What's My Motivation to Be a Truck Driver?

This week I had a slightly odd but overall, a fairly typical encounter with another truck driver.  It was around 6am and Richie and I were about to switch over so that I could begin my shift.  We were at a Flying J (or was it Pilot..?) and I needed to use the restroom.  As I was walking toward the store, the conversation with this driver went something like this:

Him: Hey, you looking for a partner?

Me: No, I have one.

Him: He must be a lucky guy.

Me: He's my husband.

Him: I've been trying to get my wife to come drive with me.

Me: She's not interested?

Him: Nope.

So this was odd because it seemed that for him, any wife would do - be it me or his actual wife.  However, that aside, he did really want to be doing this job with his wife. She, it seemed, was not having any of it. I wonder now what he said to try to convince her to come on the truck with him.  Whatever it was obviously didn't work.

It got me to thinking: what keeps me here in this truck, relentlessly traversing the great US of A over and over and over again?  What makes me willing to do something that the majority of women wouldn't even consider? After all, there's nothing special about me.  I consider myself a fairly typical female.

At first glance, I thought it could be the money.  We were making more per week team trucking than we were making in a whole month working in the UK.  That's a big incentive.  After all, there are endless stories on the news about people in crippling debt, unable to find a job that pays a livable wage, young people who can't afford to move out of their parents' homes after college.

I also thought it could be the fact that Richie and I were working together, supporting each other and going through everything together.  That's something that not many people get in their jobs.

While it would sound nice and pretty to say that these two things are what keeps me in the job, sadly, they are not.  For me, when I'm going through one of those "get me out of here" moments, there is something that keeps me here and keeps me calm and carrying on.

I think of the future, of what we'll be able to get out of this that, had we returned to normal lives and normal jobs, would never in a million years ever be possible.

Here is why I stay trucking:

1.  If we put in a total of 10-12 years, we'll never ever have to work again.

2.  This means that when we retire, I'll be 48 or 49.  I imagine how many people that age are fully retired, never having to work for "The Man" again if they don't want to.  I don't think there are many at all.

3.  These days, retirement age seems to be at LEAST 65, perhaps even later.  So, by giving 10-12 years of my life to trucking, I am receiving at least 17 years of freedom before I turn 65 that I would have otherwise had to work.  That's a pretty good investment return!

4.  Because we won't need to be working, we'll have the freedom and choice to live anywhere we want.  Most people are limited by job opportunities and are stuck in either cities or in cookie-cutter suburbs.  Not us.

5.  Because of Reason #4, I know that by our late 40's, if we wanted, we could be living in a chateau-style log cabin in the North Georgia mountains.  Endless views of trees and mountains, an outdoor fireplace, verandas on every level.  I imagine us sitting outside on the veranda, watching the sun set over the mountains each evening, sipping a nice Pinot Noir.  This can be our daily reality if I stay in this job for another 9 years.  This is something we would never be able to have if I was not trucking with Richie.

So there you have it.  This is my personal motivation and what keeps me going.

I think if a guy wants to convince his wife/partner to come trucking with him, they need to discuss their own personal dreams and ask this question:

"What could we have if we did team trucking for xx years that would be an impossibility to have otherwise?"

Perhaps you're a young couple in your mid 20's.  Team drive for 10 years and retire.  You'll be young enough to start a family and never have to work.  How many parents get to do that?   How cool would it be to finish lunch on a Tuesday afternoon, put down your fork and declare "Hey, let's go camping for the rest of the week!"

For us, every week that we're here driving this truck gets us that bit closer to Financial Freedom.  It's not about becoming monetarily wealthy.  It's about being able to wake up one day, any day, and instead of saying "I have to do this..." it's being able to say "Hey, let's do this!"

Team trucking is giving us at least 17 extra years of "Hey, let's do this!" days.

A Day In the Life of a Team Trucker

Richie tells me that I'm an anthropologist at heart.  I love Googling different professions, hoping for a post about a "Day In the Life of..." for any given job.  I'm absolutely fascinated with the most minute of details and am always grateful to those who post such accounts.

As my way of giving back to my fellow anthropologists (or for the merely curious of you), I'm going to give a blow-by-blow account of a given day in my life.  From wake up to bedtime.  A little note of caution - this is going to be a long post but I want to make it as accurate as possible.

