After Many Years I'm Ready To Get Rolling

Some of you know me, most of you don't. Either way, it's been far too long since I was posting regularly on here. How long some might ask. Well, about the time our very own @truckermike was about to leave the office for the open road. I'm heading into orientation with WE on Monday the 12th. I'd say this has been about a 20 year journey. It always seemed there was something in my way. Something, or someone, saying that I couldn't drive for a living. It all started at my local career center around 2003 or 2004. I had driven taxi in my hometown by that time and knew I wanted to drive for a living. My step-dad, sadly he passed about 9 years ago, was a tow truck driver my entire childhood. I guess I caught the driving bug from him the summer we spent delivering dumpsters for a, at least then, new company in Maine called Troiano. I'll say this often in my posts "but, I digress." I talked about driving with my worker at the career center as I was always seeing job opportunities for commercial drivers. She knew I was epileptic and wouldn't, at that time, pass a DOT Physical. She told me that they couldn't justify spending money to have me trained when no one would hire me with a DOT card. I later found out this was not entirely true. Only companies that were regulated by DOT, things like HOS and so forth, had to require a DOT Physical. At the time, and to this day honestly, my dream was to drive for my local bus company. They never go outside of that 150 mile, back then it was 100, radius and, until about '22, didn't require a DOT Card. But, time marched on. I went to school to learn computer science, oddly enough it was the language that I just couldn't handle. If I'm being honest the math would've killed me too; kind of ironic as I was a whiz in high school, and below that, with math.

My life took a few turns, I started working minimally with U-Haul in their Car Share division that kept me busy between about 2012 and 2020, Covid shut that down. I also earn my Associates in Automotive Technology, I had planned to be a better asset to U-Haul but, once again, time marched on. Around 2021 I realized that FMCSA had created an exemption for Epilepsy around 2015. After some effort I managed to get my exemption, and renewed when needed. I tried driving for that local bus company but they just led me on. I talked to the career center again and they were willing to pay for my CDL training to get my license. Since they were footing the bill I chose to go with the Class A vs B. After getting my Class A, a local municipality gave me a shot but not enough training and things just didn’t pan out. Finally in 2025 I applied to WE around February and they wanted me to start in a few days. However, they wanted me to be in different forms of training, and away from home, for about 4 weeks. I was in the middle of my Spring Semester for Computer Technology and just couldn’t risk things. But, go forward 2.5 months and they were still eager to hire me for the same regional position with the same training followed by 5 days out and 2 days home.

So, I’m eager to get started. I’m reading @oldshool book and agree with most of what he’s said, mainly about things like giving it a year and the name on the door. I’m a bit anxious but I know that I’ll get the training I need and a chance to get my experience. I hope to keep sharing as I progress with WE.