CDL Career Coach

I started driving for CR England in 1992. They didn’t know I was driving for them at the time. They didn’t even know that I was a passenger on my husband’s truck. He’d picked up some paperwork for that, but never did get around to sending it in. Meanwhile, he figured if I was there I might as well be doing my share of the work… and some of his as well.

I’m no longer married.

I did (eventually) get accepted by CR England to attend their driving school and get a CDL and actually started getting paid for the work I did.

I loved trucking from the beginning. I like being “outdoors” all day and seeing the sun and the scenery. I liked going to new places and meeting new people. It really helped me to overcome my intense shyness and fear of the phone. Not to mention, for the first time in my life my income exceeded my monthly bills.

I took a few years off to try the family thing again. The marriage didn’t work out by I had a son and worked in IT until he was old enough to ride with me on the truck. We were on the road and home schooled for about 6 years.

I’ve worked for CR England, US Xpress, Crete, Prime, and a couple of other smaller companies you probably wouldn’t recognize.

I’ve been a company driver, driver trainer, lease-operator, and a CDL instructor during my 12 years on the road. I’ve always driven long-haul. I tried being regional for a while and that had it’s ups and downs. I’ve never wanted to drive local because I don’t want to spend all day going to shippers and receivers. I spend enough time there already as the industry keeps going after sorter runs. What I like best is driving coast-to-coast.

Longer trips give you more variety, as well as allowing you more control over your time and how you run your truck (like during the daylight hours) instead of constantly being boxed in by 2am deliveries and 11pm pick-ups. It’s hard to get a run like that anymore unless you are a team. That’s too bad, and one of the reasons I may not go back to driving again.

The other reason is my weight. Prime started using a BMI standard after I was hired that I don’t meet. I quit them for a job with longer runs and then that didn’t work out. Now I have to lose 100 pounds or so to be eligible to get rehired, in spite of being able to do the job well enough to be nominated for driver of the month twice in the last year.

Well, that’s me and that’s trucking.

I'm taking this semi-forced vacation to work on some other projects that have been on hold while I was driving. Besides trying to eat healthy and get a little more exercise in hopes of waking up one morning 100 pounds lighter (I hope you feel my total commitment and belief there) I am also practicing day trading part time and developing several websites including:

* CDL Career Coach for new and prospective truck drivers. I'm struggling to figure out what to write about and if you want to give me a hand then you could ask me a question or two about trucking, or about becoming a truck driver (from the contact page on the website, or by email here would be great). I'm also open the the possibility of guest bloggers if you would like to write about a blog about trucking in exchange for a link (or two) or an author box.

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