In the past few months that I’ve been driving, I’ve learned one major thing. Trucking can destroy you if you let it. Truck driving can make you very bitter and angry. Trucking can raise your blood pressure and be extremely stressful. Truck driving is filled with unexpected problems, rude people, a total lack of respect for what you do and sacrifice everyday just so the guy who cut you off can get his iPod at Walmart a few bucks cheaper. Truck driving can literally drive you to madness….if you let it.
Just Let It Ride
I hear some of these truck drivers screaming over the CB because somebody cut them off or some other truck driver isn’t driving “fast enough.” I see my trainer get furious when a shipper or receiver treats him like crap or part of our load gets refused. He hates being disrespected. I look at some of these drivers at truck stops who look like they’ve been pulling their hair out all day. I hear the anger in drivers voices after a long day on the road. Some of them even try to seek out a fight. It doesn’t have to be this way.
For some reason, many people are not able to let the little things roll off their backs. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that when I’m driving through, say, New Jersey, and I’ve been cut off for the 6th time in 4 miles, it gets aggravating. But in the grand scheme of things, does it really affect my life that much? Just roll on! If somebody gives me the finger because I blocked up the passing lane for a minute, does that persons opinion of me really matter? Just roll on! If a shipper or receiver seems to be bossing me around and shows a lack of respect, do I really think they will matter to me 24hrs later? Just roll on! If a tire goes flat on me, isn’t it something I expected to happen at some point? Just roll on! Well, after I get the tire replaced of course.
You can not be sensitive in this career. You can not let the little things bother you. I see so many people get so worked up over the smallest things. It makes me wonder how they’d deal with something major that happens in their life. My main rule of thumb; if it won’t affect my life tomorrow, why get worked up about it? We all have our bad days, and it’s ok to get mad when somebody does something stupid, but for the most part, just let it be! I’ve found the happiest drivers out on the road have the mentality of “whatever happens, happens.” Truck driving is a job where you must live in the moment, and quickly forget the past. Just because you’re having an enjoyable drive right now, doesn’t mean you won’t blow a tire in 5 minutes. And if you do blow a tire, you have to be ok with that. Just part of the job. It’s going to happen. There really is no way around it. So when it does happen, don’t get upset! Just breathe, calm down, and chalk it up to the adventures in truck driving. If somebody cuts you off or is driving like an idiot, you shouldn’t even let it bother you in the first place. But if you must, curse and swear at the dumb driver, then forget about it! It already happened and it’s over and done with. Just roll on!
Advice For New Drivers
For those who are thinking about entering truck driving, I’m here to tell you, if you can’t let things happen as they happen, you’ll never survive this life. You can’t really plan anything out here. You can plan ahead the best you can, but very rarely does anything in truck driving actually go to plan. There is an endless list of things that can happen, but here’s one example. Let’s say you start your trip at noon. You decide you’ll drive until 8pm then grab a much needed shower since you haven’t had one in two days and you feel like crap. After 8 hours of driving, the only thing on your mind is the great feeling of a hot shower. Your head is itchy, you feel dirty, your face feels greasy, your hands have leftover spilled deisel fuel on them, you need a change of clothes, and you just want to feel clean once again! You pull into the only truck stop within 100 miles or so, go in to grab a shower, and see the wait time is 30 minutes. Ok, no big deal. You wait, and wait, and wait for your number to be called, but it never comes. An hour later, you discover the truck stop is having a plumbing issue and nobody told you. The showers are closed. You’re not getting a shower tonight. How would you deal with this? It’s a true story and it happened to me. continue to page 2 –>
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Great advice, Mike! It’s great for someone like me who just decided in the last four or so weeks to become a truck driver and hasn’t even started my training yet to know what I can expect in the coming months and years.