When I have snippets of free time, I like doing sketches like this one.

So without further ado, I'll choose Friday, June 19 2015 as it's pretty fresh in my mind and it was also a full shift for me.  Just for the record, we started this trip in Hagerstown, MD and are headed to Troutdale, OR.  This is day 2 of the journey.

My alarm went off at 5:30am.  I immediately open the curtain and ask Richie, who's driving, how he's doing.  This morning, he's pretty tired so I get up.  Sometimes (OK, lots of times) I ask for an extra 15-20 minutes or so of sleep time but today I don't.  

So I begin my morning routine.  We are in eastern Nebraska on I-80 heading west and Richie is going to stop at a TA at exit 305 so we can switch over.  I therefore have about 30 minutes before I need to take over. I quickly get dressed and put into our RoadPro stove 2 hotdogs.  Those are for Richie so he doesn't go to bed hungry.  They will be done by the time his shift is over.

I then take our other RoadPro stove and get my lunch prepared.  It's always the same - chicken and vegetable curry.  The evening before, I take a piece of foil and put in onions, green peppers, broccoli and halved cherry tomatoes and wrap it up.  Then in the morning I unwrap the foil packet and put it into the stove.  I take our Bucket 'O Condiments and add to my vegetables olive oil, jarred garlic, curry powder, salt, pepper and hot sauce.  I put the 12-V plug within easy reach of the driver.

Next, I take a plastic disposable cup and proceed to brush my teeth.  I find it SO much easier to brush my teeth on the truck than in a truck stop or rest area.  As so many places now try to conserve water, one often has to wave one's hands frantically under the faucet to get water to come out.  If and when it does, it could just be a mere trickle, making it extremely annoying to brush one's teeth.

I fill the cup less than 1/4 full with water and proceed to brush my teeth.  Here's the trick to truck teeth brushing - instead of spitting, THEN rinsing, rinse (using the water in the cup and thumb to get the bristles clean) and THEN spit.  I take an extra swig of water and then put the cup contents into a big waste jug that we keep and dispose of the cup.

Next I put my hair up, either into a bun or ponytail and clean my face using my current face wipe of choice - Ponds.  It's a bit of a coarser cloth which is great for exfoliating!  I then put on my Olay moisturiser and eye cream.  Finally, I apply perfume (today was Versace's Crystal Noir) which never fails to elicit a comment from Richie, usually along the lines of  "Nice smells!"

Next is breakfast - that's pretty easy.  Usually a bar of some sort.  Today is an Atkins granola bar.  I put that above the driver's head in a netted enclosure where it's within easy reach.

Last, but most certainly not least, I get my coffee ready.  For some baffling reason which I don't dare question, Richie has taken it upon himself to fill a thermos with coffee during his shift and wash my cup.  This is baffling indeed because I'm the only one who drinks coffee!  I grab the thermos and fill my cup and add cream (yup, the proper heavy duty cream!).  Now here's the sort of embarrassing part - during this ritual, I have a coffee song that I sing.  Um...let's just leave it at that, shall we?

Whew, OK chores are done, I'm ready to drive! (Hey, didn't I warn you that this would be long?)

At the TA, I do all of the changing duty stuff on the computer.  Richie does the post trip inspection and cleans the millions of bugs that have committed mass suicide on the windshield.  I, meanwhile, go inside to buy 2 bottles of washer fluid from the extremely uncommunicative clerk at the TA.  I put in both bottles.

I get my glasses on, get my sunglasses within reach and get my audio book ready to go.  (BTW: I'm obsessed with audio books and couldn't imagine doing this job without them.  I never listen to music when I'm driving, just books.)

I adjust my mirrors and get going.  Richie has his bowl of 2 hot dogs and is munching away and talking about the book he's been listening to.  Actually, he's been talking about it ever since I woke up!

Even though it's only about 5:30am central time, it's already beginning to get light.  After Richie gets to bed and closes the curtain, I put my book on and drive along, sipping my coffee.  I decide to stop at the rest area about 100 miles away to pee.  I have to plan these things out or I may find myself absolutely desperate and that is never EVER good!

I have another pee stop at the rest area just before exit 59 in Sidney.  By now, my coffee is finished and I have switched to bottled water.  Next time I stop will be at the TA in Cheyenne, WY to fuel.  Just as I take the exit, I plug in the stove so my vegetables can cook.  They'll take a little over an hour to be done the way I like them.

