Life With A Truck – One Year Later

Has it been a year already? Yes it has been. Last May I formally filed papers which put my law license on retirement status and started school to learn how to drive a semi truck. So how has it been? Let me tell you.

I wrote a 7-week series over at CurbsideClassic.com that went into some depth describing the process of getting my CDL (commercial driver’s license). Those who can’t get enough of this topic can read those pieces here, here, here, here, here, here and here. The short version is that I got through school and got all of my licenses and certifications, then got a job with a trucking company. The gig was hauling trailer-loads of U.S. Mail on nighttime runs between cities in and around Indiana. As “the new guy”, my first several months were on what they call the extra board, so that my weekly schedule would be in my mailbox each Thursday.

Driving mail has an incredible amount of variety. Some routes were as long as an overnight round trip to St. Louis. Others involved stopping at a series of small town post offices where I actually had keys to let myself in to collect their outgoing mail for the day for transport back to the main processing center in Indianapolis. Every facility operates differently and has their own ways of doing things, so my job was to learn them and fit in with their systems.

I eventually got my own truck and my own route. It was a Sunday-Thursday route that covered the nights off of three different drivers. Sunday: Cincinnati, Ohio and Terre Haute, Indiana. Monday-Tuesday: Lafayette and Fort Wayne. Wednesday-Thursday: Bloomington and Fort Wayne. These were pairings of a roughly 4 hour run and a roughly 8 hour run, so I was racking up around 62 hours for each 5-day week. It was a lot of driving, but I actually loved it. Though I will confess that I needed every minute of my 2 days off for recovery.

Then something bad happened – a larger multi-state company severely underbid my employer on some significant postal contracts and we lost a lot of work – including my runs. April started some serious adjustments, which left me with a part-time schedule of only about 24 hours for the week, stretched over four days. I loved the three-day weekends. I did not love the severely shrunken paychecks. Quite a number of people left, others more senior were shunted to other areas of the company. I was told that if I could afford to be patient, things would sort themselves out.

I was on the verge of losing that patience when I got a call, asking if I was open to being moved to a different part of the company. That part serves as the contract carrier for a Fortune 500 manufacturing company with a significant presence in my area. I will not name this company, but it is one that everyone has heard of. When I said yes, I found myself back to full-time and at a higher hourly rate. Getting onto this detail is by invitation only, so I feel a sense of accomplishment that I have made the grade.

For the past few weeks I have been experiencing trade-offs. I am now working normal daytime hours with five-day weeks. I love the schedule and the additional free time it affords. At my stage of life, this is probably as good as it gets in trucking. The flip side is that I am in a long and involved training process where I learn all of the routes and facilities necessary for trucking operations. There has been very little actual driving, and lots of riding along with experienced hands who are teaching me the ins and outs of how this company wants things done.

I will confess that I miss the long, solitary hours of windshield time, and the quiet environment of nighttime driving. That was something that gave me a feeling of freedom and was a perfect place for my introverted nature. But I still get to scratch that itch from time to time because I am still offered a chance to cover the occasional postal run in addition to my normal schedule – like a recent opportunity to spend two days covering postal runs at the company’s St. Louis terminal.

I think I can sum up my experience with a story from last week. I was given the opportunity to cover for a vacationing driver, so had my own temporary route for 3 days. I was on duty at 7 am and in the truck headed for the client company by 7:30. As I was driving on that sunny morning, I had a feeling come washing over me: I am getting paid to drive this truck, something I would have happily done for free just to get away from the drudgery that the practice of law had become on far too many days. I have learned a lot about driving a truck and everything that goes with it. I have also learned that I have not regretted this decision even one little teeny bit.

This kind of change is certainly not for everyone, and I can have frustrating days just like anyone else, whether that person is doing brain surgeries or selling used cars. But all in all, if you see me behind the wheel of a big rig, you are almost sure to see a smile on my face. Life is good!

25 thoughts on “Life With A Truck – One Year Later”

  1. This is terrific news all the way around. Given you are one year in, have already been thrown a substantial curveball, and are still happy says much.

    Something tells me the happiness and satisfaction with your decision will continue.

    As an aside, you have certainly inspired my thinking about the future. Retirement eligibility is imminent and you have been a great role model on seeing what else the world offers. Thank you.

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    • I hope you find something that makes you happy, or is at least a pleasant change. I think I mentioned once before that I used to practice law with a guy who said “nobody should have to do the same thing for over 30 years.” He got increasingly unhappy and disillusioned in the last few years of his career, and I decided that I was not going to follow that path.