I’m one of those that likes to know what to expect, which is why I’ve spent a lot of time here reading as much as my time and slow reading ability allow me to over these weeks. It’s kind of strange, but very interesting, that just knowing that what I can expect is to not know what to expect is all I need. I guess having a mind that’s wired in a kind of twisted way means I’ve got one of the main requirements to be a truck driver, right???? LOL
Anyway, moving right along. The advice about handling some of the unpleasant situations and people in life is great for anyone, not just truckers. As a teenager, I’d lose it often and in ways that got me in a lot of trouble, and sometimes I did things that to this day I wish to God I hadn’t and I’d give a lot to be able and go back and undo. At one point, I found myself in a place where going off on someone physically was going to get me a quick ride into a few years in the kid equivalent of prison. One of the things I learned real fast, and which is why I’m where I’m at in life now, is that 99.99999% of the time the thing that had me furious at the moment I wouldn’t even be able to remember in a year. Those few that I’d even remember weren’t going to have any impact at all on how my life was a year later though. So I started asking myself, why do something now that will result in me both remembering this in a year and having how I reacted make my life a year later worse? In the 31 years since I first started looking at it this way, there are perhaps two or three that I’ve even remembered a year later and, at best, one that may have made any difference in my life in the years since. Even that one, if I had reacted, didn’t have as much negative impact on my life as my reaction would have. I am big on having control and I learned that allowing the things other people do and say to effect me puts them in control of me and how I feel and there is no way on earth I’m going to give someone else that kind of power over me. Why let someone else have the power to cause you to develop high blood pressure, get ulcers, die younger and suffer more while you’re here?
Okay, I just used a lot of words to say what you said in a few. Good job and thanks, Mike!
P.S. Just remembered one of my favorite quotes…..”God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the ones I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” That was St. Francis of Assisi and some of the best words any man has ever uttered.
Hi Paul,
Thanks for such an awesome reply! I’m glad my blog is helping you and I wish you the absolute best of luck. Please, feel free to email me anytime personally if there are any questions I can answer for you. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll either try to find it or will simply tell you I don’t know. But either way, it never hurts to ask questions. It’s good that you’re doing research on this before jumping in. I’m sure glad I did. Some of these people jump right in not really knowing what they were getting into. Those are the ones who have the hardest time adjusting to this life.
Anyway, only 6k more miles and I’m on my own! It’s been a long 3 months / 54,000 miles but I’m almost there.
Mike
TruckerMike@TruckingTruth.com
I am a truck driver also. I am so glad to see you post your experiences online for everyone to see. I just recently started writing about different things in truck driving. I think it not only helps me, but if other people see my blog and your blog, then they can get an understanding of the truth about driving. My blog is a little different though since I am a female driver, I write from my point of view. Some of our experiences are based around the same thing, but at the same time they are very different, you know?
Driving sure isn’t a cake walk. As they say it isn’t a job, it is a way of life. I am going to bookmark your blog, so I can keep up with ya if you don’t mind. I really have enjoyed it!
I really have enjoyed it!
Drive Safe! Be Safe!
It’s good that you have it figured out, Trucker Mike, because so many don’t. Stress IS a killer. Average life expectency for truckers is 62. Have you noticed or talked to drivers that are weatherbeaten because of lack of sleep, healthy food, too much coffee/cigs etc? They look like they’re 60, but are actually maybe 45-50. The disrespect/rudeness come with the job, so you need thick skin. The best thing is you only have to deal with these fools for a couple hours, then you never see them again. FFfF
Well put Fred. This is an unhealthy profession as it is, but the stress just adds to it. I look around at some of the people at truck stops and can’t believe the condition they are in. I’ve promised myself that I won’t end up like them. I’ll be going solo here in about a week, and I’ve decided to stay far away from the buffets once that happens. Do you ever look at the people at the buffets? I know it sounds mean, but sometimes just seeing the people there makes me lose my appetite. I hope I’m not offending anyone here, but weight is just such a huge problem in the trucking industry. It’s about time we take it more seriously. Hell, I’m paying $40 / week for my health insurance and I don’t even have the best coverage. Buying into group health insurance doesn’t mean much when the group you’re sharing it with is full of people who are vastly overweight, heavy smokers, stressed out, and those who have very little physical activity in their life. It’s time truck drivers wake up and start taking care of the most importaint piece of equipment on the truck…themselves.
