On one of the auto forums people were complaining about the long wait to get appointments for car service. Some are over 2 months.
Seems like many young kids today are opting to go to college and get a degree in Interpretive Dance and end up flipping burgers rather than get their hands dirty under the hood.
And there seems to be many jobs for truck drivers with CDLs according to indeed.com. They don't necessarily need to be long distance over the road. Drivers can get home every day.
It worked for me. I'd rather do nearly anything than get my hands dirty under the hood.
Of course, Computer Science was a much more lucrative major than Interpretive Dance.
I don't know what the percentage is for OTR offering but for many companies a local driver slot is a plum job requiring seniority.
OTR isn't for everybody. Typically you're paid by the mile, possibly a flat rate sum for loading/unloading. That translates as a lot of unpaid hours. When your doing the necessary paperwork, you're not being paid. When you sit for five hours waiting for a loading dock, you're not being paid. When you sit in Fresno for two days while the company tries to find a load worth taking, you're not being paid.
To be an owner-operator requires a lot of optimism and very poor bookkeeping skills. The '70s are long gone.
It depends a lot on location but if I wanted to go that route it would be as a hot shot. You need a Class 4 (F-450 etc) or Class 5 (F-550 etc.) and a flatbed, generally a gooseneck. You can only haul 16,500 lbs of freight they're often time sensitive loads.
Location is the thing. There aren't many loads available in Montana. You can do better in the Midwest.
After chasing electrons around a screen long enough getting my hands dirty is good for my mental health.
I really liked the combination of using logic to control machine tools. Installing the systems on the factory floor tends to be hot, noisy, and dirty but I got satisfaction of seeing a 500 ton press doing what I programmed it to do. All that is pretty much gone now. Computer aided dispatch and mining data for pretty charts just isn't the same.
Never was good at interpretive dance. My ex did pretty good with library science and art degrees but she was aggressive, always looking for the next move up, instead of being the helpful little librarian in Podunk Public Library. It's what you make of it. I don't have a CS degree, and they hardly existed when I graduated. iirc Purdue was the first to offer a CS degree in '67. RPI at the time considered computers to be glorified sliderules; they were something you should know how to use but it wasn't a career field.
I never said I didn't like to get my hands dirty. Just not under the hood. Gardening, home improvement, all good. I just have no interest in fiddling with engines.
Today's ICE are a press fit under the hood. Repairing them is not a job I'd want. Maybe the EV won't be such a PITA?
Well, no tutu for you!
To be a tech today you have to have some electronic skills too. Many of the problem are with the technology, not the mechanical parts.
Years ago I did all my own work. My last few cars, the book says it has spark plugs but I never saw them. Only thing I do now is check the oil and will the washer tank.
I have had an idea where the drivers could drive one way for say 4 hours and switch with another truck comming back the other way so they could be home at night. With computers it would be relative easy to set the schedule up.
Very true today. I put my timing light and dwell/tach in the Goodwill bag years ago. Now you need a good scan tool.
Without interpretive dance, how would people know what the dance meant?
Oh, please. If you only cook burgers on one side they're not nearly as good.
Hmmm. If I were 20 again, I'd consider it.
Caterpillar repair faciluty and he said you can't beg, borrow or steal even a half decent mecihanic. It was bad enough 40-sh years ago when I was service manager at the Toyota dealership. When you get a good tech you treat him REALLY WELL to hang onto him!!!!.
Having been in both fields - auto and IT, I can definitely say the wrenching was more enjoyable in SO many ways - but took a heavy physical toll that I am still paying for 40 years later. And I still like getting my hands dirty - even when my back hurts.
When I got into IT I changed my hairstyle to a brushcut - so I would be less likely to tear it out - - -
Both carreers were good to me - one way or the other - but if you want job security the motive power (or basically just about any skilled) trades are "platinum"
Having been in the teaching side of the trade it was discouraging to have the school send all the kids who would never make electricians, plumbers, or engineers into the auto shop - where I then had to teach them electrical theory, electronics, fluid mechanics (a fancy term for plumbung) basic physics and math before I could effectively theach them auto mechanics..
A GOOD mechanic can easily pivot to electrical, plumbing, and even elrctronic repair and computer tech today.
It is to the point anyone with a pulse who isn't totally blind can get a job as a truck driver today. I had 2 brothers in the business - One no longer on the green side of the grass, and the other who finally worked his way out of it after almost getting killed. He got sick of being treeted as a third class citizen.
Depends. A company like Consolidated Freightways with a lot of terminals could. They were very successful and gave birth to Freightliner. A lot of bad decisions later, including buying Emery Air Freight and they died in
2002.When I worked for Watkins & Shepherd (bought by Swift) they had terminals in Missoula, Helena MT, Seattle, LA, and Oxford MS. We ran all over the US and parts of Canada and I'd seldom see another W&S truck on the road.
Carpet and furniture were the two money makers, with LA being the carpet source and Oxford for domestic furniture. A typical three or four week run would start with loading linerboard at the Stone plant in Missoula for the Stone plant in Tracy, CA. It didn't pay, but it was a load out of Montana. Then they would try to find a load in the Bay going to LA but if they needed trucks you would deadhead. Load carpet in LA for Dalton GA. Often you would load more carpet in Dalton going west. (yeah carpet goes both ways). One load went to Denver. Usually you could get scrap batteries or Ralston Purina stuff going back to LA but one time I loaded newspaper inserts in Boulder going to Baltimore. I forget where I went after Baltimore. I was just happy to get out of there with all 18 wheels.
That's how it works for most companies. There is an overall strategy to get the trucks to someplace where they can get a load that pays. I don't know what it is now but in the '90s $1.10 a mile for a truckload run was relatively good. However the shippers weren't dumb. If you were empty in Albuquerque there aren't a lot of loads out of NM so you might haul cotton to LA for $.87 a mile just to get back in play.
That's the reality. If you get home every three or four weeks you're doing good. Forget birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, family emergencies and so forth. You won't be there.
Nothing new there. I favored Ford. Chrysler or Chevy straight sixes. Then they screwed that up by bending the sixes to make sure they were as much of a PITA as the eights.
I did have a Chrysler straight eight. Now there was a beast but it was easy to work on.
I change the oil and filter at 5000 mile intervals. There isn't much else in the owner's manual. There are plugs under the plastic shroud but there's no distributor or plug wires.
Yes, with the straight six you could hop over the fender and stand right next to the engine. Enough room to set up a chair and a table for the beer.
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