I hate trucking. I hate the complete and utter chaos of trucking. Its never something you can plan around, and even the best plans end up fucked up and all anyone can do is throw up their hands and say ‘thats trucking’!

Like in 2007 around Thanksgiving we had plans to spend it with my mother in Florida. Notice was given well in advance we got our load to swap with another truck who had our Florida bound load. We got to our swap point early. Four hours later we were told that the person with our Florida load had driven past the swap point and we would have to deliver the load we had while they scrambled to get us another load south. Wasn’t our fault, wasn’t weekends fault. Was entirely the fault of some moron ignoring orders because he didn’t want to go north. And thats trucking.

The best laid plans always end up screwed up, you get told take a 34 get a hotel and 10 hours later they have some important load they want you to save. Thats if you are lucky, if you are unlucky 32 hours into your 34 they will need to to move asap to save a load. You get told you are to pickup at 2 pm, deliver a load 800 miles away and have 2 days to do it. It goes past a good friends house so you make plans to stop by. But halfway on that load, enjoying your leisurely pace, you get told you have to be at a swap and haul ass in a completely different direction. You get a preplan the picks up at 2 pm you stay up late so  you well be able to sleep in the morning and be rested by 2pm, go to bed at 6 am, and then get swapped from the 2pm load to a 11 am load. Oh boy!

You miss your family, your house, your state, and eating meals that you made. You miss being able to just go to a movie, or a store. You miss on awesome deals because their lot doesn’t have truck parking. You get the bum rap when someone screws up, and you get blamed when a car hits you. You miss birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and school recitals. You miss having a normal life where you sleep in bed and have a nice scheduled day you can work your life around. You don’t get to watch tv after work at 5 or browse the net from work.

You get passed, brake checked, stuck behind grandma tag, hounded by police, and restricted speeds. You get shippers and receivers who drag their feet on loading and unloading, dispatchers treating you like you’re disposable, car drivers who think you have 18 sets of brakes, and politicians who see you as a giant wallet. If thats not bad enough you also get morons in your same field throwing piss bottles out of windows dumping 8 quarts of oil in the middle of a walmart parking lot, and taking a shit outside your steps. Inconsideration assholes parking on fuel isles blocking you in and screwing up a 30 minute window while they leisurely take a shower and grab a meal.

Yeah, I hate trucking. We work too hard, get paid too little, and have to deal with misconceptions daily. You never know if you are going to have a good signal, get a chance to call a loved one, when you might see home next, and you can never count on anything being done when you expect. It sucks, and to top it all off, companies today like to pay less then they did before but put out these huge cpm adverts. Oh we pay 40 cents a mile! Course 9 cents of that is a tax deduction you would have got either way, 3-6 cents is a fuel/safety bonus you may or may not get through no fault of your own, and 6 of those cents are auto given to the gooberment. Oh fuck, when you look at it that way you are making less then a rookie did 15 years ago. Awesome!

I love trucking. The rumble of a diesel engine, the high stress get it there pace. The ability to be just told be here at this time, and then its up to me to make my own decisions as to how I will get there at that time.  The ability to drop by a friends house if I have time without having to get ‘permission’, the ability to take a meal break when I am hungry not when the clock says its lunch. The ability to completely ignore my boss if he’s being a dick.  I love the fact most of my dispatcher relationship is through a giant texting device.

I love seeing other states, however limited. I love the smell of diesel and the comfort of the small sleeper. I love getting to eat at different places, and having no real ‘location’ set for me.  Truckers are the last of the dragon riders, taming giant behemoths for the greater good of mankind. Cowboys in their own right, after all dispatcher can tell you to go somewhere but you have to figure out how to get there. Trucking is alot more work then driving like most people think. Its mathematics, mapping, planning, safety, and management. You are responisble for a rig that in many cases cost more them cost people’s houses, thats some trust that a company hands you the keys to. In the wrong hands it can do alot of damage. You can do alot of damage.

Then they put expensive items within it and you get to steer them to their final destinations. Christmas is built upon the backs of truck drivers, we are the real life Santa Clauses working our fingers to the bone driving these loads to where they need to go so that Tommy gets his bike under that tree on time. This country runs on 18 wheels, you literally eat, sleep, wear, drive, and fuel up because a trucker did their job.  Its like a form of military serving, but without all the medals of honor.

I love trucking.

I hate trucking.

I am trucking.