Michael just hauled his first load for Jane Lew Hot Shot Trucking Co., thanks to a micro loan arranged by JSI and a local trucking co. The barrier to employment had been in seeking to have his commercial drivers license reinstated. He had been unemployed for over a year and a half after working in the trucking industry for more than 20 years.
Victim of an unscrupulous trucking company, Michael spent all his savings trying to have his former employer resolve his license problems, but to no avail.
". . . companies may promise to ensure that their drivers are always driving legally, within the federal regulations for driving-time limits and allowable load weights. The reality, however, is that unscrupulous companies often set up loads and time limits that cannot be humanly accomplished unless a driver does drive illegally. Furthermore, if you are that unfortunate driver and you get caught, these companies will take no responsibility for making you break the law. In most instances, you can be stuck with huge fines to pay out of your own pocket."
http://www.ehow.com/about_4569478_truck-driving.html
"Nowhere is this more evident than in the trucking industry where unscrupulous companies often take advantage of drivers, forcing them to work beyond what is safe for both the driver and the public.There is a reason that trucks are often called sweatshops on wheels."
http://www.truckinjurylawyerblog.com/2009/04/articles/driver-problems/april-28-workers-memorial-day/
At the same time, the severe downturn of the economy made finding a job in another line of work near impossible. Michael could have applied for disability benefits due to non combat related injuries sustained in military service, and other health issues, but “I just didn’t want all the baggage that comes with having a disability”. This attitude is not uncommon among persons with health barriers to employment.
JSI recognizes that persons seeking employment, or starting a small business, often have an immediate need for funds to help overcome a relatively small obstacle that stands between them and their goal. Hence, a micro loan fund for such purposes was recently established, with Michael being the first recipient who is now back doing the work he loves. Without this loan, he would still be desperately looking for a job.
Keep on trucking, Michael!
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Super Tight
When it takes you 45 minutes to move your trailer 2 dock doors, you know the spot is very tight. This place will rank among my top 3 toughest backing jobs. 73 feet of vehicle and maybe a parking lot that was 50 feet deep! It was unreal, but mission accomplished.
I got into Murray, KY at about 6:00 pm. Dropped my trailer and went to the Wally World, where I currently sit. No new loads as of yet. If they can't get me something because of the holiday weekend, then I will request to go home. I am sure that will go over well. I am only 1 1/2 hours from the house, can't see sitting here and not being home. Hopefully I will get something tomorrow.
Pretty much a routine drive today, after I cleared Chicago. I hate that place. 440 miles, so a pretty short day.
Not much else. Will get into all the college football games tomorrow, and hope for a load or a trip to the house.
All is good at the house. Sara is working hard on the other half of the kitchen, made lots of progress today. All is well with the dogs.
I got into Murray, KY at about 6:00 pm. Dropped my trailer and went to the Wally World, where I currently sit. No new loads as of yet. If they can't get me something because of the holiday weekend, then I will request to go home. I am sure that will go over well. I am only 1 1/2 hours from the house, can't see sitting here and not being home. Hopefully I will get something tomorrow.
Pretty much a routine drive today, after I cleared Chicago. I hate that place. 440 miles, so a pretty short day.
Not much else. Will get into all the college football games tomorrow, and hope for a load or a trip to the house.
All is good at the house. Sara is working hard on the other half of the kitchen, made lots of progress today. All is well with the dogs.
Present day....trucking along
I realized I haven't really talked about what my husband has been doing since getting furloughed. A year ago when the furlough first occurred, he came up a plan. He decided to get his real estate license. At first I was against it, because I am and have always been a person that likes that guaranteed bi-weekly paycheck. I didn't (and still don't) like the idea of going indefinite amounts of time before a pay check comes in. It's too unstable and nerve-racking. In the end, he convinced me it was a reasonable idea. For one thing, he had already taken a real estate class in VA (he never got licensed). He also owned a rental property and and gone through the process of buying and selling 3-4 houses himself, so he was pretty familiar with everything about real estate and knew a lot about it. It would be a quick process to get licensed and he even did his research in talking to brokers in our area and finding out more about how everything was going. He got offered a job with one broker and decided to go ahead and try things out. Also, since he was collecting unemployment, he was able to stay on it until he actually made a profit, so aside from the cost of getting licensed and some other real estate agent fees he wouldn't be out a ton of money. He tried it for a couple months and nothing was happening. He did countless open houses, put out flyers, went to some of those "business people of *insert name of town here*" gatherings, etc... I think the market was just too crappy. Nothing was moving. Finally he threw in the towel realizing he wasn't going to make money doing that job. Back to the drawing board. I realize I'm biased being that I'm his wife, but I'm convinced my husband is very very smart. He has very mechanical mind, he just understands how things work. I know a lot of people are like this, but I'm not one of them, so I admire this quality. Anything mechanical, he just kind of automatically gets, can fix, can improve, etc... I've seen him change out light fixtures and ceiling fans, rewire cable, install wireless internet, change the touch screen on his phone, etc... He also knows a lot about computer stuff. He's been able to walk me through many many computer issues, including ones at work that I doubt I could have gotten IT people in my own office to figure out. He also writes music software as a hobby and knows how to build radio control cars, planes, and helicopters. It's not even just that he knows how to do the basic functions of these hobbies, but he also knows how to improve them. Like with writing software, in addition to the music software he writes, when he was flying he also wrote software that sorts pilot scheduling bids. When doing real estate he came up with a program that matched up owner addresses/phone numbers with for-sale-by-owner listings. With his RC hobby, he can actually improve the speed and different aspects of the maneuvering because he just understands how do it. I just think not everyone thinks outside the box like his does and can come up with these ideas and successfully implement them. I think he's brilliant.
