Comments By Kevin B.

Sounds positively divine... In hospitality, and I'm sure elsewhere, end of month is usually a pretty big deal. A big rush to get numbers in and problems fixed. And the night's work has to be just perfect lest you have a problem in January and the fix in February so to say, then have to explain to corporate why your numbers are going to be out of whack in whatever for two months...

I'm curious what, if anything, truckers have to do for end of month? End of month is a big deal with many business, mine included. I'd imagine you'd have to turn in receipts, maybe some logs, but I'm curious what else if anything?

Bruce, if you've got an iPhone then you've likely got wireless charging. Can you not just buy a wireless charging pad and then use it to charge your phone? Alternatively, what's wearing out exactly? The cord itself or the plug? Plugs are notorious for flexing and slowly coming apart, I've had a few come apart over the years as the plastic comes apart. Also the socket on the phone gets dirt and stuff in it. Reason I say is they make magsafe cords, it's got a little magnetic tip on the end of the cord that attaches itself to a magnetic piece that you put into the socket of your phone and you leave it there. Then all they have to do is touch each other and power is transmitted, that they're both magnetic keeps them from coming apart but you can easily pull them apart when necessary leaving the piece in the phone's socket.

So far as I know it's originally an Apple thing. They debuted it on some of their desktops and laptops so as to affect cord management. No one wants to walk by a desk or a table and trip over a cord pulling an expensive computer off a table to crash on the ground. If that were to happen the cord would just separate at the magnet and no harm no foul. Also are you using just a cable sheathed in latex or rubber or a braided cable? Reason I ask is that braided fabric cables can have more flex to them if you say roll it up around your knuckles which can kink the wire inside. Something to think about in both cases however...

I'm not plugging this as a purchase, but this is what I'm talking about - https://www.dynx.co.uk/magnetic-charging-cable-usb-adapter-charger-for-ipad-iphone-55s-66s-77-plus

Old School, thanks for the kind words and the advice. Yes, you are correct, as his only lifeline he would be potentially in for a world of hurt. I don't care for the man because of the type of father and husband he was but I also don't want to see bad things necessarily happen to him. It's just a damned if I do, cause I'd put him at risk, and damned if I don't, cause it means staying in an industry that I don't care for anymore, kind of situation and thinking about it generally ****es me off...

Oh, I've been looking at funding in order to put him somewhere. He doesn't get much from SS, maybe $1200-$1300 a month and a couple hundred bucks and change from the VA for a pension (really it's disability related to hearing loss as he was in the USAF in the '50's when hearing protection wasn't really a thing). But the places I've shopped around at one time or another, he'd need memory care, run upper three-thousand to four-thousand a month. I often think about a family friend who had to put his mother in law (his wife's mother) into memory care and it cost them four-thousand a month and she lived for four or five more years or so. It literally burned a crater in their savings. But I've also got him waiting for help from the State of Texas Star Plus list which is supposed to help with various low income needs but we'll see what he might qualify for. Between his Social Security, the Texas Star Plus list, a pinch from his VA pension and I fully expect my brother and I to each cut a check and contribute monthly maybe just maybe it'll be enough to get him into a nice or at least a respectable place.

It's one of the reasons I'm seriously considering getting into trucking. I like to think about the travel, how some have a fondness for sports cars (and I even enjoy a nice looking car) but I have a fondness for semi-trucks (haha...). But yeah, it's also the money. I know you've gotta work for it, you've gotta pay your dues, that you're not going to make say fifty or sixty grand let alone a hundred grand your first year. But hospitality doesn't exactly pay well and thinking about what my share of paying for my father each month might be leaves me thinking I'd be running a financial deficit each month. If you believe the various ads you see about salary potential from the established/named trucking companies and working your ass off to maximize your earning each month, I'm looking at trucking not only for the change in career, but the travel, further and more quickly building a retirement nest egg for myself and also providing more financially so I can contribute to taking care of the man and not be financially tight if even running a financial deficit. Maybe that's expecting too much? I don't think so, and I understand the time and work involved but you're not going to get anywhere if you just do nothing. I like to think of it as my long game plan.

I've got a conundrum. Who's out on the road yet trying to take care of someone at home, perhaps they live by themselves, who maybe can't necessarily take care of themselves? I mean can you care for someone from a distance when you can't just call in and say to the boss, XYZ happened and I've gotta go take care of a relative when it simply means hopping in the car and being there in a few hours or minutes depending upon distance? A coworker at where I am now, just this week her ninety-one year old dad in some capacity of failing health and with Alzheimer's was having a bad day and refused all family and care givers. She got a call, said something to the boss, left work and went to straighten him out as the family and dad were all local.

Background... I'm forty-nine, have a hospitality background through hotels. I used to work for a hotel I enjoyed working at and loved my job. But then the company, which was very customer service oriented, folded and we got purchased by a new company, very money oriented (I'm sure you know the two kinds of places). Well between a fight with a bully of a co-worker whom they believed over me, cause she's a princess to everyone and I was an auditor who'd work overnight sight unseen. Covid decimating our industry, my hotel laid off like ninety percent of our staff. Anyway I got forced out. Where I am now, another hotel, I detest and would have already put in my notice and gotten into trucking if it weren't for my father.

