I'm not sure how to start....

I am very tempted to try to get off the road. It has been on my mind for several weeks. I am torn between a need to do other things in my life and this crazy thing called trucking. I am at a total loss.

I can make arguments for and against both sides. There is something to be lost no matter which way I go. What do you do when you don't know what to do?

The reasons for getting away from being over the road are many and are likely all of those that you would expect plus a few. It isn't as simple as that I'm sick of the crap. I've been sick of the crap for a long, long time and though it may be impossible to get used to, I've gotten as close as a person can. No, it isn't just that.

Way back when, I didn't quite understand it when drivers would complain about their jobs and say that they were "stuck". What they meant is becoming clear to me now. I fear that I will wake up one day and find myself stuck in the truck for life. Any other job skills I might have had will be so long lost as to be non existent. I'm thirty one years young, have been driving nearly a decade and I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up.

Just for fun the other day I filled out an online application to do typing and clerical stuff for a "work at home" deal. I can type very fast and the web site work has kept my computer skills up to date. Besides, it was only typing and basic letter writing stuff they were looking for. I was shocked when they turned me down! My most recent experience in that line of work is a decade old. Too old. I don't want to return to that line of work, but the knowledge that I couldn't even if I did want to is sobering.

I want to enjoy watching my son grow up before he is. I want to enjoy the house that I just bought and be there to protect it. (Oh what a rite of passage to buy your first home...) I want to take classes. I want to kiss my pets every day. (Cat, two rabbits and a bird. I will not kiss the bird as he is a mean little sucker and he'd peck my lip off given half the chance.) I want to be "normal". (Ok, ok, in reality this might be a stretch.)

I look down in your cars as you drive down the interstate and I envy your little family scenes. (Don't misunderstand me, please. I am no voyeur... I am simply bored to death.) Kids in the back. Dad driving. Mom conked out, head on a pillow in the passenger seat. Sometimes the kids do the cute little arm thing so that I will honk the air horn and I do. (Snoozin' Mom is none too appreciative, but the kids like it.) I look at you for a moment and then you're gone, on down the highway, destination unknown. I plod along my own path, not sure exactly where I will end up, knowing only the pitstops along the way. I wonder where you are going, if you have any idea that the truck driver that you just passed is wishing, at least for a moment, that she could be you. I would especially like to be the one sleeping in the passenger seat.

At the end of the day I crave running water down the hall and a recliner and a remote. Heck, I just crave knowing when the end of the day is. 15+ hour workdays have aged me past my years. No offense to my chiropractor, he really is a great guy, but I don't want to see him ten times a month anymore. I want to eat homemade food. (Do frozen dinners count as "homemade"?) I want to spend holidays with people that I care about. I want to be able to make plans weeks ahead of time without worrying that I won't be home. I want something that more closely resembles a life.

My buddy Bob; that is, Bob Seger, says it best:

"On a long lonesome highway east of Omaha... you can listen to the engine moanin' out as one lone song..."

"...but your thoughts will soon be wanderin' the way they always do, when you're ridin' 16 hours and there's nothin' much to do... and you don't feel much like ridin', you just wish the trip was through..."

"...say here I am, on the road again, there I am, up on a stage... here I go, playin' star again, there I go, turn the page..."

Although Bob sings about a career on the road as a musician, this song's lines so closely parallel what I feel... the engine song on long, lonesome stretches east of Omaha, my thoughts wandering aimlessly around my brain and looking so forward to the end of the run. Bob's stage is a real stage, but I often feel as though I am on my own sort of "stage". Women have been driving trucks for a good long time, but that doesn't mean that the masses have gotten used to it. I am an utterly boring individual, but people stare at me constantly and I feel as though I might as well be on a stage. I realize this is actually a compliment and that people are very curious as to how this young little thing drives that big ole truck. (Makes me think of the song "Big Ole Truck" by Toby Keith about a woman in a big 4 X 4.) Even though I know it is actually complimentary, it is a human desire, as well as my own, to just "fit in".

