From Teacher to Driver. Here is why.

First of all, good luck to you.

I can certainly sympathize with a lot of your complaints about teaching; I've never taught, of course, but I recognize that it can be a difficult and thankless job.

That said, and I hope you'll forgive me if what I'm about to say sounds patronizing, the trucking industry isn't exactly looking up, these days.

Even apart from the general decline in the economy, there are a whole host of competing interests encircling and slowly crushing the life out truck drivers. The list of responsibilities and regulations we have to juggle, usually for zero direct pay, is ever-growing.

I'm sure you've read your fair share of doom-saying threads on this forum, and I'm sure you've weighed them all as best as you could before making your decision. It isn't my intention to try to change that decision, or to force you into a depression.

But for what it's worth, I do think it's best to temper your expectations. There is an allure to the open road; even as a company driver, there is (or can be) an illusion of independence, a certain satisfaction to be drawn from a (mostly) solitary, self-reliant lifestyle. The dispatcher tells you where and when to go, but unless you're given crappy loads 24/7, you'll find that you, and you alone, decide how to make the dispatcher's words into reality.

However, it is a not a comfortable life, and you're unlikely to be compensated very well for the various personal sacrifices that life requires. You will be in a class of workers who are villified by environmentalists and politicians, traffic reporters and residential authorities; even the customers from/to whom you're delivering freight, presumably at their request, will seem, at times, to look down on you because of what you do for a living.

And those very same groups who want to dictate where and when you can sleep, whether you can sleep with the heat on in winter or the AC on in the summer, whether you can use your engine brake in an area where the local motorcycle hobbyist makes sixty-eight times more noise than your Jake ever could -- the same people, in fact, who trumpet every rare tractor-trailer mishap on the motorways while ignoring thousands of fatal car-on-car accidents -- all of them still want an affordable can of beans.

So for all of the pressure to make us perform at a higher and higher standard, there is equal pressure to pay us as little as possible. And in our current economy, you can expect to be washed out over relatively minor mistakes.

All of my preaching aside, then, a little advice from a fairly new driver:

1.) Pick a good CDL school. If what they say sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Try to find out what their student-to-truck ratio is before enrolling. After enrolling, if possible, stay late to get more wheel time in. Passing the CDL exam doesn't mean you're ready to drive a truck.

2.) When you do get hired (or pre-hired) somewhere, if it's a big company, take what the recruiter says with a grain of salt. No, they won't get you home every weekend. No, they probably won't put you on insert-dedicated-account-of-your-dreams-here right out of training.

3.) Related to the number two, don't expect to make worthwhile money for at least the first few months, and don't expect your first year or two to balance that out.

4.) If and when you become a solo driver, the most important thing you can do is cover your backside. Document everything. Know the rules. If your dispatcher (or any nameless office type on the other end of the phone/qualcomm) seems to be screwing you, then make him quote the relevant policy. Make sure there is such a policy.

Don't knowingly do anything that you think might be unsafe, on the vague assurances of dispatch. If in doubt, call your safety department. If still in doubt, you might have to refuse to comply with your employer's wishes, which could get messy, but it's better than going to jail for willful endangerment.

If you get a ticket or get into what companies call an incident -- whether it's merely a scratch on a trailer or a bona-fide, in-traffic collision -- fight for yourself.

'Cause no one else is gonna do it for you. Especially now.

I wish you all the best, and I hope you find the peace you seek. You may find that the drivers in high-population areas remind you of the unruly children you're leaving behind, but at least you'll only be responsible for their behavior to the extent that it influences yours.

 

That's funny, I'm going in the opposite direction. Been a trucker, and now I want to be a teacher. Hoping to start college at the University of Akron this fall. Already worried if there are gonna be any teaching positions anywhere in the country when I graduate. Fun fun!

 

Why on God's green earth would you give up teaching to drive a truck?
At least find something suitable to your education.
Trucking is a low-skill, low-wage burn job:
Working 15 hours, paid for 7.
No overtime.
Live, eat, sleep, breathe in the truck 24/7.
Pissing in parking lots.
Sleeping in rest stops.
No friends, family, or social life whatsoever.
Treated like a 4th class citizen.
Trainers who don't bathe.
Some of the worst benefits around.
O/O's ripping you off.
Hometime a roll of the dice.
7th most dangerous US occupation.
Hourly rate works out to like 8 bucks an hour...only reason you can make 30-40k is that you're working/on-the-job an insane amount of hours with no time-and-a-half.

Teaching has it's bad points...but c'mon...you're off all summer long.
Holidays off. Nights spent at home. Weekends off.
Top-notch bennies and retirement plan.
Sleep in your own bed, shower in your own shower, crap in your own toilet.
Go out on dates with girls, hang out with your buddies on the weekend.
You can actually live like a human being.

Sheesh...you want to flush that all down the drain to go drive truck?

 

Thanks for the kind words, Tifford.

I hate to say it, though -- but Paddington kinda sums it up. His is the less diplomatic, and much more succinct, version of what I wanted to write here.

But that's the beauty of this country; you get to do what you want. I wouldn't tell you not to try trucking, but I also hope you're not burning any bridges. You may change your mind, after all.

Heck, if you haven't left your teaching job already, and if you do get the summers off, you might consider wedging a two or three-month trucking stint into your summer break, just to see how it suits you.

In any case, as before, I wish you good fortune.

 

I agree with Paddington 100%. After you'll spend a week in the cab of that truck, tired, lonely, depressed, hungry you'll be wishing you were back in that classroom.

Trucked up gave you very good advice, if you are still set on it, get your CDL right after school is out for the summer and hit the road during the break.

 

All the reasons I've decided to try teaching. Well, that and I've always wanted to be a teacher. I figure after surviving being a trucker, teaching would be a walk in the park. I'm already used to uncompensated work, tapdancing around serious issues (with both shippers and dispatchers) and running the risk of some idiot shooting at me (bad truckstops, road rage idiots, getting loaded/unloaded in the "bad" part of town), piss poor benefits, and working with people I'd rather shoot. Teaching could only be an upgrade.

 

Good luck Tifford. I tried my damndest to return to the classroom after my post doc at Duke ended but didn't even receive a single phone call after applying for over 50 positions in my county and several surrounding counties. I loved teaching but like you didn't like all the smoke and mirrors that the "education" system used. Kids need to be challenged to work to their highest level possible and held accountable for doing so. There should be no room for mediocre performances when they have the ability to do better. I was a no nonsense teacher and basically told the administration to stay the hell out of my way and let me do my job which they didn't like but the end result my students had a 100% passing rate on the New York State Chemistry regents exam in a school that historically had a 50% passing rate. The problem is that no one wants to hurt anyone's feelings and call a spade a spade.
If you decide to go the trucking route good luck.