OT: Trucker Life

[Braves Dawg]

I worked at a ready-mix concrete company for many years. We switched to all automatics for easier recruitment of drivers. I will say the automatic transmissions have come a long way in the last 10 years. Our drivers' initial concerns were offroad performance in muddy conditions and holding on hills. The newer Mack autos have modes for all these conditions and have performed well for us offroad.

My Dad retired from OTR after 40 years. He missed everything me and my siblings ever did during the week. There's no way I'd want to go OTR. I wish I had gotten my commercial license years ago before the DOT made it so hard to get them. I've got a good way to go before retirement age but had always kicked around the idea of buying a small dump truck and hauling dirt and gravel just to have something to do in my retirement years.

 

[johnson86-1]

You're hired. You come up this summer, I'll put you up at my place, run the restaurant and I'll go fishing and rafting every day. We're closed Sundays so you can go out to the lake or kayak the North Fork.

ETA: You'll have 22 employees, a menu with 5 appetizers, 6 sandwiches, 7 salads, and 21 pizzas in the restaurant.

In the pub you'll have a dozen wines about 6 cocktails and 8 beers on tap. On Friday and Saturday at lunch you'll serve BBQ until you sell out around 1:30 or 2:00.

You'll have an even mix of old farts and families in town on vacation, many of whom have zero experience running a business much less a restaurant in a tourist town... Yet all will tell you "what you oughta do is..." and then spit out something incredibly stupid. I'll pay you $25 an hour plus tips which will be over $150 on a good day.

Here was my Monday...

7 am received freight.
7:30 am posted on SPS since @jethreauxdawg stuck a virtual finger up by my prostate with a housing bubble thread
8:00 am mixed morning dough batch.
8:20 am sat down with one of my bartenders and told her I knew she was stealing hard ciders and canned cocktails and drinking on the job. Demoted her to prep cook and banned her from the pub.
8:30 rolled out the batch of dough
10:00 went to bank for deposits and change 11:00-4:00 made pizzas and poured beers
4:00-8:00 ran the front with 4 teenage boys behind me washing dishes, making pizza, and running pizza ovens while I spread wisdom such as fake sneezing when playing just the tip so the whole thing goes in and always shitting at hotel lobby bathrooms for the privacy, free paper, cleanliness, and free Otis spunkmeyer cookies when you are done
8:00-8:45 clean up for next day.
8:45-9:15 mopped the floors.
9:15-9:45 jumped back on SPS while floors dried.
9:45 jumped in dumpster to smash the trash down to fit in a few more bags because we had our biggest weekend in history thanks to the winter carnival dragging in 30,000 people into our town of a little under 4,000.
10:00 got home and passed out in recliner drinking big glasses of strong whiskey.

If that sounds fun, I got you covered.

Yea, you would have had me if you hadn't tried to slip in that "no drinking on the job" rule like a sneaky *** hole.

 

[thatsbaseball]

LOL Anybody else remember looking up in a truck cab and seeing a bunch of toothpicks stuck in the visor years back ?

 

[dorndawg]

LOL Anybody else remember looking up in a truck cab and seeing a bunch of toothpicks stuck in the visor years back ?

What exactly were you doing in the cab with them bullhaulers, good buddy?!?

 

[thatsbaseball]

What exactly were you doing in the cab with them bullhaulers, good buddy?!?

Why bumming toothpicks of course

 

[jethreauxdawg]

LOL Anybody else remember looking up in a truck cab and seeing a bunch of toothpicks stuck in the visor years back ?

Those were supposedly laced with something to keep the drivers wired?

 

[thatsbaseball]

Those were supposedly laced with something to keep the drivers wired?

Yep , the rumor was the same stuff they used to give race horses. I always noticed some those drivers seemed a bit on edge when you'd meet them. LOL

 

[CochiseCowbell]

Yep , the rumor was the same stuff they used to give race horses. I always noticed some those drivers seemed a bit on edge when you'd meet them. LOL

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

“Hold on to your ***, Fred.”

 

[HotMop]

 

[Mobile Bay]

8:20 am sat down with one of my bartenders and told her I knew she was stealing hard ciders and canned cocktails and drinking on the job. Demoted her to prep cook and banned her from the pub.

I can fix her.

 

[vhdawg]

Can you do it without having to spend a bunch of time at nasty truck stops?

 

[PapaDawg]

I’ll be honest, I know almost nothing about guiding. Why is the real work in the offseason and after leaving the customer?

Fishing guides have to clean, prep, and maintain their boat for the next trip. They have to get the bait for the next days trip. Some of the rods will have to be redressed in preparation for the next days trip. Our regular fishing guide says his normal day is 4:00 am- 6:00pm.

