Reality of Long Haul Trucking
The ads are everywhere; you see them on television, in newspapers and magazines, and posted on job boards, both physical and online. "Enroll in XYZ Truck Driving School and earn $40,000 your first year!" The school brochures will tell you all about the "glamorous and exciting" world of driving 18-wheelers. As in most hyperbole, there are some kernels of truth under that marketing program. There is the potential to make a decent living. The pay can be pretty good and many companies offer very good benefits. The pictures portray smiling, squeaky clean drivers behind the wheel of a new and shiny behemoth.
Sometimes it is like that. One day in early June you will be heading west on I-80 in Nebraska. The sun is shining and it is warm. Traffic is light. There is no road construction. You have the cruise control set on 65 and some great rock and roll on the CD player. Everything is brightly colored. The fields are green and there are yellow and red flowers everywhere. You look off to your right and you see some children playing on the front porch swing at a farmhouse. This is the greatest job in the country. It is almost unethical that you actually get paid to do something you enjoy so much. Your logbook is caught up and every detail of your rig is working properly. There are times like that and they are wonderful.
Then there are the trips they do not tell you about in truck-driving school. The company has you pick up a load in Virginia that has to deliver in the morning in Brooklyn, NY. You cannot make the delivery on time if you abide by the legal restrictions on work hours but you are loyal to your employer and want to do what you can to meet the company's obligations. So you exceed your legally available hours, drive when you are too tired, stop briefly for coffee to go, and in the process you do without sleep, food, or a shower. You have arrived at the George Washington Bridge at 5 o'clock in the morning. In the process of getting there you paid a toll at every puddle you had to cross. Now you pay another toll (I think it is $24 currently) and enter the city. You have not slept or bathed in two days. Other than coffee, your most recent nourishment was a truck stop hamburger at midday yesterday. Your eyes are so red they appear to be bleeding. You are bone-tired, dirty, hungry, and you are entering one of the most difficult cities in America to get around in. You know it will at least be late afternoon before you get unloaded, find another load, and finally head out of the city. During that time you will have to deal with multiple low clearances (they are not marked correctly so you cannot trust what it says on the underpass), unbelievable traffic, rude people, and more tolls if you have to travel between boroughs. Flyers for truck companies and truck driving schools do not tell you about that kind of trip.
There will be times when you were told your load positively, absolutely, had to be at the receiver at 5 AM on Wednesday. So you fight icy roads and lack of sleep to get there on time and find that the receiving crew does not come in to work until 8 AM. Then they may make you wait for 4 or 5 or 6 hours until they put you at the dock. They begin to unload you 10 hours after your scheduled appointment. If you are looking for a job driving trucks, look for a company that will pay you for that waiting time. Most companies do not, but some will pay 10-15 dollars an hour, which makes the delay a little easier to take.
Trucking companies and truck driving schools will tell you about the clean, smiling, rested, well-fed and well-paid time on the job. They will not show you the darker side of it. They will not mention that on occasion you will do without sleep, food, and a shower when you need all of them.
One more item that those who would entice you into the world of long-haul trucking do not mention is that you will spend nearly all of your time alone. If you are one of those people who needs to be around other people all the time, you will be miserable. When you are on the road, you are indeed the captain of the ship, but it has a crew of one. It is like solo sailing in that respect. If you are unable to spend long periods with nobody to talk with, you might consider another line of work.