For my first few years of driving I avoided eating in a truckstop restaurant anywhere near supper time because when I walked in and everyone stared, I was very uncomfortable. Somewhere along the way I decided to hell with it, I'm hungry!!! To this day, though, it still happens. Drivers look at me as though I've made a mistake by sitting in the driver's section. Since I've perfected "the stare", though, they soon forget I'm even there. (I take pride in never losing a staredown.)  Again, Bob means something a bit different, but it clicks...

"...well you walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road and you feel the eyes upon you as you're shakin' off the cold... you pretend it doesn't bother you, but you just want to explode... most times you can't hear 'em talk, other times you can, all the same old clichés, is that a woman or a man... and you always seem outnumbered, you don't dare make a stand..."

I don't think people mistake me for a man, but in my flannel shirts, etc, some look at me as though they're wondering if I'm suffering an identity crisis. Though I have my share of problems, an identity problem is not one of them. I don't particularly like flannel, but I do have an entire wardrobe of every flannel color combination ever imagined. In fact, a boyfriend once bailed out of a relationship and the only reason he could give at the time was, "Man, you wear a lot of flannel..." I guess he thought that I would wear my "nice" clothes on the road in the winter. Okay, Mike.

All of these things and I haven't even mentioned the unfair treatment that drivers suffer through as even one of my reasons for wanting to get away from OTR. I am not going to, for that matter. This journal has already been through all of those things. The only thing that I will say to this subject is that I do not believe there is any relief in sight. This does not mean, however, that if I quit driving OTR that I would stop doing the things I do regarding web sites, research, writing, etc. Oh no. I wouldn't dream of letting the industry off so easy. I am a very small thorn in it's side and I can only work, try and hope to become a much larger thorn.

I don't know what I am going to do but no matter what, I don't want to quit driving completely. I am a driver down deep and as much as I want some things and am tired of others, I would miss driving too much to leave it entirely.

Wouldn't you know it, but Bob captures that beautifully as well:

"Leavin' my home, leavin' my friends, runnin' when things get too crazy..."
(I once thought trucking would be a great way to escape problems... until I figured out that if you go truckin' to escape problems, they come with you and you lock yourself up with them. Once you figure out that you can't run, can't hide, you can do some incredible soul searching and this is only and always good.)

"Out to the road, out underneath the stars, feelin' the breeze, passin' the cars.."
(Where a driver's soul really is..)

And finally, the most beautiful song lyric I've ever heard:

"Sometimes at night I see their faces, I feel the traces they've left on my soul... those are the memories that make me a wealthy soul... I tell ya, those are the memories that make me a wealthy soul..."

I've met thousands of people on the road: white people, brown people, black, yellow, whatever. Nice people, jerks, drifters, white collar, blue collar, no collar... Some of those people have made impressions on me that have shaped me, changed me, strengthened me, grown me up. I have no way to thank those who helped me in times of trouble, no way to let them know that I am grateful for them, for their actions or words... but I can, and forever will, be able to see their faces and know that I am a better person for having known them, if only for a short time.

I have learned a great deal about my fellow human being.  I was born and raised in a mostly white city in a mostly white state.  Cultural diversity to me was picking up a National Geographic.  When I started driving I was fascinated by what I hadn't known was out there.  I was automatically a minority as a female in the profession, but at times I became a double minority.  (Female and white in mostly male and black warehouses, truckstops, etc. or the same thing among Spanish/Mexican populations and so on.)  I went to the East Coast and for the very first time, I understood what was meant by America being a "melting pot."  I heard many languages spoken and not everyone looked like me.  This "culture shock" was sometimes intimidating but overall, I saw it as a learning experience.  People fascinate me.  There was a big world outside of my home back in the sticks of Iowa and there was a lot to be learned from all of these incredibly different people.  I believe prejudice is simply a lack of exposure.  How can you hate a person simply because they don't look like you????
 

I would be remiss if I did not include some of the other benefits that I have realized by taking this career path.  It has not, contrary to what my journal may sometimes imply, always been bad.  It has almost always been a challenge, though.  This has often made it all feel like an uphill battle, but in the long run, has served to make me a stronger, more confident and more capable human being.   I have learned to rely upon myself, for the most part, and when I could not accomplish something on my own, I have learned how to humble myself to reach for help and to acknowledge when I am in over my head.  I've pushed myself to my mental and physical limits and have been amazed at just how far a person can actually push themselves. 

