Profile For FuzzyBuda

This will be a huge help. Thanks for the effort. Keep your notes for a future book. The Life, The Legend, The Trucker, Daniel B...

As far as starting out to find later it wasn’t the best decision, well C’est la vie. Dude, we all pursue things to find some other path may have been better, but how do you know unless you go? You don’t! You only know by looking back. That is called experience. You can’t claim it until later in life! I am convinced that is so you can tell someone else (that is if they are willing to listen). Experience costs. There you go, no charge. There is no being ABSOLUTELY SURE. Make your best educated decision and go. Don’t look back until way later when it is appropriate to decide a new course. Consider the road signs in your life. Which way are they saying to maneuver? You are wise by doing research, but it is only data in a given frame of reference. What is your objective? What is your desired outcome? What information are you processing i.e. what parameters are you measuring? Be specific in your evaluation.

Sometimes we have to turn some wheels to determine if our course is correct. And remember, education costs, even if it is not in the formal classroom sense. It is NOT therefore a waste: it is an accumulation of knowledge. We are not conditioned to consider things from that angle.

As to getting some exercise after working. Well, that is your decision. It really is an approach and mindset rather than a circumstance. And as far as REST? Good exercise is proven, study after study, to gear you for better rest. It sounds like you are looking for Mr. Goodbar. It is what everyone wants, but few can actually realize. You gotta work, and good work is good. Trucking, like most jobs, is good work. OK, so there are downsides to it. No Argument. Work is good! It all has some stress. Some stress is good! Hell, I have some stress when I’m out fishing!

Gary A, get clear on what you are looking for and how one pursuit may work and another may not. Are you married? Kids? What are your reasons to get mobile? Why would you want to stay in a fixed place? Etc…

Best to ya…

Suffice it to say, if you're going to get into trucking or nursing you have to realize it takes a ton of dedication and sacrifice. It also means putting up with a lot of challenges every day of your life. If you're not into it or not really up for the challenge, you're not going to last long.

In reply to all here. I have my BSN. Nothing more is paid for this. I really love helping people. I have saved a lot of lives. I have comforted family of the dying. I have helped the addict who chose to get clean through some bad withdrawals. I have comforted the parents of a dead child. I have rejoiced with the young couple who find out they are pregnant. I have reminisced with the WWII veteran. I have listened while the Vietnam veteran have told me their harrowing tales of survival. I have medicated those guys returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. I have listened to the many tales of the elderly and all they have contributed to our great nation. I have dressed the wounds of the beaten wife. I have driven patients home because they couldn't afford a taxi. I have the reassured the abused teenager they don't have to be beaten and sexually abused by the people that brought them into this world any more. I have held the hand of the dying till they passed so they wouldn't be alone at the moment of their death. And I have laughed alot.

Dedication....I think I have that. Now it's time to look at the window and take each sunset, sunrise, snow storm, torrential rain, hurricane winds (driven through them), in stride. Focus on the good and hope the bullish*t passes in a timely manner. And laugh a lot. My 6 cents.

The song of the unsung hero. Neil, you are.

Continued

The point in all of this is that it is a job/career. You do what you can to do your best most of the time. Nobody goes to work to do a lousy job, though burn-out can set in and this affects one’s attitude, and thus performance. Nursing is a high burn-out career due in large part to the lack of support for nurses. A study was done that indicated a nurse has upwards of 1000 momentum interruptions per shift. If you are the type that likes interruptions, great. If not, this may not me a good fit. But there are many factors that go into making a decision for a career.

As for trucking, I am considering going back to it; OTR. The kids are grown, and I always enjoyed the generally peaceful aspect and fairly low stress. On the other hand, living in a truck is less than an ideal way to live. Also, with new safety regs and point system, DOT has made it difficult to make a long-term job out of this industry that once was very lucrative. Right or wrong, good or bad, it is how I see it.

Here is the thing: we all want to improve our circumstances and eagerly seek that path that seems a good way to make it happen. However, we never know without getting there and seeing for ourselves. Too many times, people rely on perception to make a choice rather than facts, because the former is readily available and the latter, rarely.

I have worked at both ends of the stress continuum. There are ups and downs to all jobs, as you know. Most will not make any of us rich. They are a means to an end and we make a living. However, some have the illusion of security, satisfaction, high pay and so forth, but will slowly suck the very soul right out of you.

For many of us, a job is a job is a job. Some are better for a while because it is fresh and exciting, but generally become routine and we can get complacent. I question phrases like “the best” of anything, though Nursing does have more options than trucking, in IMO. When one is struggling with whether to seek something else, then the question has already been answered. Seek it. The realities of life can be prohibitive in actually perusing it, however. I went into nursing with the understanding that I would continue for as long as it made sense. It no longer does for me and I’ve got another 12 years to your 65 mark.

In regard to your asthma, there are cleaning chemicals used in the hospital that can exacerbate. And your being an introvert? Nursing will change you in so many ways you necessity.

Hope this helps. PM me if you want. I’d be happy to discuss it further. If you decide to get into nursing, I’d be happy to answer any questions.