Hunting guides have to do the day to day maintenance of equipment at the camp and in the field.
During the offseason hunting guides have to prep food plots, repair stands, maintain trails, clear vegetation from shooting lanes.

 

[dorndawg]

Fishing guides have to clean, prep, and maintain their boat for the next trip. They have to get the bait for the next days trip. Some of the rods will have to be redressed in preparation for the next days trip. Our regular fishing guide says his normal day is 4:00 am- 6:00pm.

Hunting guides have to do the day to day maintenance of equipment at the camp and in the field.
During the offseason hunting guides have to prep food plots, repair stands, maintain trails, clear vegetation from shooting lanes.

 

[Pilgrimdawg]

I think I’d like to be a big game hunting guide out west for a season. That’s probably all it would take to convince me it’s more fun as a hobby than when you’re working.

I wanted to do that when I was young. My College roommate worked with an outfitter for a few years as a wrangler in Pinedale, WY. You normally start out as a wrangler on horseback hunts and work your way up to guide. You probably know all of this but I have thought about it a lot over the years. It would be exhausting work. Elk season in the NW part of Wyoming runs from September 20 until October 20 or October 31 depending on the area. Up at 3:00 every morning, on a horse by 4:30, ride 10 to 20 miles every day, back to camp way after dark every night, every single day. It’s a brutal schedule. It’s an absolutely wonderful experience but every time I have been it’s taken me a month to get over it. But you pack out one day and those guys have to pack back in the next day with A whole new group. No days off. 18 hour days for 30 to 40 days in a row guiding. That doesn’t count all the time hauling everything in and setting up camp and then tearing everything down and hauling everything back out. It would be incredible if you were young and tough as nails though and I wish I had done it for awhile when I was real young. Plus most of the hunters I have met on trips have been great guys that were fun to be around, but there are some that don’t have a clue and their guide has to work twice as hard trying to keep them safe and find them something to probably miss 5 times. I used to do a little turkey guiding around here and I got stuck with a couple of guys that couldn’t even load their gun without help one year. Not fun and yes they missed easy shots. It was very frustrating. There is a reason most western wilderness hunting guides are in their 20’s or 30’s, it’s a young man’s game. Now guiding mule deer and antelope hunters where no horses are involved would be a blast, but that’s a whole different and easier thing.

 

[AttalaDawg72]

Can you do it without having to spend a bunch of time at nasty truck stops?

That sounds like the best part imo

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

You're hired. You come up this summer, I'll put you up at my place, run the restaurant and I'll go fishing and rafting every day. We're closed Sundays so you can go out to the lake or kayak the North Fork.

ETA: You'll have 22 employees, a menu with 5 appetizers, 6 sandwiches, 7 salads, and 21 pizzas in the restaurant.

In the pub you'll have a dozen wines about 6 cocktails and 8 beers on tap. On Friday and Saturday at lunch you'll serve BBQ until you sell out around 1:30 or 2:00.

You'll have an even mix of old farts and families in town on vacation, many of whom have zero experience running a business much less a restaurant in a tourist town... Yet all will tell you "what you oughta do is..." and then spit out something incredibly stupid. I'll pay you $25 an hour plus tips which will be over $150 on a good day.

Here was my Monday...

7 am received freight.
7:30 am posted on SPS since @jethreauxdawg stuck a virtual finger up by my prostate with a housing bubble thread
8:00 am mixed morning dough batch.
8:20 am sat down with one of my bartenders and told her I knew she was stealing hard ciders and canned cocktails and drinking on the job. Demoted her to prep cook and banned her from the pub.
8:30 rolled out the batch of dough
10:00 went to bank for deposits and change 11:00-4:00 made pizzas and poured beers
4:00-8:00 ran the front with 4 teenage boys behind me washing dishes, making pizza, and running pizza ovens while I spread wisdom such as fake sneezing when playing just the tip so the whole thing goes in and always shitting at hotel lobby bathrooms for the privacy, free paper, cleanliness, and free Otis spunkmeyer cookies when you are done
8:00-8:45 clean up for next day.
8:45-9:15 mopped the floors.
9:15-9:45 jumped back on SPS while floors dried.
9:45 jumped in dumpster to smash the trash down to fit in a few more bags because we had our biggest weekend in history thanks to the winter carnival dragging in 30,000 people into our town of a little under 4,000.
10:00 got home and passed out in recliner drinking big glasses of strong whiskey.

If that sounds fun, I got you covered.

Can I bartend for you next summer? I can't do cold weather, so maybe May-the start of football season?

