What Did You Do Before Becoming A Truck Driver?

I'm currently a housekeeper in the emergency department for my states main hospital. This job is horrid for pay (barely scraping by 275 a week but I get paid biweekly) management treats us golden employees (ones who care and get stuff done) like crap and ignores any bad stuff the crappy employees do. I bust my butt ridiculously hard to be treated and paid like this. Honestly even when my dad was a regional trucker and he unloaded his trailers at 80 percent of his stops, he still never worked this hard for this crap pay.

I cant wait for my trucking career to begin. The lifestyle has been a dream of mine since an early age. Trucking is the most important job in the world hands down I don't start my trucking career until April 17th.

As an ER nurse I will attest to this. Nursing staff and doctors pretty much ignore housekeepers to the point they are essentially invisible at most places I've worked. Yes they work hard and even when they are caught up they don't get to lounge around like everyone else does.

I'm currently a housekeeper in the emergency department for my states main hospital. This job is horrid for pay (barely scraping by 275 a week but I get paid biweekly) management treats us golden employees (ones who care and get stuff done) like crap and ignores any bad stuff the crappy employees do. I bust my butt ridiculously hard to be treated and paid like this. Honestly even when my dad was a regional trucker and he unloaded his trailers at 80 percent of his stops, he still never worked this hard for this crap pay.

Spent the past 15 years as a programmer and project manager for a large online insurance company. I also own a fitness studio and I'm a persona trainer.

Thanks Brian, I'm lucky at least that the nursing staff vocalize their appreciation and help me out if they can. I'm lucky about that. Unfortunetely the housekeeping staff and coworkers I have to endure I wish I could say the same thing....

The National Park Service declined to renew the lease on my watersports business location in WDC in 2012, and I have really struggled to find my footing since then. Prior to my Boathouse; I worked as a veterinary technician, medical assistant, pharmacy tech, necropsy tech, student of Forensic Science, and oh yeah, serving Eliot Spitzer types mainly in NYC, Chicago, Miami, and Dallas.

I graduated high school June 1997... from there, I've worked in nearly every industry available to someone without a college education. From fast food to agricultural to the medical field, construction and factories to call centers... of all the jobs I've had, I hated the call centers the most, but I'm fairly good at sales and tech support so that's what I mostly did. I haven't been able to hold a job for a full 2 years... ever! My best friend pointed out that I should drive for a living since I love being on the road. She meant taxi or courier but that got me thinking. I researched otr and I've never felt excited about working since I got my very first job at 16. I've started driving at school today... I haven't been this excited and happy, and a little scared, about anything since I was pregnant with my, now 12 year old, daughter. I talked to my family and close friends, every one is completely supportive and my daughter is looking forward to next summer when she can go with me on the road during summer vacation... I love being alone in my personal truck on a highway or interstate , with or without tunes... There is some interest from local companies and I've submitted my application to those companies... I'm very excited to start a career that I look forward to doing for the next 40 years

I worked a few jobs here and there--call center, convenience store, grounds worker. But my primary job was as a pianist. I wasn't very responsible in school and lost my scholarship when my grades plummeted. I decided to drop out until I could afford to go back without pulling out a ton of student loans. That was a few years ago now. Trucking has provided enough income that maybe now I can afford to finish school online bit by bit while I continue driving. It'll be hard but I've learned so many life lessons and acquired much more discipline and patience since I left school a few years ago.

Here's the only YouTube video that exists of my playing. I played mainly classical so this is not the best sample. I also arranged this only a few days beforehand so it has some boo-boos.

https://youtu.be/ZQyo8mgTXMo

I guess I will leave the links to others that have it figured out. I am sure someone will come along and post correctly.

Patrick, on every page there is a big blue bar labeled "links on trucking truth". Click it and all of the relevant links are enabled. Just click the ones you want to appear on your reply and the recipient can access the information by just clicking on the link.

• Truck Driver's Career Guide
• Brett's Book: The Raw Truth About Trucking (free online version)
• High Road Training Program

Trucking Company Reviews

• 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"

Since Tavia is already in school I included the holy trinity of Trucking Truth, company reviews and choosing a company.

Good luck Tavia and welcome.

Holiday merchandising for a few years, outdoor power equipment technician (from chainsaws and weed-whackers on up to large-deck lawn tractors), retail, more retail, temporary contract machine operator at a plastic injection factory, more merchandising this time as a temp, temp QC at a coin mint, more retail, LCD testing/QC, ramp serviceman for United Airlines out of Denver International, white-cloth waitstaff, 24/7 live-in medical aide, warehouse work -- laid off, temp contract -- industrial, more of that, seasonal housekeeper, seasonal retail freight (unloading trucks lmao)...

I'm all busted up and sickly from jobs that paid jack and shhhhhnotmuch.

Most I've ever made in a year (and it was only for one year) according to the Social Security website is 16k. I look at all these posts where people go "ugh I may only make 30k in my first year" and I just... stare. Posts where people think 900... hell, 700, 600, a week is garbage money...

I'm used to making that in a month. Been in deep poverty all my life, breaking my body for pennies. Like, really broken. I won't go into details here.

So I'm not a trucker yet, and I don't know if I even can be with all the damage I've sustained, but damn. I'm 31, drowning in debt taken purely for survival, and I've never had a career or thought I had any shot at one. So I intend to try, even if I don't make it past the application process.

Plot Twist, I fully understand being beaten and broken. I served for 17 1/2 years in the military. My body has been battered and abused. Where there is the will, there is a way. Just as an example. A few of my ailments: Bilateral moderate to severe hearing loss (I actually have hearing aids for both ears. I have just learned to get on without them), Athritis and scar tissue in my left shoulder, degenerative discs across my entire spine, 2 herniated discs in my lower back. I used to have constant pain down my left leg, but now the nerves are so destroyed, I feel very little at all in my left leg along with having muscle weakness. Arthritis and scar tissue in both knees. I guess the last major thing is I have had to have my nose reconstructed and now dry environments and dust causes me nose bleeds.

Good Luck in your endeavor to become a truck driver.