Of course, there is the money, too.  I did not go to college (big mistake) and there are few other jobs that would pay me what trucking does.  The job security that a clean CDL gives me is assuring.  In these days of massive layoffs, I have more job security than the bigwig corporate types.  How often do you hear about truck drivers being laid off?

I have been forced to learn patience.  I cannot say that this is a lesson that has been learned, as in past tense, because it is ongoing.  Dealing with the job, the traffic, etc, etc, will force you to become more patient or you will get out.  This is significant for me because I used to have about as much patience as a kid. 

I don't like all of my fellow drivers, but what would you expect; there are more than 3 million drivers in the USA.  Most drivers, though, are down to earth, good, hard working people.  (Um, never mind the serial killer truck driver from the Northwest.)  These are a group of people who have had much time to think their lives through from that air ride seat.  Too many people seem to go through life never giving their mistakes the necessary thought.  How can anyone work things through and become wiser if stuck in avoidance?  Drivers also tend to be pretty blunt individuals, a trait which I like.  I don't like to be forced to "read between the lines" as to someone's meaning -- just say it, already.

I know this isn't the "style" of writing you are used to from this journal. It is really beyond my control; I pick up a pen or start pounding a keyboard and I never know what will result.

My last trucking week went well enough. I took a preloaded trailer out of Council Bluffs, IA and delivered in Ephrata, PA at 1:00 PM on a Monday afternoon. The day's schedule was like this:

Monday

8:00 AM    Up and off towards Ephrata, PA.

10:00 AM  Arrived at receiver.

12:50 PM  Unloaded and running empty to Carlisle, PA to load for Seymour, IN.

2:50 PM    Arrived at receiver. I was 50 minutes late for my loading appointment, but it couldn't be helped. I admit one short stop between my delivery and here for a cheeseburger, but even without the stop I would've been late. I also had to get money from an ATM so that I could get off the toll road. Considering the shipper was much behind and had many trucks ahead of me, they couldn't have dreamt of getting me in on time, anyway. I learned long ago that if you skip food and showers, you will soon either starve and/or stink. I try my best to be where I am supposed to be, when I am supposed to be there, but not at the ultimate expense of my personal needs. (Notice I did not say "wants" -- but needs.)

When I pulled into the shipper's driveway, there was a sign that instructed drivers to call for the shipping department on CB channel 3. I called to them several times, but they did not answer. That's fairly typical -- they monitor the CB at their convenience only. I walked into the office and got checked in. There were a lot of trucks ahead of me. As I waited for them to call me, several trucks came in and checked in over the CB radio. Shipping responded to them quickly.

When they called me hours later, they said to put my trailer in dock door 11. I thanked them and went to find door 11. I quickly found that there were actually two doors that were 11 - one in each of two different buildings. I called to them to ask which building they meant. They wouldn't answer. I took a guess and put it in one of the two dock doors. A driver called to them and received an immediate answer so as soon as they were done, I tried to reach shipping again. They would not answer me. Within a few minutes I felt them banging around back in the trailer and decided I must have chosen the correct dock. I continued to hear drivers call to the shipping department on the CB radio and shipping responded to them each and every time. The other drivers said my radio was working just fine. It would seem that they would only respond to male drivers on the CB radio. What other conclusion can I come to after all of my failed attempts to reach them and all of the successful attempts of the men? I've never had a shipper treat me so differently than everyone else. Even my fellow drivers were joking about it on the radio, saying things like, "I guess they don't like the sound of your voice." I had to agree.

After a couple of hours I got sleepy. I turned the CB radio volume up and laid down. I fell asleep and when I woke, it was a couple of hours later and it was dark outside. I called to shipping on the CB, but as before, there was no answer. I went into the office to ask if I'd missed them calling me to say I was done. The office was empty. There was a buzzer beside the check-in counter and a sign above it that read, "Ring buzzer if there is no one in attendance." I buzzed. I waited. 10 minutes, 15 minutes. I was about ready to go get my cell phone and call them when a driver came in.

He said, "He's out there (referring to the loader) better than half done with my trailer, so he'll be in in a minute. He didn't want to quit just to give you your paperwork."

