Career Change Forthcoming

Jason & Brian,

Thanks again the replies, buds. I'm trying to be as realistic as possible looking forward. Home time is important to me, but I know - and my wife knows - that I will have to make sacrifices to make anything work. Just like anything in life. Nothing worth doing is easy, especially starting out, and I know I've got a LOT to learn.

As it stands, I work *minimum* four 10+ hour days per week for the company I work for now, usually picking up an extra day or two per week to fluff up the checking account a bit. I am also on call every 4-6 weeks for emergency callouts, which often makes my total hours for those weeks anywhere from 70-100 hours for one week. Even though the region I work out of is less than an hour drive from my house, you can imagine that I am hardly ever home during those weeks and still don't see my family for 4-5 days on just a normal work week. I leave the house before any of them are up, and get home when they're ready for bed or already asleep. Needless to say, I'm already missing out on family time as it is now. And, like you guys, I'm willing to make sacrifices now to provide for a better future with better schedules, routes, and so on.

One important difference for me between trucking professionally and the work I do now is going to be the amount of stress on the job. I work in the natural gas industry and am the first responder to any and every gas emergency in my region, which is several counties wide. I often times get called to people's houses who are reporting gas leaks, and I don't know until I walk in their front door with my gas detector if that house is ready to explode with a simple flick of a light switch or not. I also the first to respond when construction companies, landscapers, road workers, etc., cut our gas lines/mains. Once again, even in an open air atmosphere, the right set of circumstances could ignite that gas while I'm working on stopping the leak, making repairs, etc. Guys have been killed doing what I do, and others have been badly maimed and disfigured. Some have been burned badly just working on little service lines (1/2" plastic) in the ground. And I do that stuff daily, day in and day out. It's a lot of stress, and I've just become accustomed to it. But, after being out a few weeks for surgery, I've realized how much that stress is taking a toll on my life and my family's.

I know that there are inherent dangers driving a truck, but they are going to be more situational and not something that I would be forced to work with every single day. Just having a career where I don't worry each day whether or not a call will come in that could hurt me badly, or worse, would make it all worth it to me.

A good friend of my wife's husband is a long hauler for a local company hauling heavy equipment and he loves what he does. He just left out of Savannah, GA this morning with a load bound for who-knows-where, but he and I will have a nice long discussion about the industry soon. I'm also going to get with a Knight recruiter in the next day or two to discuss more options going forward.

But I know this: I am ready for this change. I've been contemplating it for years and been dreading going to work for just as long. I need this change and am willing to do what I must to make it work.

Thanks for listening, fellas.

Keep us posted and Good Luck!

But I know this: I am ready for this change. I've been contemplating it for years and been dreading going to work for just as long. I need this change and am willing to do what I must to make it work.

Welcome to the forum Ryan!

Keep researching and asking questions. Take the time to find the situation that works best for you and the family.

Good luck with your plan

Hey Ryan. There are plenty of opportunities out there to get home on weekends straight out of school. You'll certainly want to dig around and do quite a bit of research on trucking companies that hire inexperienced drivers. But companies like Schneider, TMC, Knight, Swift, Roehl, and quite a few others will often have regional opportunities available. A lot of what they have to offer will vary from location to location so where you live will play into that.

And if you do land in a regional fleet that gets drivers home on weekends you can be sure you'll get there just about every weekend. What you can normally expect is about 36-48 hours at home at some point over the weekend. They're not going to get you home at 5:00 pm every Friday and have you leave out 5:00 pm every Sunday. Trucking almost never works that way. You might get home anywhere from Friday afternoon to Saturday evening and leave out anywhere from Sunday afternoon to Monday morning - that kind of thing. But if they say they'll get you home on weekends you can expect it pretty much every weekend.

The medical benefits in trucking are usually pretty good as far as non-union, blue collar work goes. You'll certainly have the option of medical benefits for your family at all of the major companies but I honestly can't speak for the pricing and coverage. I really don't know enough about the various coverages to compare and contrast. But you'll have full family coverage available.

Thanks, Dave & Brett.

I'm actually going to be stuck where I'm at a bit longer than expected due to some medical issues of my own. But that will give me more time to look into different trucking companies and make a better informed decision once I do decide to make the switch. In the meantime, I'll be researching and making contacts like a madman.

Thanks again for all the replies in this thread.