Most that come here already have their mind made up. They don't want some driver ruining their wet dreams.