Time for Growth

Hi guys, today is my 1 year anniversary at GFS. I made it a whole year all the way around I also ended up making $30,000 more a year at GFS then I did working at the beer company. I did my final tally today and I made $70K I know that's not the highest paying truck driving job ever, and I won't be joining a country club like the guys who work at the LTLs, but I don't think $70K a year is anything to sneeze at either. A lot of people could say "hey if you don't want it I'll take it."

It's funny I just got back from a fun filled afternoon of waiting to get my truck fixed for round 2. I got new tie rods and an alignment on my 2000 F-150 I guess the tires were a million degrees from where they needed to be took the guys a hot minute to get the truck all aligned properly anyhow they knocked some money off the bill and they also gave me a free oil change for next time and some other stuff too, I've been actually pretty happy dealing with this Lincoln Mercury Dealership they have really always been really on the ball. It's so funny everyone who's taking there car there for service it's all late model Lincolns and high end late model Ford pick ups and here's me getting my 216,788 mile service when every other car is there for it's 300 mile tune up ha-ha!

Actually the new Lincolns look really nice the Lincoln MKZ I want one of those they look awesome! The dealer said there very nice automobiles one day I'll be able to get something nice like that of course when you work in a truck yard that while the area we park our trucks on is nice, the surrounding area as far as lot condition goes isn't so nice we have some mighty big pot holes, I know I've hit a few of them pretty fast in my pick up and that's why my ball joints tie rods and tires are shot, but I'll be more careful and now that hopefully all the major major expenses are behind me I can really get down to saving some real money. Last week I made good money at Gordon's cleared over $900.00+ this week I'm already at over 3,000 cases and we still have a day to go yet so this week will be one of my higher case count weeks and that helps the old bank account go into the positive direction. I'm on the 16-17 month plan and I really think it's doable.

MikeJ said:

Hi guys, today is my 1 year anniversary at GFS. I made it a whole year all the way around I also ended up making $30,000 more a year at GFS then I did working at the beer company. I did my final tally today and I made $70K I know that's not the highest paying truck driving job ever, and I won't be joining a country club like the guys who work at the LTLs, but I don't think $70K a year is anything to sneeze at either. A lot of people could say "hey if you don't want it I'll take it."

It's funny I just got back from a fun filled afternoon of waiting to get my truck fixed for round 2. I got new tie rods and an alignment on my 2000 F-150 I guess the tires were a million degrees from where they needed to be took the guys a hot minute to get the truck all aligned properly anyhow they knocked some money off the bill and they also gave me a free oil change for next time and some other stuff too, I've been actually pretty happy dealing with this Lincoln Mercury Dealership they have really always been really on the ball. It's so funny everyone who's taking there car there for service it's all late model Lincolns and high end late model Ford pick ups and here's me getting my 216,788 mile service when every other car is there for it's 300 mile tune up ha-ha!

Actually the new Lincolns look really nice the Lincoln MKZ I want one of those they look awesome! The dealer said there very nice automobiles one day I'll be able to get something nice like that of course when you work in a truck yard that while the area we park our trucks on is nice, the surrounding area as far as lot condition goes isn't so nice we have some mighty big pot holes, I know I've hit a few of them pretty fast in my pick up and that's why my ball joints tie rods and tires are shot, but I'll be more careful and now that hopefully all the major major expenses are behind me I can really get down to saving some real money. Last week I made good money at Gordon's cleared over $900.00+ this week I'm already at over 3,000 cases and we still have a day to go yet so this week will be one of my higher case count weeks and that helps the old bank account go into the positive direction. I'm on the 16-17 month plan and I really think it's doable.

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I think $70,000 is very good money for your experience level in trucking. You are also at a pay rate that as long as you like your job, don't leave for more money elsewhere. As someone who has been on both sides of $100,000, money is most definitely not everything. I love what I do now and can write my own check, but I choose a happy medium. I also drive my personal vehicles a long time. My current vehicle is a 2007 Ram 1500 4x4 Hemi. I bought it new in 07 and with 75,000 miles on it I have no plans for at least 5 years to buy a different one. Is your 16-17 month plan include buying a house with a sizeable down payment?

My mother has a MKZ and she loves it, they are really good cars.

16-17 month plan is to buy a house mortgage free or really really reduced loan and major down payment.

MikeJ said:

16-17 month plan is to buy a house mortgage free or really really reduced loan and major down payment.

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Sounds like a great plan Mike!

Banker said:

I think $70,000 is very good money for your experience level in trucking. You are also at a pay rate that as long as you like your job, don't leave for more money elsewhere. As someone who has been on both sides of $100,000, money is most definitely not everything. I love what I do now and can write my own check, but I choose a happy medium. I also drive my personal vehicles a long time. My current vehicle is a 2007 Ram 1500 4x4 Hemi. I bought it new in 07 and with 75,000 miles on it I have no plans for at least 5 years to buy a different one. Is your 16-17 month plan include buying a house with a sizeable down payment?

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I never really thought about it like that, but that's true I haven't really been around very long in the truck driving world and I know there are guys who are making a lot less then me working at the OTR companies. I don't totally understand all that, I see all the time people working for the OTR companies making peanuts or people working for like CRST Malone as owner operators and they kind of just let CRST do what ever to them and they make like after expenses and the rest of it is all said and done like $200.00 week. I don't understand that either why not go over and work for a company I make way more at GFS then some of these poor lease purchase guys. I know that a lot of people wouldn't touch GFS, Sysco or US Foods with a 20 foot poll and for what ever reason they won't go into the LTL world.

