Can you get a white collar job after being in trucking industry?

Trucking doesn't mean one is or make one stupid,no it shouldn't affect other job opportunities in other fields but I can see where it's possible due to lack of experience and or education in the chosen trade/profession. truth be known one can wear a white collar anywhere.

 

What's your degree in?

 

Interestingly enough - many highly placed white collar workers are getting INTO truck as a way escape THAT RAT RACE.

Have I met some DUMB truck drivers? I dunno - my CDL class was (according to the instructor) the most frustrating bunch of dummies he ever had in one room in 25 years of teaching drivers.

The perception that ALL truck drivers are dumb and dopers is an old one.

Not to say there ISN'T drug use - but federal mandates on testing are pretty strict, and penalties are pretty severe for a failed test. Doesn't mean that some SMART DOPERS don't slip through. But overall - that's an entirely false PERCEPTION.

Highly understandable, that, in this economy, people fresh out of college are choosing trucking as a (at least temporary) starting place in their career path. You may find it such a pleasing lifestyle that, despite not becoming a millionaire doing it, you may decide to just stay in it (and waste that expensive college education).

A SMARTER TRUCKER IS A BETTER TRUCKER. A "dumb trucker" is going to do DUMB STUFF - and sooner than later, CSA is going to get them off the road. A SMARTER TRUCKER learns the BUSINESS of trucking in order to make themselves more profitable - because it IS A BUSINESS, and the DRIVER is the "bottom of the food chain" - so we HAVE TO LEARN how to maximize ourselves in order to better ourselves - financially and otherwise.

I'm coming OUT of 30 years blue/white collar - IT - blue collar because I'm out there twisting a screwdriver / white collar because I've run a pretty successful business all these years. And I'm transitioning into a trucking career - because I DON'T WANT TO SPEND the last 10-15 years of my working career - fixing computers for college educated morons (I specialize in law offices you see - LOL). I believe you actually LOSE 15-20 IQ points for every year in college (and I'm a 7th grade drop-out) - some times I feel like a hall monitor at a special ed school (Tard Wrangler).

Enough "waxing poetic" from me...

Rick

 

A fair proportion of dispatch, safety and maintenance management people are often ex-drivers, and their experience helped them get that job.

 

Sure you can get a "white collar" job after driving, in fact I would think it would be a plus on your resume. If I had a choice and the candidates were equally qualified, I would choose the driver over the other typical positions you would see such as, Waiter, unemployment, etc.

Driving a truck you must make a lot of decisions and choices to get the job done. Who wouldn't want someone that can be an independent decision maker?

 

I started to drive truck in 1990. Got out of it in 1997 and went back to college to finish my 4 year Degree in 2000. Got a BS in Industrial Management. I worked at a few different manufacturing jobs both as a quality engineer, quality manage and process engineer.

I was 22 when I met a lot of truckers who had their 4 year degrees. Accountants, engineers, teachers, etc. Lot of diverse guys/gals.

Everyone of them told me the same thing. Stay in trucking. Couple even told me being an Independent O/O managed properly, you'd be retired by age 45 with money saved in the right retirement devises.

Here I am at Age 44.

The grass was NOT greener on the other side of that diploma. I am just further in debt. My student loans are now my last big debt hurdle. I was foolish enough to co-sign onto my ex-wife's student loans and she continuously sends them into economic hardship deferment. Last week I got a letter from them telling me the new accrued interest on them is now $17,000 and growing.

So now at age 44, I are one of them college holding white collar workers that went back to trucking.


I actually have had my highest paying jobs as a driver. With luck this summer, I will be purchasing my first truck and getting authority.

 

I have a couple of years of college, some tech classes and am currently driving truck and am much happier for it. I spent too many years working under too many micro-managing bosses on a powertrip who enjoy verbally assualting their female employees after getting brow-beat by their wife at home. From a career standpoint, the only thing that'll hurt is not working in your perspective field, or interning for free without any employment guarantee as seems to be the current cruel game played on college fresh newbies. Try trucking, be forewarned, it isn't all Smokey and the Bandit good times.

 

Here would be a good exercise. Reread your question one hundred times; if you do not see what is wrong with your english grammar, you will never rise above store clerk anyway.

How is this for an High School Drop out?

Having graduated college but with nothing lined up, I'm considering something in the freight transportation industry. Some have stated that once in the freight business a stigma is attached because of old prejudices about truckers being less than average or drug usage.

Answer: There are people that operate under prejudicial mind sets everywhere you go. It may have been accurate about the drug usage during the seventies and eighties but I've heard the same thing about college kids. Just remember: in a graduating class of one hundred, there will be the over achievers at the top of the class and the beer drinkers at the bottom; each person is given the same respect as the next (usually) until that person opens (its) mouth.

 

I'm currently attending college with Southern New Hampshire University in the BS-CIT program (attending online), and will be starting a new OTR job on Monday, May 14th 2012. I hope to prove that it is possible to be successful as both a college student and as a truck driver.

My other goal is to be able to graduate from college with zero debt, and to pay my current outstanding student loans off completely.

My thinking in taking this path is that I can continue working on my degree while driving, and once I acheive graduation I will have a perfectly good job and career to move forward with while I look for work in the IT field. Should I not be able to find a good "fit" in the IT field, I will still have my first love, trucking, as a means of employment.