Profile For midnight fox

Congrats on getting started, Cowboy, looking forward to seeing you pick up the Roehl diary baton from Wild-Bill!

If I were to have a trainer, I don't want some arrogant guy to holler in my ear like an army drill sergeant. I want a patient and understanding trainer. The idea of having to bunk with a trainer in the cab seems a little yucky. A complete lack of privacy in the sleeping area. I want to be a truck driver, not a monk.

Maybe you'll find a company that'll put you up in a motel each night for a couple months.

The first time through I'd missed that you said you have letters in English from your employers. A good approach to take would be to have them write letters of recommendation in their language which also include your employment dates, and then have these legally translated. Usually the legal translation process involves the letters being notarized as well, and from what I've seen I think most places will accept notarized statements from non-relatives that verify your employment dates.

I never had to pay American income tax because I didn’t make enough for me to file. I don’t know the amount, but it’s like $75,000 a year. If you make more than that, you must file for American taxes.

Don't shoot the messenger or anything, but you might've caused yourself a problem with this. It's necessary to file a tax return if your gross income from all sources is within a range of like $12k to $25k, depending on your status.

https://www.irs.gov/publications/p54#en_US_2019_publink100047317

You might've been thinking of the foreign earned income exclusion amount, that's around $105k for 2019. In other words, you still have to file a tax return, but you'll be exempted from owing up to that amount on foreign income. But there's still the matter of owing social security taxes, too; that foreign earned income exclusion doesn't exempt you from having to pay for social security.

And that range for filing ^^ applies only for 2019; a few years ago I was pretty certain it was far lower, because at the time I'd went through a whole hassle of filing one year on $6k of self-publishing income, and ended up owing around $1k on social security. It's probably a good idea to get in touch with an accountant to find out what your exposure might be on this...

Talk to recruiters, your situation is unique enough (I'm in a similar boat) that you can't really get definitive answers without going straight to the source. Even some of them had to put me on hold until they could speak to someone else to find their specific company policy. ;)

... but instead channel his mountain climbing skills.

Congrats, Wild-Bill! And thanks for keeping an excellent diary!

On a road like this, what's the right answer? Slow down and use some of the other lane, or make sure you don't end up going down it in the first place?

Personally, I found the tone to be perfectly in alignment with what was discussed in that thread. You should consider yourself lucky, man. ;)

Still curious about the washout aspect to reefer... I've seen people talk about the waits involved with getting unloaded, etc. etc., but never saw much indication of how much of a time suck washouts are, if it's more of a hassle if you're running nights, etc.

https://www.highya.com/legalshield-reviews

First—as with most things in life—you get what you pay for, and LegalShield is no different. Think of it this way: If you were required to hire a lawyer for a minor upcoming court case, it’s completely feasible to expect to pay anywhere from $5K to $10K, depending on a wide range of factors. With this is mind, the quality of legal services you could reasonably expect to receive for just $20 per month is fairly low. And, many of the online customer complaints we read referenced this specific fact more than anything else. So, if you’re expecting to receive personalized, responsive service from knowledgeable, highly rated firms for this amount, you may want to reconsider

Next, it appears that LegalShield has a relatively poor reputation for customer service. Most often, we read of difficulties encountered when trying to cancel plans, and service personnel who are more concerned about creating cumbersome processes than they are about solving problems.

Finally, when you consider that anything more than simple form-letter writing, a cursory review of your situation, or superficial advice (which may or may not be correct) will cost you much more than your standard monthly fee, using a LegalShield lawyer may be more expensive than hiring a lawyer direct. In fact, in one complaint we read, someone who claimed to have an immense amount of legal experience stated that you’ll be paying about 30% more overall.

With all this in mind, unless you’re looking for help with the most basic of legal services (which are often simple enough to handle yourself), you may want to think twice about joining LegalShield.

So I can't install my own lowrider hydraulics?

This load is a meat load, so finding a washout (use google) could be another step.

How does that usually go, do they tend to be nearby? Open 24 hours?

If you're interested in teaming, the recruiter I talked to at CR England was very clear in saying that as long as you're eligible to get your CDL in whichever state you'll be in, they have no additional requirements for how long your regular driver's licenses have been active.

The guy gets very impatient and angry every time I make a mistake... It's getting to the point where I'm afraid to try anything new

His emotional reaction ≠ your emotional reaction. You need to take responsibility for what you feel and how your feelings are affecting your decisions, like how you're shying away from executing maneuvers you know it's your responsibility to do. When you say "it's getting to the point where", you're describing what should be an active mental process you're undergoing to face and understand and manage your own emotions.

I want to drive, but you know what? I'm pretty angry right now that I'm in this situation because the staff in the office just doesn't give a f***. And that I was sitting for about 58 hours earlier in the week because they were "light on loads" and only got $50 for it. So I think it's better that I don't drive for a day or two.

So are you going to stay at the terminal?

It couldn't hurt to apply to Prime and see if it's an option. I don't think it's wishy-washy to have a valid concern about which company would give your career a better start. From what I've learned so far, if it were me personally, I'd go with the company that wanted to train me more extensively first.

I read that earnings for large companies are down and are expected to stay down until the second quarter next year...

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/16/ceo-of-the-largest-us-trucking-company-predicts-difficult-quarter-for-transport-industry.html

I also don't want to go with a company sponsored CDL school as they all want you for a year or more minimum from what I'm seeing. The horror stories don't seem to stop with this arrangement as you're basically entrapping yourself it seems as they dangle "Make ***up to*** $70,000 your first year!" in front of you and the reality ends up being guys slaving away for $300-$800 per week and want out only to be hit with a $7000+ bill with interest.

I'm looking forward to earning $300 a week out there. I just wish your secret sources kept this a secret, they're going to ruin it for everyone.

“Take-home pay for drivers has not gone up at the same pace as their pay rates have gone up,” he said. The average length of haul has dropped from 800 miles to 503 miles since 2000. “As a result, fleets that used to get 120,000 miles per year on their trucks now struggle to get 100,000 miles.

Is it a safe bet to assume this is because of e-logs?