My eyebrows raised... I mean, it takes only minutes to hand over paperwork and this driver's trailer was practically right beside the office, not across the warehouse. I asked the driver if they'd heard me ring the buzzer.
 

He said, "Yeah, we heard it..."

and his voice trailed off so I finished the sentence for him.

"...but you guys just ignored it."

He smiled and said, "Well, yeah."

I found no humor in this.

About fifteen minutes later the lazy warehouseman returned to the office. He saw me standing there.

He said, "I tried to call you on the CB when your load was done, but you didn't answer."

I said, "Yeah, I fell asleep."

He said, "Well, it ain't my job to come wake you up."

I said, "I realize falling asleep after waiting for hours is an unforgivable sin. Tell me though, what is it with this buzzer? Why bother to put it there if you are just going to ignore it?"

He shrugged his shoulders, smirked and said nothing.

This is the first time I've been so blatantly discriminated against. Usually they are a lot more subtle.

8:00 PM   Finally loaded and rolling towards Seymour, IN.

1:00 AM   I call the day officially over and go to sleep.

Day Started At:  8:00 AM

Day Ended At:   1:00 AM

The schedule above is pretty typical. The days are long, but are interspersed with waiting periods when you can catch your breath. On the other hand, when you are rarin' to go, the waiting periods can really wear you down. This is the issue that the big boys in charge refuse to understand and refuse to deal with fairly. You have to learn early on to pace yourself, as well as slow yourself down to best use the downtime to rest, relax, take care of paperwork, trip plan, etc. Learning to "sleep on demand" was very difficult for me, as I had been the worst kind of insomniac before I started driving. (Driving has since cured this problem.) More and more shippers and receivers are insisting that drivers remain awake while waiting, babysitting a CB radio. You can wait hours for them to call you to tell you it is your turn to load/unload. I think this is a poor way to do business.

You can probably see why carriers are so strongly opposed to paying drivers hourly. Besides being incredibly complicated in regard to bookkeeping, it could get very, very expensive. Many of the advocacy groups would like to see hourly pay, but it really isn't practical. Don't get me wrong -- I'm no fan of per mile pay -- but hourly pay is just not the way to do it. There's too much opportunity for lying. We do not have the technology in place to keep this method honest. Salaried pay is the way to go. I've been on this type of pay for nearly two years and I feel I'm in a place to say that it is just about the most effective deterrent to logbook cheating that exists. It also provides strong motivation for carriers to "get it together" and get drivers driving -- not wasting away on docks. It puts the responsibility and burden back on the carrier to move the driver. I have my beefs with my carrier at times, but I strongly commend them for this program. I know of just a few over the road companies that have opportunities like this.

Tuesday

9:00 AM   or so ?  Up and off towards Seymour, IN.

4:40 PM   Arrived at receiver in Seymour, IN. My appointment isn't until 6:00 PM and they won't allow you to come in any more than one hour early. They tell me to go away for awhile so I go up the street to the truckstop for supper.

8:45 PM   Arrived at receiver for the second time. I'm assigned a dock door to drop the trailer in. This receiver makes the driver unhook the tractor and trailer and park the bobtail in a "holding area". Although it is sort of a pain, I understand that they mean it to be a safety precaution.

9:45 PM   Finally unloaded. My reload will be a drop and hook out of Granite City, IL. It will deliver in Lincoln, NE at 4:00 AM on Thursday.

Wednesday

9:00 AM   Up and off.... Only drove about an hour and stopped for a shower. A couple of hours down the road I made a pitstop at a rest area. Another driver was walking in at the same time and our paths crossed. We both walked out of the building at the same time, too.

He said, "Didn't I see you yesterday in Seymour, IN?"

I said, "Yeah, I was unloading there yesterday."

He asked how long I'd been there and said he'd been held up 8 hours. We went on to chit chat about this, that and the other thing. Before long the conversation strayed to other topics.

He said, "You know, after 18 years I'm just tired of it, tired of everything. I just gotta get off the road..."

He went on to list the things that were driving him away. They were the standard complaints of drivers nationwide. What was strange about it is that he was parroting all of the things that I had been thinking about so hard in the past several weeks.

