Our First Weekly *Ask Me Anything Friday*

Two questions Brett, one that I've been curious about since i joined this forum. And that would be:

Why did you leave the the road, and do you ever see yourself going back?

Second, did you ever see yourself being a driver manager or anything relatable to that?

If any of these have been addressed, apologies.

I must confess. My other half was... Drum roll... My company trainer (gasp!)

But what I will also add is that while I was in training, we butted heads constantly. To put it mildly, he was/is a hard assed perfectionist. After I upgraded to a solo driver, we kept in touch by phone, often ran into each other at various terminals and customers, realized we had much in common, eventually started dating, later shacking up and even teaming for a while, then each going back to solo when our company wanted me to start training new drivers and wanted him to return to training them.

When we discussed actually beginning to date, we almost didn't. We knew the fact that he had been my trainer, would make it look very improper. After a few lengthy conversations about it, we decided to tell West Side first, because quite honestly, it could have cost us BOTH our jobs.

After grilling us both, separately, they realized nothing improper happened during my training and it was all strictly professional and gave us their blessing. Now they just die laughing at the fact that he almost threw me off his truck more than once. I lost it and said a few choice words to him on more than one occasion, setting the brakes and literally walking away (for hours haha) telling him if I wasn't doing well enough to suit his standards then he could effing do it himself.

I still call him Mr. Fexcellent (for effing excellent). It's a miracle we ever began dating and the fact that we're still together, happily unmarried, but having purchased land where we plan on building a cabin/home and spending the rest of our lives together.

West Side says we were meant for each other and they're always asking when we're finally getting married. We tell them when h3ll freezes over hahaha. Maybe one day but we're both happy just as it is.

Susan D - I love that story!!! That's the kind of story I imagine your friends would say "tell me again how you guys ended up together!" Thanks for sharing =)

It is a great story for sure. Our boss (the safety director) gets a real kick out of it. We both train both male and female trainees and he's the only male trainer at West Side who'll even train a female. He was such a gentleman during training when it came to things like me needing to change or whatever. He'd close the curtains leave and lock the truck and tell me to just text him to let him know when it was ok for him to come back to his truck. West Side also about had a cow when the truck broke down and due to a major event rooms were all booked and we had to share a hotel room for a couple days. They finally got over it when I just bluntly asked them what the difference was between a hotel room with 2 beds and a truck with 2 beds. It was literally the only available room we could find in Indianapolis.

He was such a gentleman during training when it came to things like me needing to change or whatever. He'd close the curtains leave and lock the truck and tell me to just text him to let him know when it was ok for him to come back to his truck. West Side also about had a cow when the truck broke down and due to a major event rooms were all booked and we had to share a hotel room for a couple days. They finally got over it when I just bluntly asked them what the difference was between a hotel room with 2 beds and a truck with 2 beds. It was literally the only available room we could find in Indianapolis.

Sounds like a stand-up guy! That's too funny about the hotel room issue - it is the EXACT same!

Brett did you ever make it over to the adirondacks for some hiking seems about 2 yrs ago or so when i was fresh outta school withs tabs(pc) on my tires still we talked about that as im from caroga lake and run northeast regional. Just curious how bout those signs cuomo spent millions on just to have the feds force him to take them down gotta love ny politics

I dont remember details only that we spoke about hiking in my neck of the woods

Why did you leave the the road, and do you ever see yourself going back?

I left because 15 years was a long time to drive and I felt like I had gotten everything there was to get out of trucking. I wanted to move on and try new things. As amazing as the lifestyle is, it also requires that you give up other opportunities, like most decisions you make in life. So I had just figured that was enough of doing that one thing and it was time to move on to new adventures.

For that same reason I don't see myself going back. I hear people talk about how much trucking has changed over the years, but to be honest I don't think it's changed at all. You have electronic logbooks now. That's about it. Otherwise trucking is still trucking the way it was 25 years ago. I love Trucking Truth and having the opportunity to help people learn about this industry and get their career off to a great start. It's a lot of fun. But I don't see myself driving again.

Second, did you ever see yourself being a driver manager or anything relatable to that?

I never really wanted to work in any office, to be honest. I think working as an instructor teaching people backing, shifting, and driving would have been preferable to any sort of office work but I never pursued any sort of career in trucking after driving. I really prefer to run a business than to be an employee in one so that has been my goal ever since I had retired from driving.

Brett did you ever make it over to the adirondacks for some hiking

I actually live in the Adirondacks now. I had been thinking about moving to the mountains so I came here for a visit in winter of 2016-2017 and as soon as got into these mountains I decided to move here. I moved here in May 2017 and stayed in my camper for the summer while I pondered whether or not to make the move permanent. I decided I did want to buy a house here but the search took some time. I rented a place in Plattsburgh, NY for the winter and found the house I wanted. I bought the house this past spring and moved into it in May.

I have a season pass to Whiteface for the second year now. I spent this past summer rock climbing and now I'm in my first season of ice climbing. So my entire life is the mountains. I live up in the mountains and spend all my time playing in the mountains. I don't see that ever changing.

The geek in me has a question about Trucking Truth. The site constantly shows up in Google searches, so it is obviously well indexed.

I read a reply you gave that said something about the number of users on the site being 12,000 or something like that, and it made me curious. Of course I can't find that post again. I'm curious, because as busy as the forum is, I constantly see people popping in that say "I've been lurking here for XX months (or years), and now I am finally going to .....

So my question is, how many users do you have a month, and how many visitors? New vs total, if you know?

So my question is, how many users do you have a month, and how many visitors? New vs total, if you know?

It's funny because the forum makes it seem like it's a kinda small site with a nice little stream of visitors, but it's way bigger than you would think. We average about 220,000 total visits from 150,000 unique visitors each month and over 600,000 page views per month.

The forum would get more action if we allowed any knucklehead to run their mouths and say any stupid thing they would like. Go to Facebook or some of the other trucking forums and you'll find it's like the Jerry Springer show where every loudmouth in the peanut gallery is screaming lies and misleading unsuspecting newbies into having all of the wrong strategies, impressions, and expectations about the industry.

I've had people mention to me that if we weren't so critical about what is being said we'd get more participation. Sure, but the quality would be junk. Why would I want that?

So we focus on teaching people what it takes to be a top tier professional in this industry and we make sure than any information that's presented here is accurate and helpful. We let everyone else focus on complaining, blaming, criticizing, and lying. I know a lot of people who visit here also visit other trucking forums, and I totally get that. They like the drama. They're entertained by the larger than life characters.

They're like a circus, we're like a classroom. Each serves its purpose. But by the nature of people you're going to get a lot more action and participation where there is a lot of drama and lies and fighting. That's why the news channels all focus on politics, violence, death, and disaster.