At the TA, I fuel and clean the windshield, side windows and mirrors.  Then I see my trainer!  It's the third time in 2 and a half years I've seen him in various parts of the country.  I run up to him, hug him and we chat for a few minutes.  When I return to the truck to start pumping the DEF (diesel exhaust fluid), I find that too much time has gone by and the pump has gone off.  Oh well...no matter.

Ready to go, I hop back in the truck but can't move because the truck ahead of me hasn't moved. After about 10 minutes of waiting, I try to find this driver but the queue in the TA is so long that I give up.  My trainer then offers to spot me so that I can reverse onto the road, which I thought was extremely kind of him.  He even stopped traffic for me!

As I accelerate back onto I-80, I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy to have seen my trainer again.  I'm then extra pleased because I have been given the green light on my PrePass transponder which means I don't have to enter Wyoming's Port of Entry and spend an extra 5 minutes getting out and showing my papers.  Woo hoo!

I was going to stop for lunch at a truck parking area but decided instead to go the extra distance to the rest area with the Lincoln monument, just before the descent into Laramie.  By the time I stop for lunch, it's about 13:00 and I've driven close to 400 miles.  I add a splash of water to the stove, add strips of cooked chicken and a splash of cream and stir.  I unplug the stove and hop into bed for a 15 minute nap while everything in the stove gets to a good temperature.

After I eat, I clean my spoon and bowl with baby wipes and put everything away.

I get going again, still listening to my audio book. Early afternoons are usually the hardest for me because is is one of those natural lulls in the day.  Because of the peeing situation, I'm only able to have one cup of coffee per day so afternoons are strictly water.  This afternoon, though, I'm actually feeling pretty good and wakeful.  Also, the weather is fantastic which is a minor miracle when driving across Wyoming!

Just before I reach Rawlins (around exit 200), Richie wakes up.  It's about 15:30 eastern time (the time we personally go by).  I turn my audio book off so that we can chat.  He begins preparing his breakfast - a 3-egg omelet.  He's a bit sad because he wanted a cheddar cheese omelet but we forgot to buy the cheese the last time we were in Walmart.

I tell Richie I'll probably get to the Little America truck stop (exit 68) arriving just a minute or so after 18:00 EST.

I make another pee stop at a truck parking area (yes, we have ways to pee in the truck!).  With about a half hour left of my shift, Richie gets his dinner ready in the RoadPro stove - the same vegetable and chicken curry that I eat for lunch.

If you've ever been through Wyoming going west bound, you'll not fail to notice the gazillion or so billboards for Little America. As we passed the one with the huge ice cream cone (for 75 cents no less!), Richie decided that we needed to get an ice cream cone when we switched over.  I, of course, was not one to argue that very sensible plan!

I arrived at Little America bang on 18:00 and the parking lot was pretty empty so I easily found a spot.  I did the post trip inspection and switched drivers on the computer while Richie went in to get the ice cream.  It had been over a year since we had ice cream from Little America so I wasn't expecting much but the cones were super yummy!  You really can't beat them, considering they only cost 75 cents each!

Now my shift has officially ended.  I managed to drive just shy of 650 miles for the day.  My eyes are feeling a little tired which is to be expected for me after an almost-full shift.  However, having sat all day, one must now do some moving!  Richie and I do our respective exercises - he jogs on the spot and I march on the spot.  I always wear my heart rate monitor when marching and after 30 minutes, I manage to burn anywhere between 200-250 calories.

After we are back in the truck, Richie got underway,   As today is not a shower day, I use baby wipes to clean and apply some summery-smelling body lotion and get my clothes ready for the next day. Then, I made myself a caesar salad of mixed greens, parmesan shavings, smoked salmon and caesar dressing.  I take my multivitamins and fish oil capsules (which I should have done at lunch but forgot).

Before bed, I get my vegetables ready to go for the next day.  I make sure Richie knows where he needs to be fueling (Boise).

We chat until about 20:15 and I say goodnight, close the curtain, brush my teeth (see morning chores) and get to bed.  Normally, I'd look at a news website for about 15 minutes or so on the iphone, but we're in Utah by now and don't get any internet connection so I can't tonight.

And that's my day done!  I understand that in normal life, one wouldn't give an account of the bathroom breaks taken.  But I thought that given the nature and circumstances of this job, it was quite necessary.

