day in the life...

There is no work-life balance in trucking. You are either over the road and out for a month or two at a time for 2 or 3 days home or you're working local 14 hours a day.
Now once you get some experience in, you'll be able to actually get a decent job but until you do well.....

 

Let’s cut to the chase.

It’s heaven or hell on a daily basis.

Are you trying to sell a service to us . . . ?

 

There is no typical day OTR. You have an appointment time for pickup and an appointment time for delivery. You adjust whatever you have to do so that you make both appointment times. Customers, like to order 40 trucks to show up at 6-7am so that their employees are able to work steady, even though the property only has 15-20 dock doors for trucks to back in for loading/unloading.

The driver has several requirements, like govt Hours of Service regulation, customer and trucking company demands and is expected to keep everyone happy, even if the demands are contradictory or incompatible. Everyone seems to blame the driver for everyone else's delays and the impact on the current and future schedule. If you like being yelled at for the people this morning who made you wait 6 hours before they would do their job, which caused you to be late arriving at the customer this afternoon that will make you wait 3 hours before they do their job, plus now you are tied up in rush hour traffic, your work hours have evaporated because of the delays, oh and all of the truck parking in the area is now full and there is no place to park, you might like trucking. The good news is that the shippers and receivers have made sure to post many signs indicating you and your diseased carcass are not welcome inside the building or restrooms, you might like trucking.

 

Have tires in stock, and more than one guy working in the bay while 15 guys are in dress shirts behind the counter would be a decent start. Put valve stems at opposite ends, and don't be scared to dust off that torque wrench would be icing on the cake.

I'd ask for pre-Biden pricing, but we all know that's not happening until 2025.

 

Drivers typically DO STOP after they get loaded and start driving. They may stop for fuel and to eat a meal, use the restroom.

 

It is not as negative and doom and gloom as previous posts seem to keep it out. That said, a typical work week is about 70 hours.
As mentioned, you'll get an appointment time for pick up and one for deliver. If the load has a live load or unload, that appointment time will be an exact time. I usually plan on trying to show up about 1 to 2 hours early. If the load is preloaded, and you simply have to pick up an already loaded trailer or drop your loaded trailer at the destination. You'll get the time the load is supposed to be ready for you, but you can show up after that time for the pick up. For delivery, you'll get a date and time it needs to be delivered by. You can get it there earlier. The in between is up to you. It's called trip planning and it's not difficult. Some loads will have a tight schedule, and you have to not dawdle. Some loads give ample time and you actually have some free time.
Different drivers have different preferences so run differently. Some like to drive nights and will try to tweak things so they can drive at night. Others, like myself, don't like to drive at night, so try to tweak things to drive in the day. Regardless, the load dictates your schedule. You may have to drive nights or days and you really can't tweak things.
In the beginning, especially the first few months, it will be all encompassing. You'll basically have no free time. Time not driving will be spent figuring everything out. But, once you've done it for awhile, you start getting some time to do something else. Watch TV, read a book, etc.
Also, quite a bit will depend on the company you work for. Companies are not the same in regards to driver expectation, safety, legality and treatment in general. Folks like to bad mouth Swift, but they were good to me in the beginning and genuinely helped me. Also Swift is big on safety (believe it or not!) and legality. As I driver, if you do what you reasonably can do, yet the load is late regardless, it isn't held against you. But, they do expect you to do what you reasonably can do, to include having safety as a priority.
Anyway, a typical 'driving' day for me, where I don't have a pick up or deliver and am just driving, goes like this. Wake up, spend about half hour with daily truck chores, get or make myself coffee!!! (absolutely essential for me!!!), do my pretrip and get on the road. Drive about 250 to 300 miles, stop for lunch, use that break to figure out how far I think I'll get and figure out where I'll try to get parked (usually have a couple back up parking spots planned in case the 1st one doesn't work out), usually another 250 to 300 miles down the road and then get back on the road. Once I get to my stop for the night, do a post trip and any other work stuff, like scanning in BOL's from previous trips, and then chill till bedtime. Sometimes I only get half and hour, sometimes 3 or 4 hours. Lastly, get myself to bed in enough time to get ample sleep before I need to get up and start it all over. So many things make itmhard to have a typical day, but that about best describes what one is for me.
Good luck to you.

 

I thought you said you weren't trying to sell anything? Dude, just say it. Really, it doesn't hurt.

 

Ok, you should have been up front about your motive to post here. For some reason, truck drivers, owner ops especially, are targets for scams of all kinds. We become very skeptical of people. Why don’t you start over and be up front and ask the questions you would like to have answers for. Think carefully about what you are looking to learn and think about the question. Write a good question, you just might get real answers.