What's your twenty Papa Smurf?...
If anyone has every thought of driving a truck for some period in their life I can confidently say it's one of the cooler things I've been able to do. Getting paid to travel around the country isn't too bad. The turn off immediately is this whole riding with a trainer thing. Being a trainer for these companies pays awesome. You not only get paid for the miles you drive, you get paid for the miles the trainee drives and with this company you get paid for each mile the trainee drives for six months after they get off the truck.
Normally with these entry level companies you have to ride a few hundred hours with a trainer but luckily because of my experience I only have to do the minimum. All that being said, life is no fun right now. This guy drives from Sumner, WA to Medford, OR every day of the week sans Saturday night and Sunday. Being that he has me on his truck he can maximize every last bit. The day starts at eight a.m. and he drives till about seven in the evening. The truck gets unloaded and I drive from about nine in the evening till about eight in the morning. And it starts all over again. Ugh.
His paycheck gets fat and I get my required hours. I'm ok with that. This is where I become reflective on the concept of killing ourselves by working too hard. This guy I'm riding with makes a ton of money simply for sitting on his ass all day. Good for him, but today as he was driving (and I was trying to get sleep in the bunk) he met his wife at a truck stop. He normally only sees her on the weekends since he's out on the road so much. Granted I don't have anyone in my life that would even want to spend more than a day with me but how can some people expect to have meaningful and fulfilling lives when so much time is spent away like that? I guess it works for him and plenty of other people though.
Being that I'm single and (ready for a pringle) have no major obligations to stay in one spot, this is an excellent route for me right now. As I've sort of explained in prior posts, this is really a temporary thing until I can get settled where I want to be. I've come to the conclusion that I probably won't be flying for a living for the same reason I think driving truck isn't conducive to any sort of life I want to live long term. Enough with the reasoning.