      It is nice to be an influence because of something positive I have done than to be a negative example! 🙂

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  2. That’s great, I’m glad for you that it’s working out. Maybe you can lead the “I want to wind down my professional career and do something fulfilling in a different way” support group with Jason and I.

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    • “Hi Doug”. 🙂

      You and Jason could become litigation experts! 🙂 Many was the time we needed to hire a forensic engineering firm for an opinion on how and why something failed. But then again, some of those guys were kind of like prostitutes, but with engineering degrees. You could almost always find someone who would reach the conclusion you wanted.

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    • Just sitting around and thinking about stuff (and not having to do anything with it) would probably be more fun, but I have yet to find someone willing to pay me to do it. Getting paid to drive (which I love to do) is the next best thing.

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  5. I actually salute your second career choices. I worked for years in an industry that was in downturn mode in the Midwest, since the Arab Oil Embargo (unbeknownst to me in the pre internet age), and was subsequently screwed out of salaries and advancement, and high pressured into a lot of overtime unpaid work. Most of my friend became successful by leaving the Midwest entirely after college, something I tried too late. My last job in Indianapolis was a bust, at a bad company that was sold about eighteen months after I was “laid off”. I’m now seventy, and when that last lay off happened, I just didn’t have the heart to work anymore, and use my highly developed skills in situations where the upper management wanted everything to be done cheaply and “wrong”. I salute the fact that your are willing to try something new at your age, and that you’re willing to “put up with” any mayhem that comes along. I just can’t take it any more, and will do,whatever it takes to never work again!

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    • That was kind of my experience in the area of law that was my field. Working for property & casualty insurance companies was never a way to get rich, but it was a good life. But over the past 20 years I watched it become less lucrative and more full of hassle. But I think it is like so many fields – everything is about efficiency, and if things are not really booming, then watch out because here come the cuts. Some day I will really, actually retire, and understand why you chose that option.

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      • As a senior manager, I’ve written hundreds of performance reviews, sometimes as many as 21 a year, and sat through 20+ years of my own performance reviews; very few of them that ended up giving anyone a “performance” raise, and most, even for the good performers, ending up resulting in a raise that might not even reach the inflation rate. This resulted in your department usually being loaded with disgruntled people, and your best performers moving on, even though in a lot of the fly-over, there were no other employers to go to. The needs of the Human Resources departments to run programs to try and improve morale, without actually improving pay or process, was starting to take a lot of time and cut into actually managing your department or planning future moves. I’ve watched the work world change so much in 55 years, that there’s almost nothing positive about it unless you work for a very small company, or you’re an independent contractor that is excused from those processes, and also bills enough for your retirement and medical needs. I never want to be a part of any of that again. BTW, I look at Human Resource departments as a destructive force in most companies, and for some reason, they have gained far more power in the corporate world over the last forty years then they should never control!

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  6. You have really expanded your horizons with this second career JP and it appears you are leading a much more fulfilling life than before and yes, even the practice of law can become boring, too routine and not a joy to go into work. That is how my last job was – 20 years of labor law, on the heels of working for a wonderful litigation attorney who left the Firm after the merger – he made it a pleasure, not drudgery to come to work.

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  8. It’s good to hear that you are loving this new chapter of your career. I admire your bravery in leaving behind the world of law and taking up a career in an entirely new field.

    I can retire now, but am staying on in my position at least through the end of this calendar year. I love my co-workers and boss, and enjoy working in Pennsylvania’s beautiful state capitol building. But some aspects of the job really are wearing on me…primarily the uncertainty surrounding the legislative process, and dealing with constituent matters.

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    • It would have been different if I had been closer to my social security eligibility or if I had not been so unhappy with the way things were going in my field. I’m sure you will make a good decision and there should be a world of options out there for you.

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  11. Hi JP

    Your story sounds a happy one – I have met a couple of retired guys who love driving concrete trucks for 3 days a week here in the Wairarapa in New Zealand

    They get the state pansion and the wages on top and say that they really enjoy it

    Good on ya for shifting gears

    Pete

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    • Thanks, Pete! I got a day in a 10 speed manual this past week, but will confess that for the next couple of days my clutch leg was a little sore. Most of the newer trucks my company has are automatics and I am coming around to them. The most recent versions are far nicer to live with than some of the older self-shifters, which could be quite clunky and jerky.

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