 

[L4Dawg]

Does anybody ever want to try a job that you know you wouldn’t like long term, but sounds fun for a few weeks. To me, I’d love to be a truck driver for a few weeks. It sounds fun for some reason, but lonely.

National Park Ranger, of course I would have been laid off this week.

 

[T-TownDawgg]

I wonder if this is tied to anything with EPA. I know a lot of big rig changes are coming due to EPA requirements.

No. It’s all about making it easier to recruit young/ lazy/ women drivers who can’t and won’t learn the manuals.

Manual transmissions are always more fuel efficient and gives a direct transfer of power to the wheels. Automatics in those things build a lot of heat and have more parasitic energy losses due to fluid transfer and clutch slippage.

I can say that in some cases, I’ve found the automatics to be a safety issue with concrete trucks. I don’t know it this is model specific, but the drivers had to rev up to get the torque converter to lock-up, causing the truck to lurch unpredictably. Very dangerous in some instances.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

I am doing just that. Taking a fisheries data collection job with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Alabama has and hopefully will continue to do a really good job of looking at this data and adjusting limits and seasons for certain popular species. Also instituting breeding programs at its fish hatchery to keep stocks healthy. This includes breeding pompano as surf fishing has exploded in popularity. Flounder as populations have declined. Also fighting the overreaching federal government to keep the oh so endangered************************** Red Snapper season extended from the one day a year ******** a few years ago.

Root cause for decline in flounder population?

 

[horshack.sixpack]

Looking around at used fleet day cabs I’ve noticed the trend is more automatic transmissions (which I want no part of). It’s becoming harder to find newer used day cabs with 10 speeds in them.

Autos unreliable or just a matter of principle?

 

[horshack.sixpack]

I can understand the "easier to train new entrants and improved fuel economy" but the masculinity thing??? Really? How was this determined? Survey? Just curious. If I wasn't worried about the cost of something going wrong I'd take one in a heartbeat.

There is something special about rowing gears.

 

[GloryDawg]

Does anybody ever want to try a job that you know you wouldn’t like long term, but sounds fun for a few weeks. To me, I’d love to be a truck driver for a few weeks. It sounds fun for some reason, but lonely.

That was my thought about joining the Marine Corps. *****

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

National Park Ranger, of course I would have been laid off this week.

You just want to cruise those parking lots at The Natchez Trace National Park late at night.***

 

[Mobile Bay]

Root cause for decline in flounder population?

Overfishing in November when they migrate from Mobile Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

[AttalaDawg72]

You just want to cruise those parking lots at The Natchez Trace National Park late at night.***

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

Autos unreliable or just a matter of principle?

Not really made for grain trucks especially since they’re used trucks in the first place. I’d take an auto shift any day but I’m scared of the reliability pulling heavy loads out of the field.

 

[turkish]

Does anybody ever want to try a job that you know you wouldn’t like long term, but sounds fun for a few weeks. To me, I’d love to be a truck driver for a few weeks. It sounds fun for some reason, but lonely.

And it's trucker speed, benzedrine
Percocets, amphetamines
Black beauties and West Coast turnarounds
When the coast is clear, I drive with my knees
I mix it all up like a recipe
Coca-cola and coffee to wash it down
Sometimes I feel like my wheels ain't touchin' the ground

Sounds like a hoot!

 

[Perd Hapley]

I’d love to run a small restaurant called the Max

While also maintaining a magician gig as a side hustle….

 

[skipperDawg]

My truck driving dad (Mack diesel with the bulldog jumping down your throat emblem and ****** foam slab sleeper) is flipping over in his black mollie grave hearing all this bull S.*t crap about automatic 18 wheeler shifting crap.

 

[L4Dawg]

You just want to cruise those parking lots at The Natchez Trace National Park late at night.***

No. We were talking dream jobs. For me , and I am ignoring you people who think cruising the Trace parking lots is cool, Yellowstone.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

No. We were talking dream jobs. For me , and I am ignoring you people who think cruising the Trace parking lots is cool, Yellowstone.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

If you’re wanting to be an OTR trucker to see the country you’re going to be disappointed when the only country you see is along the interstate.

 

[PBRME]

If you’re wanting to be an OTR trucker to see the country you’re going to be disappointed when the only country you see is along the interstate.

100% for dry van, and reefer. If you want to see things, flatbed/speciality offers a little more interesting locations. College campuses, oil sites on top of the Rockies, and the ones I wish I could get more of. Delivering boats from NE MS to the docks along the Gulf.

 

[thatsbaseball]

100% for dry van, and reefer. If you want to see things, flatbed/speciality offers a little more interesting locations. College campuses, oil sites on top of the Rockies, and the ones I wish I could get more of. Delivering boats from NE MS to the docks along the Gulf.