I said, "I know how you feel because that's absolutely exactly how I feel, too."

For some reason I think that is just what he wanted, or needed, to hear. Every human has a need to be heard. No human, no matter how solitary, wants to feel totally alone. He then did something that many drivers do when in search of answers as to how their industry has changed... he blamed new drivers. Naturally I had to interrupt and say my piece at this point.

"Wait a minute, though," I interrupted, "you can't blame the new drivers for the whole mess. There are schools out there convincing these people that they can learn to be a good driver in two weeks. Then, of course, the carriers hire them. The carrier puts a lot on the shoulders of the trainer, who gets a lot more than he bargained for. How can you blame the new driver when the schools mislead them and the carriers accept them? All they're really guilty of is trying to start a new career but all of these drivers blame them because they don't know what else to blame."

He looked a bit surprised and then said, "Well, yeah... they do get a bad rap but it is usually the drivers with under five years of experience that blame the new drivers."

I thought his contradiction interesting but let it go. In truth, I've found that it's almost always the 15-20 year veteran driver who is so quick to blame the new driver. These old pros hold nearly all schools in deep disdain. Very few of these drivers learned from a school. More often than not, they learned from Dad or an uncle, brother, etc. Teaching methods were a whole lot different. Grind the gear? Get ready for a hard slap on the back of your hand. Many times they learned in Dad's truck and beating up the transmission could cost Dad some bucks, so you'd better learn to do it and do it right.

I think I understand him at least a little bit, though. Things have changed a lot. The changes reflect not only a change in drivers, but of society in general. People don't trust other people like they used to. Our society has become more wary. It used to be that you could trust the trucker driving alongside you with your life. Quite literally, at times, that is exactly what you were doing. When two trucks, side by side, are going down a slick hill, or down a hill, around curves, etc, one wrong move by either one could be the end of both. Both drivers instinctively knew that and trust was inherent. Not so anymore. These days the other drivers are almost as bad as the four wheelers. While I would probably still prefer to have a truck beside me rather than a car, I am very much aware that many drivers these days do not drive well. They allow their trailers to drift into my lane. They cut in front of me too soon and force me to kill the cruise. If you did one of these things just ten years ago, the driver you did it to would likely tell you, in no uncertain terms, what he thought of your driving on the CB radio. It was disgraceful if you could not keep control of that truck. Your driving ability defined your worth as a truck driver.  Period.

I remember when I was just starting out that I would concentrate extremely hard on doing everything exactly right so that another driver wouldn't holler at me. I thought getting hollered at was just about the worst thing there was.

If a driver did do something stupid, he/she would usually pick up the CB and apologize. This would almost always immediately quell the anger of the "wronged" driver. Nowadays if you say something to the driver who let his trailer swing 3 feet into your lane, he's likely to cuss you out. Because he/she isn't in control.

The standards are no longer what they once were and many drivers are frustrated and angered by this. They often blame the new driver because, I guess, they believe that poor training spawns drivers who can't control their trucks. Good ole Dad's hand slapping method might have been nasty, but it was usually quite effective! Schools have to provide a different motivation to make a student want to learn the right way, but all too often, they don't.

2:00 PM  Arrived at shipper. This was a drop & hook so I was hooked up and gone in no more than 30 minutes. Drove straight thru to receiver (462 miles).

11:30 PM  Arrived at receiver in Lincoln, NE and went to sleep on their lot.

Thursday

3:30 AM    Bang! Bang! Bang! The receiving guy is knocking on doors, waking all drivers. I have a 4:00 AM appointment, so I am assigned a door right away. I put it in the dock, checked in, negotiated with the lumper and went back to sleep.

12:30 PM  Finally done unloading.... I headed back to Council Bluffs, IA and jumped in my car to go home.

A fairly easy week, all told. I am also happy to say that all the money I've been paying to the chiropractor (Or as I lovingly refer to him, the "Bone Cruncher") seems to be starting to pay off.  Many weeks end with me ready to bawl and scream because my back and neck hurt so much.  This week wasn't as bad...  maybe there's a light at the end of the tunnel (or should I say road) after all.... :)

'Til next time...