Profile For Marvroom

This is a car hauling company that is union. They say they are willing to train new CDL A drivers. It is mostly local driving. I am wondering if anyone has experience with car hauling and can give me any advice on it? Also, I have never been a part of a union. What is that like?

First, Welcome aboard Nicholas! Thanks for asking what I have been feeling!!!

Brett, thank you for your most encouraging response.

Great update!! Thanks!

I will be using High Road to help keep everything fresh in my brain housing group. ;) Gonna have to ask my brother in law to let me practice backing with his big camper trailer to help me keep manuevers in line.

In the meantime, I am looking for jobs locally, but of course they all want at least that one year under your belt. Class B driving jobs are few, if any, around here and don't pay near what I am already making to start. Again, if my current employer is forced by the 3rd party to cut me this time instead of just my pay, I am ready to go with my CDL A. I have stepped up my game a bit at work to hopefully make me a bit more lucrative, but my boss had no problem with me before so... who knows. Trying to stay as positive as I can and hang tight till Kim is finished with school and gets that nursing career going. Then I will be able to go for it full on with mine. Getting a serious lesson in patience!

Thanks for all the positive thoughts here folks.

I may have misunderstood, thought you already had your CDL...

I do have my CDL, just no experience.

Well after a long talk with Kim (my wife of 19 years), we decided it would be best if I wait to start my trucking career. She is currently going to nursing school and this is her last year. Only one more semester after this one to go this coming fall. Done in December. I am really proud of her!!

Financially, it just doesn't make sense. If we wait till she has a job, there will be so much less squeeze on our pockets. Just making more sense to wait if we can. I don't WANT to wait, but I can.

So basically, I have my CDL as a backup plan for the rest of this year if my work slows down and they try to pull the same thing they did last year.

People act like I am crazy, but I got all this stuff going on in my head 24/7 its driving me nuts not to be able to use it. I am on brain overload. I wish I had access to a truck. It kind of feels like a tea pot building up pressure I need a release. Does that make sense? I am not trying to show off what I know. Its just helps to say it sometimes. Like I did with the 4 point and earlier with pretrip.

Pretend your car is a truck and go over your pretrip with it. It does help to have a visual of sorts.

Personally, I am not as yet a truck driver, just trying to get in the cab you could say. ;) I just got my CDL A and am starting to fill out apps to get pre-hires. Gotta go get my figerprints taken and then go in to take my hazmat test at the SOS. Thats where I'm at right now.

Why did I choose to go down this new path at 48? Well I used to have a job about 13 years ago doing lawn fertilizing. Did't much care for doing the fertilizing part of the job as I loved being out on my own driving around all day. I was really good at routing myself out to get to the customers I needed to get to everyday and enjoyed being able to help people with any problems they were having with their lawns, when I actually saw people. I saw this job as a way to help people keep their property looking good.

Right now I work in a warehouse as a supervisor for the shipping/receiving dept. for a company that warehouses eyeglass frames. I have been with them for 13 years and have helped make this company grow from renting space in a corner of someone elses warehouse to having their second warehouse that they needed to upgrade to. This second move brought with it the retirement of the original owner and the son took over. The son brought in a third party interest to help us make the second move. Then the business leveled out, stopped growing. Third party people freaked out and decide certain people were making to much cash. Only 2 folks got a pay cut. Guess who was one of them. The son of the original owner came to me to let me know it had nothing to do with my performance, just had to make cuts and that he and several others fought to keep me. Huh? KEEP ME?! This third party wanted to get rid of me.

So my reaction has been that I at least still have a job. It has really been a struggle with my wife going to school to become a nurse and not working. It was already tight before the cut in pay. So I started looking for a new job. But what do I really want to do? I'm feeling really burnt out doing what I am doing, so I started looking back at what I used to do in lawncare. What did I like about it that kept me doing that as long as I did? Driving!!! Being out on my own getting it done. Lawncare doesn't come close to giving me what I am making even now. Truck driving however does and I get do the part of the job I loved as a lawn tech.

When I really stopped to think about it, I have been missing that freedom of being on the road by myself for quite some time now. But the pay I was making just kept me put. Well now that has gone away and the way to get that back is truck driving. So after all, this has been a good thing that has happened as it has made me get out of my comfort zone and do something that I know will truely make me happy. I will be challenged, I will be pushed, I will be helping people get the things they need to accomplish the things they need to get done.

So that's where I'm comming from. What brought you to trucking? :)