Mike,
Very well written website. I drove for 18 years and trained for 9 of those years. That is one of the most important things I always tried to teach my trainees, was to take things as they come and let them roll off your shoulder. Wal-Mart is one of the worst places to order more product than they need and then accept them first come first serve and refuse the rest of what they didn’t need. But, if you let stress take over and you get mad and upset at the littlest things and problems, then what are you going to do when your trailer jackknifes on you? You will flip out and end up recking instead of getting it corrected and back on track. This is another reason that it is very important to learn to remain calm in all situations. If you ever need someone to talk to send me an e-mail.
Tami
Hi Tami, thanks for reading! And thank you for being a trainer for 9 years. Wow! I don’t know if I could ever be a trainer. I have good blood pressure, and I intend to keep it that way. HAHA! I think a lot of trainers fail to do what you teach. I’ve heard so many stories of trainers breaking things on their truck because they are upset about something. Not the best way to teach a student how to deal with situations out on the road!
And thank you for the offer to contact you. Be careful what you wish for, I might just take you up on it!
Mike
lol…Training isn’t bad….Trainers are. However, there are the few exceptionally good ones. Most trainers anymore are just out for the money. I always had the philosophy of teaching them to drive like I do. I am a perfectionist so I don’t know if that is always good though because I did always push them harder than most trainers do. But the upside of that is everytime I talk to one of my old trainees and they tell me that I taught them to run hard or I taught them this or that. That gives you a feeling that no one can take away. I extend to you again the offer for you to contact me along with anyone else wanting too learn, learning, or any other driver. Just do not come to me thinking you know everything, b/c the day a truck driver knows everything out here is the day he/she is going to die or kill someone else. I have 2.5 million safe mi. I no longer drive but I will never know anything. If anyone contacts me just make sure to put something about trucking in the subject of it so i don’t throw the letter away or deny you. Keep the shiny side up and the dirty side down.
Tami
megaverse1968@gmail.com
truckers_r_angels –Yahoo messenger name
I think the truck driving business is cool I think it a perfect fit for me. My dad had his own business and he also worked on his own trucks so I want to be able to explore the world also.
That’s the whole key is knowing if the trucking business suits your personality and your life goals. It’s a great way to make a living if it suits you, but it’s brutal if it doesn’t
Good advise, Mike. I hope you can keep that attitude after you’ve been hauling 20 years. I’ve seen both new drivers and old drivers with both attitudes. It all depends on what attitude you choose to drive with. Of course, I’ve also seen old drivers’ hands shake so bad they spill their coffee from all of the built up stress of dodging the four-wheelers. One suggestion I have for drivers is to not get in a hurry. Plan you day with enough time to factor in the delays from dodging the crazies on the road and other delays. That is where a lot of the stress comes from…worrying about time frames.
Dave
I’m not even a trucker. (I’m a teacher’s assistant, although when I was growing up I wanted to be a trucker!) But what you say is true for everyone, and I salute you. Obviously my job is totally different to yours, but I still get those ridiculous moments, obviously – like when a kid who has *serious* behaviour problems is in trouble AGAIN for fighting/bullying/pissing on another kid (it happens a lot, they’re six, and six year olds are GROSS! Cute but gross) and the parent instead of wanting to improve the kid#s behaviour just straight-up defends them and makes out that their little angel is perfect. Sometimes you want to pull out your hair. Sometimes you want to pull out THEIR hair. You can’t force a parent blind to their kid’s faults to listen to you.
Likewise, when a cute little dirty-faced kid just. can’t. get. that two apples and two apples is four, even when they have the apples RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF THEM, you can’t bawl that kid out. You just gotta smile, ruffle their hair and explain it for the hundredth and one time. I think “Just roll on!” is gonna be my new motto.
I’m not a trucker, not have the desire to be one, but I was doing a search on how to not let little things bother you. I came across this post from you, and I like the question you ask about whether the event will affect your life the next day or not…that’s a great question. Even if it does affect your life the next day, you can think about how it will affect it, and it probably still won’t matter. Thanks!