Hope you enjoyed a day in my life.  If you found it mind-numbingly boring, I at least hope it lulled you into a nice sleep!

What's the Deal With Orientation?

OK, it's been ages and ages since I've posted but I'm back!  For this post, I'm going to talk mainly to both current CDL students and to those thinking about getting into trucking.  

When Richie and I were in CDL school, we were encouraged to apply to as many trucking companies as possible to give us the best chance of receiving letters of prehire. Those prehire letters meant that we had passed their initial background checks and, provided we obtained our CDLs at the end of the course, we would be invited to attend a company's orientation. 

In our school, most students believed that if you were invited to orientation, you were as good as hired. 

So it was a little baffling when, after us both passing our final tests and feeling quite on top of the world, the office manager advised us as she prepared our papers "Don't wait too long to find another orientation if this orientation doesn't work out. You don't want to have to do a refresher course."

Well, why was she being so pessimistic? Of course our orientation was going to work out! They were paying for our bus tickets to the company. They were housing and feeding us for free. They were going to tell us all about the company.  Companies just don't do that if they're not going to welcome you to the "family"!

After experiencing our first (and only) orientation, I can safely say that "Yes, they do." 

This is something that CDL schools need to hammer home to their students because not being absolutely clear as to what orientation is causes much confusion, misunderstanding and potential bitter disappointment.

First, I'm going to tell you what orientation isn't. It isn't a guaranteed job. You aren't going there as an employee. It isn't a "welcome to your new family" party. 

Here's what it is. It's a really, really long job interview. It's a weeding out process. Until the moment you receive your employee ID, it's a constant asking yourself "Is today the day I'm going to be sent home?"

If you are a CDL student reading this and I have burst your bubble, I'm sorry. I really am! I remember how exciting it was to receive those prehire letters and treat them as if they were job offers. 

But knowing the reality is so much more beneficial in the long run and while you may not exactly be thanking me now, you will when you're in orientation.

I'm going to tell you about our orientation, but first, a bit about us. Both Richie and I passed our final exams at CDL school on the same day and on the first try.  During school, we used any free time to also study for our hazmat endorsement so we could take that test as soon as we got our CDLs. 

We both have clean records in all areas, have consistent employment histories and were 100% honest with everything about ourselves. We were a ready-made husband and wife team. In short, we were a company's ideal candidates.

And yet, on the day of the orientation driving tests, we came within an inch of being sent back home on the bus. 

Richie had his driving test in the morning. The examiner gave an instruction that was unclear to Richie. He therefore wasn't able to set himself up properly for a turn and as a result, the trailer went over the curb a little. Instant fail! 

Luckily, the company gives people two chances to pass the driving test. If you fail the second time however, no matter what, you're out of there. 

I passed my test first time but that meant nothing if Richie didn't pass his test the second time. Thankfully, he did pass his second test and we were able to stay, but we came so close to being weeded out! 

Throughout orientation, we'd see faces one day and they'd be gone the next. We saw people sent home for all sorts of reasons: getting caught for not being honest about a criminal history, about their driving or employment histories. One person who was in orientation as an experienced driver was sent home because he couldn't pass the backing test that experienced drivers have to pass. People were also sent home because they were seen in Logan's Roadhouse restaurant drinking beer during orientation and there's a zero tolerance alcohol and drug policy.

There are a number of tests that we absolutely had to pass or be sent home: the background checks (including employment history, driving record and criminal record), the physical, drug test, agility test and driving test. 

I remember on the Thursday (day 4), we were all in the recruitment office to receive our employee IDs (very exciting). A woman was called in and she excitedly went, assuming she'd be receiving her ID. A few minutes later we heard her crying. She wasn't being given her ID - she was being sent home!

We learned that during orientation, a team of people work all day carefully researching all of our backgrounds. If we have lied or misled or omitted anything, it is their job to find out. 

We also witnessed some behaviors from people during orientation that, had they understood that orientation was nothing more than a huge job interview, would definitely not have done. These included:

* Sleeping or playing on their phones while someone was speaking.

* Showing up late to scheduled events.

* Using foul language.

* Mumbling or speaking incoherently when asked a question. 

I hope I've provided some insight into the reality of orientation. If you understand and accept it for what it is, it's possible to even enjoy it!