Good Luck.

Daniel H makes some great points. Why put off what one enjoys until retirement; it may not come to you.

Brett writes to lifestyle. Another excellent point. What one is willing to put up with in their 30s-40s is entirely different than in 50s. I mentioned travel nursing earlier. This can be a good alternative providing the freedom to change your locale after each contract and you are able experience other parts of the county. However, the market is not in demand like it used to be, and many of the travel/high paying jobs are in places that can’t maintain personnel. There is a reason for that. If the attitude is to just go in and do your job the best you can as a means to enjoying the traveling aspect then it could be good. A word of caution though. Many of these jobs require night shifts and mandatory OT. This can be good for the checking acct but how much are you going to be able to do in your off time besides sleep and recover from the week.

Starcar suggests the 2nd year is mostly OJT. That was not the case for me. The clinicals are more intense and you are left on your own to handle things. A very sketchy feeling. Kinda like OK, you’ve seen a truck and read the manual, now take this load to Manhattan, though not in the snow. Additionally, this with the increased level of studies. The whole program is intense. And if you concurrently work, it is almost unmanageable. And mentorship? There was a saying the nurses eat their own, though some are very good. The dichotomy of patient safety and reality never ceases to amaze.

Neil R what do you mean by heaps of money? Am I in the wrong place? Areas like NY and CA do make more for the exact same job, I have considered licensing in CA. They are Union and not part of the Compact states, unfortunately. I hear you on having to suck it up, though. Ummm, “raping elderly women”?

Due to the length I have to submit in 2 posts.

I just did a google search for nursing vs trucking and the 1st click brought me right to this post. Todd H, you pose a question I have been wrestling with for a while now. Thanks to you for putting it out there and to Brett for having the website to post it. I will be spending more time on this site.

I have been an ICU RN for 5 years and Med/Surg for 2 years before that, and have completed my BSN during that time. I was a local driver in construction on and off for almost 10 years before that, though never went OTR. Back in the mid 90s, my kids were 8-10 and still a young enough family were I knew I didn’t want to leave for extended periods of time so I did what I could to stay close to home. Besides, it was nice to park the truck at the end of the day and utilize my days off with other things besides laundry catch-up and such even though the last year was 13+hrs 6 days/wk.

There were many times that I considered how I was stuck driving so as to pay bills and not able to utilize my brains and talents and was essentially on the path to nowhere without a means that I could see to change. 2004 I decided to join an RN program and make a change to improve my situation i.e. better pay, better hours, marketable skills I could go anywhere in the country, learn something new; a career, not just a job (insurance, 401K, path to success). My initial plan was to position myself as a Nurse Anesthetist and make some real money. 2 years later, I graduated and passed the boards and got my license.

I have never let my CDL expire because licenses are too hard to come by just to give them back and I figured it’s good to always have a fallback. I never had to use my CDL as I have been in healthcare since.

When I entered the healthcare industry, I had zero experience. I bet I hadn’t been in a hospital for more than 5 hrs in my life and ½ of that for myself. The learning curve as an RN was very, very steep, but eventually found my stride and leveled out. It was a challenge to say the least. I too enjoyed the sciences and this mixed in some art (practicing medicine) as well.

I completed my RN program in 06. Back then the economy was still good and the outlook was forecast to maintain a nursing shortage through at least 2020. When the economy turned many retired and semi-retired nurses came back full-time. Coupled with all the new grads the system ridiculously pumps into the market, the industry has become saturated. Also, the demands for new nurses have increased to include 1yr CNA as a prereq before starting a nursing program. When I was at that stage, it was recommended but not required. My view on this is yes, it can be helpful experience so the RN curve is less steep. But I wasn’t interested in being a CNA and that would have been a deal breaker for me. As I see it, the industry figured out how to mandate a low pay grunge job for a high skill career oriented person.

I have been evaluating whether nursing is a good fit anymore. Is there life after nursing? It has been a steady job and would continue to be for as long as I stayed there, but I am here to tell you that there is NOT much ability to move around. Sure when the hospital needs to fill a hole for their benefit then it is expected that you be a team player, but never the other way around when you need something; typical corporate attitude. Some people do get opportunities to reposition into a non-direct patient care position, but I submit this is the exception. For instance, several in my department have MSN and one a PhD. Yeah, they make more money than I do, but not a lot more and they are still wiping ass just the same. Now, in the ICU that is just part of the job. In one room you are changing linens and in the next you are t******* on someone’s chest to save their life. Makes for a well-rounded skill set, I guess. It’s what it is. The industry could make it better, but they don’t. For instance, where are all the pregrad CNAs, etc… Many RNs wish to get away from direct patient care.

Anyway, I digress. You don’t go into nursing for the money. Some teachers and the marketing of nursing suggest that the world for an RN is wide open and this plays on one’s ignorance and naïveté. Seriously, look at any travel nursing website and observe (one of your biggest nursing skills, BTW). Beaches, relaxation, foxy lady enjoying life to its fullest. Yeah, right. Now go read the travel nursing blogs.