Anyway, that being said, my husband was applying for any and every kind of job and by this time had dropped his standards quite significantly and was actually applying for any old lowly job (we're talking warehouse worker at Lowe's, Autozone clerk, Sprint phone salesmen, etc...). He wasn't get any offers. Which was sad. And also depressing for him. As if it's not hard enough to lose your career, you can't even get a lowly job. It's the most depressed and low I've ever seen him. To the point that I actually went and talked to an EAP counselor at my job because after a while I didn't know how to deal with him like that. I went back and forth between cheerleader and getting frustrated/tired of him being so dumpy about it all and feeling like enough was enough. He was just sooooooo down and depressed. It was hard.
Eventually he heard about some pilots talking about doing truck driving. He started looking into it and started thinking about doing it. This was a similar scenario to the whole real estate scenario in that he slowly justified it as being a logical idea to me. He would be traveling/away (we're already used to that from him flying), the pay sounded potentially decent from what he could deduce, it was something he was capable to getting trained to do quickly and fairly easily and would be able to start doing it soon. Also, he didn't want to wait around for something better to come along because eventually there would come a time when unemployment would run out and he didn't want to be stuck in a panic without a job. So he signed up for CDL school (about 5 weeks long) and began truck driving. First off, if it's not already completely obvious, aviation and trucking are two VERY different industries. Different kinds of people, different "culture" etc... It is/was comical. The process at the company Greg chose was actually fairly rigorous. He chose a flat-bed semi company because the pay was supposed to be better with more work involved (tarping and strapping the loads) and because this company tried to give you weekends off, were as a lot of companies kept the drivers out for weeks at a time. He's been doing the job about 6 months now and absolutely hates it. The pay is not what he thought it would be. He's gone at least 5 days a week and sometimes only gets to come home for like 30 hours. It's been a hot summer and he sleeps in a truck he's not allowed to keep running at night that gets sweltering hot. The labor part of the job is really hard, especially in the heat. He gets drenched in sweat daily tarping and strapping the loads on to the flat bed. He's lost between 15-20 lbs since he started. It's also dangerous, a lot of guys fall, get hit with something, etc... The company has completely unrealistic expectations on how long it takes to tarp and strap and drive to the destination his loads get delivered to. They frequently ask him to cheat on his log book and lie about how long he has rested or how long it's taken him to load in order to give him more drive time. This is a problem not only because it's illegal, but also because if he ever did cheat and get caught and get a ticket, it could affect his aviation career, since pilots can't have violations on their driving records and he fully intends to go back to flying. He's EXHAUSTED every day. He's miserable every day.
I want to tell him to quit, but I saw the months he tried finding another job before resorting to this and he could not find anything. And that's when we had his unemployment, which now we wouldn't have if he were to quit. I can't support us on my salary alone. He's been looking/applying for other jobs, but so far hasn't heard anything. He really doesn't have a ton of time to dedicate to searching and applying though because he barely has any downtime. It's a catch 22. So that's where we're at right now.
Anyway, that being said, my husband was applying for any and every kind of job and by this time had dropped his standards quite significantly and was actually applying for any old lowly job (we're talking warehouse worker at Lowe's, Autozone clerk, Sprint phone salesmen, etc...). He wasn't get any offers. Which was sad. And also depressing for him. As if it's not hard enough to lose your career, you can't even get a lowly job. It's the most depressed and low I've ever seen him. To the point that I actually went and talked to an EAP counselor at my job because after a while I didn't know how to deal with him like that. I went back and forth between cheerleader and getting frustrated/tired of him being so dumpy about it all and feeling like enough was enough. He was just sooooooo down and depressed. It was hard.