My father is 85, I really don't have any admiration for the man but more a sense of duty because he's immediate family. He has some level of Alzheimer's, is alone as my brother all but dumped him on me and moved. My mother divorced him some thirty years ago and while civil would rather have nothing to do with him. Because of his age and Alzheimer's he can't drive, I've had to go find him twice before we took away his car, and he can't hold a job anymore. I'm his transportation for the grocery store, the doctor, so on and so forth. My mother has told me more than once that I can't/shouldn't get into trucking no matter how much I hate the job I'm at now as my father depends upon me for his lifeline. That I have to stick it out, maybe finding another job where I live that I'm more agreeable to as a consolation, but I have to stick it out until I can pull together the funds to put my father in a home that'll feed him and take care of him. Then I could do whatever I wanted, such as become a trucker and stay out for weeks at a time or even months. The rational side of the brain says I'd hate to get into a situation where he's wandering around the complex lost, the leasing agents have even called me in a rush as they've observed him walking around perhaps disoriented, or he's having an actual emergency when I'm hours if not days away. The irrational side says to just screw it, chance it and see what happens. You can set him up with a couple of weeks of groceries and check in on him when you pass through town every few weeks (you hope). Dealing with state and federal agencies can take months if not years (five years just to get a measly VA pension of less than $300.00 dollars a month, two plus years to get off a State waiting list for aid and just submit an application never mind what we might actually qualify for) and you want to get your career going as you've got things planned for your trucking career and the money you stand to make (ie-building my retirement nest egg).

So I'm curious, does anyone try and take care of a relative who'd otherwise be unable to really care for themselves? Would you risk it or am I making the right decision by sticking it out until I can get him into a facility or something? I know the later is the right choice, but there are some days I'm just ready to risk him for my career happiness.

I would say first and foremost, bite your tongue. You have to effectively live with this person day in and day out until you complete your time and hopefully they sign off on your getting your own truck. You may find you have things in common and possibly become best friends, you're better off feeling the guy out cause if you do differ on things - say politics for example - you could find you're with someone who'll agree to disagree OR you're living with some hardcore political nutjob who'll make it their mission to make your time hell and possibly tank your career just out of spite (some will go to extremes, you know I'm right). I'm not in trucking yet, but I've worked at places both where I was lucky that we had some lighthearted political banter but also at a place where we once had a knock down drag out fight (so to say). Regarding the later, I could go home at the end of my shift and I didn't have to then live with the guy after our fight. Otherwise the rest is just common curtesy... Listen to your music, podcasts, stream on your tablet using your headphones cause I really may not want to listen to it. You smoke, smoke inside of your own truck, smoke outside of mine. Pick up after yourself, maybe take the trash out and go for a truck wash every so often while I'm inside the truck stop taking a shower and doing some washing. Stuff you'd probably do if you were an extended stay guest at my house. So on and so forth... Heck, the last few examples about taking care of yourself might even convince me that you're a calm, well adjusted and professional individual; the kind of person I'd want working at my company doing even a little bit at stop at a time to turn around the perception some have that truckers are near the level of barbarians living in caves on eighteen wheels.

As a newbie, I may soon very well become one, just say no to Schneider and tanking. I'm one of those that called Schneider for a few reasons, they only offered me tanking as well and when I pressed they said that's all they had available in my area (Dallas) which I still find hard to believe. Now you wanna drive tankers fine, it can be financially worthwhile and such. But as others have said to me and have said here, no newbie with only a little experience should ever be driving something potentially dangerous. Get the experience first and then after a year or so, you can then decide if tanking is what you want to get into.

Jokingly I said, if as a newbie I were to have an accident with a dry van or a reefer and am perhaps on fire then that's bad enough. But as a newbie if I were to have an accident with a tank and be leaking or worse on fire, you'd have to start evacuating the area if not the neighborhood. Now I was joking but in all seriousness you shouldn't be put through that.

So I'm curious how many of you get home for the holidays? I mean I work in a profession that goes 24-7-365 and I'm working both Christmas Eve and Day, my mother who works for a bank gets the day off if Christmas Day falls on a week day. Now maybe rookie drivers don't get the holidays off, but if maybe you're a bit seasoned is that possible? Or do you just have to put in for it and hope you get it off?

Okay, so I put my toe in the water. I'm here, at work on my day off... I'm sure I've said this and I'll say it likely again, but I'm in hospitality and so we go twenty-four hours. I've worked my ass off for this place and was looking very forward to two days off after nearly fourteen days on. Then my auditor calls that she's rushing her pet to the emergency vet and won't be in for the overnight. So suddenly my ten hour shift becomes an eighteen hour shift, thankfully I was able to get the other auditor to relieve me part way through the night. That was Sunday, now Monday she again says she won't be in, damn dog..., and so my two days off are but a fading memory.

So anyway, I've been lurking on the board and spouting off the odd comment and such. But I just got through filling out the form for Raider Express, a friend of a friend (I'm serious) and I talked about the industry and he was very helpful. Spoke very well of RE. But I'm curious if anyone else has any knowledge of them and/or driven for them? I've already seen the review on the site for them but I was interested in what else???

Admittedly I wasn't aware of this case until I read about it on my own this morning... But I find it appalling that someone thought it would be a good enough idea to trust someone with upwards of 80K pounds of truck who as I've subsequently learned had issues with reading/writing English??? Really??? I've already read posts here saying that accountability should be and will be coming in the form of civil suits against the company itself, but I think the process of getting your CDL and of becoming employed needs to be looked at as including the reading/writing English issue. I'm just stunned that someone would trust a truck to someone who has issues with reading/speaking/writing the language!

The airline industry is the same way. It's standardized on English as the language of communication. The world over if you're a pilot, you're supposed to be able to communicate in English and even they occasionally have their issues with a pilot who doesn't speak any English.

I, as someone who wasn't aware of this until this morning and admittedly not in the industry yet, I'd like to know did he not understand the runaway roads? I mean I've known since childhood, when riding my bike around the neighborhood, when I'd get a few streets over there'd be a big hill in the next tract of homes. That riding down the hill all the kids would build up a bunch of speed we'd subsequently lose going up the next hill. Same in a truck with failing brakes, going downhill, you see a road going uphill you take it...vs staying downhill and surly crashing.