What Did You Do Before Becoming A Truck Driver?

Worked in costumer service at Target during high school, eventually became a supervisor and the guy in charge of all those big in store displays and signs.

Went to work for Disney in Tomorrowland Attractions. Operating heavy machinery in the form of a flight simulator, a semi-submersible boat, and a 50 ton monorail train - also got to drive the larger, faster and more powerful monorails in Florida for fun for a few hours.

Customer service at Toys'R'Us - worst job ever.

Tried to enlist in the Air Force in 2010 but was disqualified when we became pregnant with our second child.

My wife and I started a business in 2008 doing party rentals and entertainment - I ran the day to day operations and made deliveries and pickups with my Tundra and 18ft flatbed trailer. Big difference from a Semi but it's a start! Haha

In 2016 I landed my dream job with the FAA as an air traffic control trainee, assigned to Enroute radar centers. I missed passing my final test at the end of a 4 month training program by two errors and that was the end of that.

Unfortunately, we sold our business 3 days before I lost my job as we were anticipating my passing the program and a quick move to Albuquerque. Oh well.

Went back to Disney in food and beverage, became a supervisor, became a cook and left when I realized I was "spinning my wheels."

I've been doing freelance content creation for a clients website and get no satisfaction from being behind a desk.

I'm looking forward to starting this career in another week - the satisfaction of the hard work, seeing that I will have actually accomplished something meaningful at the end of the day and the adventure... let's do this!

Property manager, energy auditor, construction, home inspector and commercial property insurance inspector. Previous truck driving experience

I have been in the school transportation industry since 1986. I started with the Class 2 license and it has been a B with P &S endorsement with airbrake since the change. I have moved up the ladder so to speak. I was a dispatcher at my last job for over 5 years-filled in a supervisor when he was out or on vacation overseeing 100 drivers/monitors. Now, I just do routing for a district that has 40K students, 29K on buses. I route for 26 schools which account for 527 trips daily. I am looking to change careers and finish out for the next 15 years in the trucking industry hopefully as a dispatcher. Fingers crossed that I can.

Great thread.

I hope to begin training in June of this year. I went for my Bachelor's after HS, graduated and worked in higher ed administration for a couple years, then went back for a Master's because a bachelor's isn't worth what it used to be. Graduated that, and went to work in higher ed again, this time in online education as an instructional designer. I did that for almost 5 years, but I really can't be happy sitting in a windowless cubicle, so I quit and worked as a farmhand for 6 months before scratching the itch to travel abroad. I moved to Vietnam, met a nice girl, and started working for a university here doing the same thing as before plus some teaching (I'm not a fast learner I guess). I've been here a year and I almost have enough saved to return to Missouri to start a trucking career.

I've always been fascinated by big trucks since I was a kid on road trips with my parents, sitting in the back of a station wagon to Florida or Colorado, seeing them all lit up at night - one of those old wagons with the rear-facing seats for obnoxious kids. But, I come from a family of professors and forgoing college was a non starter, even though school bored me to death - it was never difficult, just boring. So, I'm going my own way now and look forward to getting on the road driving flatbed. Then I can pay off these terrible student loans and hopefully settle on a few acres and build a little farm to live on.

Newbie here, I am in the process of saving money for CDL school. I currently have a degree in kinesiology, worked as a physical therapist aide for 3 years trying to build my hours to get into physical therapy school. Finally got in the 3rd year and attended the first week then dropped out. I realized I didn't want to owe 250k in student loans after graduation. Got back to my old job and with a kinesiology degree it's very hard to make past $15 an hr! So trucking it is!

Newbie here, I am in the process of saving money for CDL school

Are you aware of Paid CDL Training Programs ? They will train you to get your cdl free of cost provided you work for them for a predetermined about of time, typically 1 or 2 years.

Analyst for a Fortune 50 Telecom for 12 years and Forex swing trader by hobby.

Now I drive...but still trade Sun-Fri, but now it's just automated.

Ten years in the US Coast Guard and three years as a 911 dispatcher. I've hated the past three years and now I'm happy and at peace behind the wheel!

Been a sales manager for two different companies, been in the restaurant biz doing everything from delivering pizzas, to a kitchen manager, to a GM. Papa John's, Little Caesars, Jason's Deli, also was an administrator in a youth program, was a shipping / receiving manager for International Paper in Chicago. And was an outside parts salesman for Kenworth Trucks in Des Moines Iowa.. oh yeah and I did have a small marketing company that my EX wife and I ran for a couple years.

My main career was in construction as a carpenter/builder for many years. When I was a young buck in my early twenties I worked two years for a house mover in Oklahoma. That’s when I first drove a big boy truck but back then a CDL was not required. My boss was named Mac and of course all his trucks were Macks. The first time I drove my truck was pulling 80 foot I-beams that we used to lift houses with. I have a great story about that, but I’ll save it for another time.

I also have a hobby. Stand up comedy in small venues. Kinda like karaoke but for comedy wannabes. Needless to say everyone tells me not to quit my day job.

And that would make for an interesting topic. What is your non-driving hobby?