Game Changing New Policy Here In The Forum

I cannot even fathom how awful my first year might have been, had I jumped into a lease. I thought the first year of trucking was difficult enough, let alone the phenomenal amount of stress that leasing might have caused.

To give an example, I saw a brand new owner operator hop out of his parked tractor-trailer like C3PO on steroids and amphetamines when another trucker brushed past his nose-cone and left a little scratch. His first comment was, "I just spent 200 grand on this rig ...!" lalala. He spazzed out!

I thought,

"Wow, Dude. Seriously? You want to fork up another $1,000 for your deductible to replace a piece of your trailer that's designed for the sole purpose of protecting the trailer from the very thing that just happened to it, when every other trailer on the planet has scratches on its nose-cone?"

He still had 53' of pristine, shiny trailer. But his stress level as a new owner (and only 18 months in trucking) was so high that this was his reaction to a 4' scratch on the plate. I wondered what his reaction would be in a real accident.

I am glad you're curbing all future threads on this topic. Here, it just goes without saying. Don't lease.

-mountain girl

Um, so, I guess I won't be posting my first year results that I spent last weekend putting into a spreadsheet one week at a time. I needed to do a little more number crunching to figure out what the exact difference would have been driving company, which is why I didn't post the draft I started.

I'll still be doing the analysis for my own benefit. Let me know if you want me to share the actual numbers with the forum, since that has been a frequent complaint about the forbidden topic for some time now.

I missed what was going on to prompt this

The #1 reason we're not going to talk about it anymore is that it simply doesn't apply to our visitors. We're helping people that are brand new to trucking get their careers underway and buying or leasing a truck simply isn't in the cards for most of those people.

I had always hoped we could have thoughtful, intelligent conversations about it in order to help people understand the business prospects and challenges a little better but that just doesn't happen.

For starters, people who want to buy or lease a truck often times really, really want to buy or lease a truck. It's not a logical business decision for them, it's a passion or a dream of theirs. So most of the time they take it as a personal insult if you tell them it doesn't make good business sense. They simply can't speak objectively about it because it's not an objective proposition to them - it's a passion. It's their personal dream. Although they're hoping to make more money they're not really doing it for money as much as they're doing it for the challenge, the perceived perks, and most importantly the bragging rights. So you can't speak logically or objectively about it with someone who feels that way.

Not only that, but it turns out that a lot of the people that are interested in buying or leasing don't even know the basics about running a business. We find ourselves spending hours arguing with people who don't even know the difference between gross and net earnings or don't know how to calculate a simple profit margin. So it's impossible to explain it from a business standpoint because they simply don't have the understanding of how a business operates and how to determine the prospects for any given business.

In the end it turned out to be an impossible topic to cover productively and because it applies to very few people we're wasting everyone's time with it. It just turns into a big fight all the time and we all wind up chasing our tails. Instead we're going to remain focused on what people should be learning to prepare for the start of their careers.

Brett- You had mentioned a response that you will give to newly started lease/owner-operator topics- I think the above explanation would be good. Well written.

Reason 2 you could put is: This is my website, I’m the boss and this is my decision.

Once, I drove a 15 passenger company van. One time I made the mistake of saying: “I’m the van boss.” One guy gave me trouble about that for a long time.

Um, so, I guess I won't be posting my first year results that I spent last weekend putting into a spreadsheet one week at a time. I needed to do a little more number crunching to figure out what the exact difference would have been driving company, which is why I didn't post the draft I started.

I'll still be doing the analysis for my own benefit. Let me know if you want me to share the actual numbers with the forum, since that has been a frequent complaint about the forbidden topic for some time now.

I would love to see it.

Um, so, I guess I won't be posting my first year results that I spent last weekend putting into a spreadsheet one week at a time. I needed to do a little more number crunching to figure out what the exact difference would have been driving company, which is why I didn't post the draft I started.

I'll still be doing the analysis for my own benefit. Let me know if you want me to share the actual numbers with the forum, since that has been a frequent complaint about the forbidden topic for some time now.

I would love to see it.

Yup. Same here.

-mountain girl

Um, so, I guess I won't be posting my first year results that I spent last weekend putting into a spreadsheet one week at a time. I needed to do a little more number crunching to figure out what the exact difference would have been driving company, which is why I didn't post the draft I started.

I'll still be doing the analysis for my own benefit. Let me know if you want me to share the actual numbers with the forum, since that has been a frequent complaint about the forbidden topic for some time now.

Trucking Truth isn't the only game in town. You can always share your work at another forum. I'm sure you'll have interested readers.

Um, so, I guess I won't be posting my first year results that I spent last weekend putting into a spreadsheet one week at a time. I needed to do a little more number crunching to figure out what the exact difference would have been driving company, which is why I didn't post the draft I started.

I'll still be doing the analysis for my own benefit. Let me know if you want me to share the actual numbers with the forum, since that has been a frequent complaint about the forbidden topic for some time now.

I would love to see it.

Yes, please feel free to post here, you've done all the hard work, would love to see your #'s. Thanks in advance.