For Some Reason I Decided To Be A Trucker

Hello Trucking Truth. Please allow me to start off by thanking you for this great website. After putting in my forty questions on the High Road Training Program today, I started to peruse your forum and am just now realizing it's 1 AM. The perfect time to write a journal!

So, I start school on Monday, April 3, 2017. I decided to go with SAGE in Missoula for a few reasons. That comes with a bit of a story, however. So buckle up, buckaroo. I started work for Pavlik Electric back in 2013, trying to make some money to go to Canada at 19 years old so I could drink some whiskey and smoke some Cuban cigars. That plan didn't pan out so I ended up just working retail for 9 months with a bunch of money in savings. After deciding I was sick of pushing carts in the rain and snow for a net profit of $175 a week, I went back to work at PE in the fall of 2014. I wasn't very good at it, but the money was awesome and my grandpa (owner of the company) didn't have it in him to fire me (I wasn't actually that bad, it just felt like I was sometimes). The one part that I did like, was hauling the loads of materials from Missoula to the weigh station in Haugan where we were working with the one ton and flat bed. So when dear old grandad asked me back to work on the airbase in Minot the next year, I was a little hesitant, but said yes, but with a condition. I get to mob everything over and back. He said fine, but I needed to get my CDL. He told me to start out with just my B's and get some practice in straight bodies before moving on to combos. So I did. I went into the DMV and grabbed a manual and studied hard for about a week. Went in and got my permit first try! Fat lot of good it did me, cuz I was on the road and hauling shortly after (The truck/trailer I was driving didn't require a CDL). So, I'd start my day in Missoula, get to the base after dark, drop the trailer to unload in the morning and hit up the hotel. Next morning it was unloading the trailer and back to Missoula I went! Sometimes taking a little detour down south to Sundance WY where we had another job at the weigh station there.

And so it went for a couple weeks, but after that was done, the job was on. It wasn't too bad, but for those of you who don't know, Minot's as humid as I'll get out. There was one day it was 95% humidity and 100 degrees, and we were pouring trenches full of sand slurry. With every concrete truck that pulled up (9 trucks filled to the brim, in total) my cousin would grab the water gun off the truck and spray everyone down. It sucked in the moment, but it's funny to think about now. Anyways, that's enough of that tangent.

Towards the end of the job I finally got my B class CDL. Even though I ended up failing the pre trip on my first try. I was so nervous I completely forgot to do the brake test! Oh well, with all the bugs out of the system the second try went perfectly fine and I passed the road test with flying colors. Unfortunately, there wasn't much call for straight body hauling loads back and forth, so I got exactly zero use out of it for nearly a year. I did eventually get some practice in a big rig on the job for the Great Falls airport. Tooling around hauling loads of dirt from one place to another in the company's international. On the same airport perimeter road I learned how to drive stick in the first place. Funny how things come back around. Anyway, I'm worried I might end up having to learn how to shift all over again. I would just speed shift that puppy, grinding gears like nobody's business until I got used to it. I tried double clutching one time and stalled it, so said screw it and did it how Pop-Pop taught me riding along in the Kenworth. And that brings us back to the beginning of the story.

My grandpa said it was about time to get my A. This, however, presented a bit of a problem. He'd sold the Kenworth in favor of using a dump truck to haul a flatbed, and I didn't want any restrictions on my licence. The first thing that came to mind was the trucks you'd see driving around Missoula occasionally, SAGE Truck Driving School printed on the side. So I decided to give them a visit. When getting the brochure they of course brought up their career placement, which got the wheels turning. Ya see, I've always been driving. Since about the time I could walk, my grandpa would pick me up from my mom in Great Falls and drive me the five hours to Thompson Falls on a fairly consistent basis, starting at about two years old. At three years old, Pop-Pop put me up in his lap and I got to drive the John Deere back hoe around an empty field. He would run the controls with his feet while I got to steer. And there were some good memories had riding along in that big blue Kenworth, learning about what that noisy switch on the gear knob was that he kept flipping. Taking naps in the sleeper when it got a little late and I got tired, the bumps in the road rocking me to sleep. Maybe even once or twice honking the air horn when people gave us the signal and there weren't too many other people around.

So, having some limited experience with truck driving already, I figure it's at least worth the good old fashioned college try. I was starting to get pretty sick of construction anyhow.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Any tips for a newbie such as myself are appreciated.

Welcome!

Great story. Since you selected a school and already made some progress in the High Road Training, here are a couple of pieces we recommend reviewing before going too much further:

Truck Driver's Career Guide

Becoming A Truck Driver: The Raw Truth About Truck Driving

At some point these will also be helpful:

• Trucker's Career Guide: Choosing Your First Truck Driving Job
• Article Category: Finding The Right Truck Driving Job
• Forum Topics Tagged "Choosing A Trucking Company"

And finally:

• Article: Understanding Pre-Hire Letters: The What, Why, And How Of This Important Step
• Trucker's Wiki: "Pre-Hire Letters"
• Forum Topics Tagged "CDL Pre-Hire Letters"

Thanks! I'll definitely give all of those a read today.

Lunchbox Jr., wonderful post! Really enjoyed reading about your history; sounds like you've already got one foot in the cab. Good luck with your schooling; not sure of your plans post CDL-school, but if they include OTR , here's one more suggested reading for you... Old School has set the bar on what it takes to be successful in this industry, from managing your hours, to managing your hours, developing that relationship with your dispatcher/driver manager, maintaining a positive attitude, and not sure if I mentioned it, but managing your hours... it's all in here... Life As A Road Warrior. Good luck, and looking very forward to reading more!

Well, I'm leaving for Missoula now. I'll be starting class at 8AM tomorrow morning. I'm worried I might get high blood pressure on my physical. I've been working on it for the past week, and felt like I was making progress, but the stress is starting to make me feel like my reading may be high when I get my physical. Wish me luck guys. The place I'm going to be staying doesn't have internet, so updates might be fairly sparse, but I'll update this from my tablet every now and then when I catch a break.

Good luck with your blood pressure; will enjoy the updates when you have time. Responding to your reply on my diary, and I imagine you'll find out, but the big three carriers hiring OTR drivers out of our schools are Schneider, Werner, and Watkins Shepard. Schneider owns Watkins Shepard, but they still operate separately.