I think "hot shot" specialty hauling is a pretty good gig if you can get hooked up with the right clients.

 

[PBRME]

I think "hot shot" specialty hauling is a pretty good gig if you can get hooked up with the right clients.

Hot Shot is definitely a good one. I see broker rates for light 40’ hot shots paying as much or more as I get for full truck load 48k lb 48’ flat bed.

 

[ZombieKissinger]

You're hired. You come up this summer, I'll put you up at my place, run the restaurant and I'll go fishing and rafting every day. We're closed Sundays so you can go out to the lake or kayak the North Fork.

ETA: You'll have 22 employees, a menu with 5 appetizers, 6 sandwiches, 7 salads, and 21 pizzas in the restaurant.

In the pub you'll have a dozen wines about 6 cocktails and 8 beers on tap. On Friday and Saturday at lunch you'll serve BBQ until you sell out around 1:30 or 2:00.

You'll have an even mix of old farts and families in town on vacation, many of whom have zero experience running a business much less a restaurant in a tourist town... Yet all will tell you "what you oughta do is..." and then spit out something incredibly stupid. I'll pay you $25 an hour plus tips which will be over $150 on a good day.

Here was my Monday...

7 am received freight.
7:30 am posted on SPS since @jethreauxdawg stuck a virtual finger up by my prostate with a housing bubble thread
8:00 am mixed morning dough batch.
8:20 am sat down with one of my bartenders and told her I knew she was stealing hard ciders and canned cocktails and drinking on the job. Demoted her to prep cook and banned her from the pub.
8:30 rolled out the batch of dough
10:00 went to bank for deposits and change 11:00-4:00 made pizzas and poured beers
4:00-8:00 ran the front with 4 teenage boys behind me washing dishes, making pizza, and running pizza ovens while I spread wisdom such as fake sneezing when playing just the tip so the whole thing goes in and always shitting at hotel lobby bathrooms for the privacy, free paper, cleanliness, and free Otis spunkmeyer cookies when you are done
8:00-8:45 clean up for next day.
8:45-9:15 mopped the floors.
9:15-9:45 jumped back on SPS while floors dried.
9:45 jumped in dumpster to smash the trash down to fit in a few more bags because we had our biggest weekend in history thanks to the winter carnival dragging in 30,000 people into our town of a little under 4,000.
10:00 got home and passed out in recliner drinking big glasses of strong whiskey.

If that sounds fun, I got you covered.

What you oughta do is add a 22nd pizza called the everything pizza and put everything on it, including salad ingredients and all beers and cocktails. Charge $5000.

 

[Crazy Cotton]

I think I’d like to be a big game hunting guide out west for a season. That’s probably all it would take to convince me it’s more fun as a hobby than when you’re working.

This was one of my best friends when I was at State, he was a forestry/wildlife management grad student at the time. He now takes rich people everywhere to hunt, from Mongolia to Manitoba and everywhere in-between. I'm pretty jealous.

GetDucks.com Home

Ramsey Russell's GetDucks.com, foremost recognized experts worldwide duck hunting. Real duck hunts for real duck hunters.

www.getducks.com

 

[Maroon Eagle]

I think I’d like to be a big game hunting guide out west for a season. That’s probably all it would take to convince me it’s more fun as a hobby than when you’re working.

I could be a guide for educational tours abroad— I know Ireland pretty decently…

But as OCD as I am, doing something like that isn’t a good thing for me.

Does anybody ever want to try a job that you know you wouldn’t like long term, but sounds fun for a few weeks. To me, I’d love to be a truck driver for a few weeks. It sounds fun for some reason, but lonely.

Eh. I’m on the spectrum so my life is about being alone.

If my interests went that way when I was younger, I’d have explored being a truck driver.

I’m fortunate in that I can travel and do things but I don’t like going places with people and being tied to their itineraries.

A retirement dream I have is being a solo traveler.

A lot of people here talk about having a sense of place and belonging… which I don’t have.

A lot of the same folks here have mentioned their dislike of larger cities because there are so many people… and I like larger cities because I would rather be part of the faceless crowd instead of being known by many people in a smaller town…

 

[MaxwellSmart]

Back in 1983, I was offered a job with a small trucking company that paid pretty good for a broke college kid. In '84 I started driving just to have something to fall back on if my chosen degree field ever fell through. I started making more money than I would have made had I graduated so I dropped out and went full time. I made the decision as soon as I learned to drive that I didn't want any part of pulling my bedroom behind the driver's seat. Local and short haul wasn't too bad but back and neck problems now make retirement not as fun as I had hoped.