Eventually he heard about some pilots talking about doing truck driving. He started looking into it and started thinking about doing it. This was a similar scenario to the whole real estate scenario in that he slowly justified it as being a logical idea to me. He would be traveling/away (we're already used to that from him flying), the pay sounded potentially decent from what he could deduce, it was something he was capable to getting trained to do quickly and fairly easily and would be able to start doing it soon. Also, he didn't want to wait around for something better to come along because eventually there would come a time when unemployment would run out and he didn't want to be stuck in a panic without a job. So he signed up for CDL school (about 5 weeks long) and began truck driving. First off, if it's not already completely obvious, aviation and trucking are two VERY different industries. Different kinds of people, different "culture" etc... It is/was comical. The process at the company Greg chose was actually fairly rigorous. He chose a flat-bed semi company because the pay was supposed to be better with more work involved (tarping and strapping the loads) and because this company tried to give you weekends off, were as a lot of companies kept the drivers out for weeks at a time. He's been doing the job about 6 months now and absolutely hates it. The pay is not what he thought it would be. He's gone at least 5 days a week and sometimes only gets to come home for like 30 hours. It's been a hot summer and he sleeps in a truck he's not allowed to keep running at night that gets sweltering hot. The labor part of the job is really hard, especially in the heat. He gets drenched in sweat daily tarping and strapping the loads on to the flat bed. He's lost between 15-20 lbs since he started. It's also dangerous, a lot of guys fall, get hit with something, etc... The company has completely unrealistic expectations on how long it takes to tarp and strap and drive to the destination his loads get delivered to. They frequently ask him to cheat on his log book and lie about how long he has rested or how long it's taken him to load in order to give him more drive time. This is a problem not only because it's illegal, but also because if he ever did cheat and get caught and get a ticket, it could affect his aviation career, since pilots can't have violations on their driving records and he fully intends to go back to flying. He's EXHAUSTED every day. He's miserable every day.
I want to tell him to quit, but I saw the months he tried finding another job before resorting to this and he could not find anything. And that's when we had his unemployment, which now we wouldn't have if he were to quit. I can't support us on my salary alone. He's been looking/applying for other jobs, but so far hasn't heard anything. He really doesn't have a ton of time to dedicate to searching and applying though because he barely has any downtime. It's a catch 22. So that's where we're at right now.
Eastbound And Down, Loaded Up And Trucking...All Roads Lead Right Back To NoMi...(Part Two Of Four)
All Photos In This Post By John Hoff
I thought it would be a good time to talk more about my trip out of town and how--while it's fun to travel--the real adventure is home ownership and turning my neighborhood around. I'm constantly telling friends in their 20s that home ownership doesn't TIE YOU DOWN. Rather, it frees you because you have a base of stability to strike out from, seeking various economic and travel opportunities made possible by--oh gee--having equity instead of being a RENT SLAVE.
I'm just saying.
The picture at the top of the post is...
...to state, once again, that I only take "micro vacations" when I have a moment of my own time in the course of paid work for my employer, driving a truck. The vast majority of my day looks like this: trying to keep it between the lines, hour upon hour, but no more than the number of hours allowed.
But when you travel--even in the course of hard work--you see things you've never seen before like a magnolia tree, or retired racehorses living large on Kentucky bluegrass behind 3-rail, creosote dipped fence posts. When you eat somewhere, you can pull in someplace local and order something unique, almost like a tourist.
So here's something I saw in a small town in Illinois (I think) while I was waiting at a railway crossing. It's an old caboose and it's BLUE. When I was a kid in rural Minnesota, trains still had cabooses--it's complicated why they usually DON'T have them anymore, check out this informative article from Wikipedia, click here--and I'd heard the legend of cabooses that were BLUE. I don't think I'd ever seen one before, ever. A few that weren't RED, but BLUE? No, never. Maybe in the dark we once THOUGHT we saw one, but who can tell in the dark?
Anyway, I had my camera handy in the cab, so I snapped this photo:
Later I was driving along and I saw a prison. I think I saw a total of three prisons on my trip, maybe four. When I drive by I wonder if there are prisoners inside who spend long periods of time looking out the window, watching the vehicles go past, envying my freedom...like that song Folsom Prison Blues, when Johnny Cash sings about the train going by and how "They're probably drinking coffee and smoking big cigars."
Here's a picture of something that always bothers me when I'm driving: a motorcycle, right in front of me. I am a fanatic about maintaining a safe following distance. I'm always thinking about some scenario where a tire blows or something malfunctions on the vehicle ahead, and it slows down rapidly. What's a fender bender in a car or truck is DEATH OR PERMANENT INJURY on a motorcycle. I swear, I don't even know why people drive them. Seriously. They were fine for soldiers to carry messages in World War One and risk their life in the endeavor, but after that...just a bad idea.
There, I said it.
I have a little verbal talisman I say whenever a motorcycle is in front of me: GET OFF MY FRONT BUMPER YOU BUZZING INSECT!!!
When I say these words, I never have an accident with the motorcycle.
Try it. It works.
This last photo shows signs that are placed at some rest stops reminding commercial drivers about the limits on the number of hourssss allowwwwwed on.........
DRIVING!!!!
Geez, nodded off for a second, there. Good thing the truck knows the way.
No, seriously, I always stay within my allotted hours of driving and get enough sleep.
Oh, one more thing about the photo at the very top of the post: Illinois has the WORST ROADS and the MOST TOLLS. You can literally see the state line because there's a row of potholes right there, just before you get to the Welcome To Illinois sign to let you know you've OFFICIALLY arrived.
And, for the record, Abraham Lincoln was born in KENTUCKY. True fact. So when the signs in Illinois say "Land of Lincoln," well, that's not entirely true, either, but I'm sure they're finding a way to charge you a toll for the billboard.
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