I wouldn't be against doing OTR work, because I think there probably are some okay companies and jobs out there, but at this point it's like why bother a few more years at Gordon's go on and bid on a Volume truck route have it made work 4 days a week maybe stay in a hotel one night a week no big deal and cranks $65K+ a year plus all of Gordons profit sharing and other fringe benefits, what would be the motivation to leave that kind of job?

There have been times when I've looked and I bet Gordon's has close to 4,000 drivers system wide here in the USA there have been times when I was looking to see what jobs they had open and its was like for the entire USA system the company only had like 18 jobs in transportation open and some of them were dispatch positions far away in like Texas, but I though gee that's not very many people leaving, your right for someone that hasn't been around all that long could make a heck of a lot less.


Switching gears here:

What happened was I won't get into specifics, but I was looking at home values in my area which are up down and all around and I looked at what I had in the bank and I said to my self we keep, keeping on in 16-months and this was in January when I said this, I could be a no mortgage home owner, Not that far away you know all homes need a little work here or there and they cost money to own and stuff, but I thought gee just wait it out for the rest of the 2016 and some of 2017 and you'll be ready to buy. It's funny you people make all kinds of different decisions some go the normal blue pill route others try to be part of the cool kids and I was never concerned with being one of the cool kids, but you know what times a great equalizer and people in high school might pull ahead of you by leaps and bounds, but it seems there really are not short cuts and come 10 years down the road you end up catching up to those who leaped a head of you in high school it's like the tortes and the hare just stay stead and focused and you'll sail right through, might even get through with less trouble and less things to tie you down. You know it's funny they always say "Live at home as long as you can." Well people say that and it's fun to laugh about, but I really did do that, but eventually you outgrow that and that's where I kind of am, but heck it's already March so I'm marching along.

I guess my only real words of wisdom are if your not concerned about being cool and aren't concerned about "keeping up the Jones's" or what ever and kind of are just out there working for you then keep your noise to the grind stone and start saving away you'll be alright and it'll work out well.

Speaking of time for growth and time equalizing people out, today my mom handed me a file a big file full of bad history (report cards and schooling reports from years 1994-2007) Anyhow most of it was pretty bad well it was pretty average will say a lot of C's and some F's and D's, however it got better towards the end of high school. Actually I pulled out and saved my final report card from high school dated June-15-2007. I had when I graduated high school a 3.052 GPA so I always tell everyone when I graduated high school I had a 3.0 exactly. I don't know what my college grades from Lorain County Community College are, because college grades don't count I have a diploma from them so that's all that really matters on that end. It took me a while to get out of what ever fog I was in, it wasn't until someone else came along and said the system is rigged here's how it's rigged and this is what we have to do to beat it. I'll be honest with you guys I wasn't really interested in school to much there wasn't a whole lot there that I liked.

When I got to GLTDS and we started talking about trucks and stuff I was all like this is totally awesome now learning how to drive them I didn't really take to it like a fish out of water and was actually very scared for a while, but you face your fears everyday and as time went on I became more and more comfortable with it, I still struggle I'm not real good at judging when to start following the trailer as far as backing goes, but I can get my self through. We have a truck rodeo at Gordons and they asked me last year if I wanted to do the rookie class and I said "Oh I'm not good enough for that competition." You know truck rodeo's that's all for 1 shot wonders and people that work for UPS as feeder drivers not people like me. However so far so good, the funny thing though about our truck rodeo's at Gordon is they have had all kinds of "hot shots" come in and jump into the cab of a truck and "show 'em' how it's done" and totally make fools of them selves I think one guy ended up getting fired shortly after he put on a little stunt at the truck rodeo. I know one of our transit drivers did 50' class at the last company truck rodeo and ended up he was doing some ally dock and was way crooked and was just in the truck laughing the whole time and they give you a free pull up.

My boss was a judge and he went "Nobody used there pull ups or anything and they were all way off or half cocked in the dock." For as bad as my little backing episode last Monday was I will say this about that while I was way off of the dock plate I was square with the actual dock it's self actually if I had my own portable dock plate I would have just used that and it would have been fine. At any rate that doesn't matter, the point is keep trudging ahead and stay out of trouble and you'll make it out alright. It's funny I think back to those school days and think about what a mediocre student I was and how everyone else was just charging ahead and so much better then me, but 9 years out this isn't totally the case and everyone gets snagged somewhere. I see oh this person has a nice this or that, but then I ask my self, well how much debt are they in and how far in the hole are they? College is fine you just need to have a plan and go through it as cheaply as possible you won't get free not really, I know there are "scholarships" but that's all loss leader crap to get people's foot in the door eventually those run out and surprise your not eligible for any other kind.

My dad once said "You know how you can still be successful here in today's world, you don't need to have a fancy college education all you have to do is work hard and don't have kids out of wedlock and don't do drugs or drink to the point of excess and in general keep your noise clean and you'll make it through. It's all you have to do."

There is no substitute for hard work and as Crete/Shaffer Trucking of Nebraska says "There are no short cuts."

Anyhow that's enough of my Sunday ramblings.

Funny you mention grades. I was the opposite, did really well until I was about 15 then checked out. Always a really smart kid, just didn't want to do the work and very easily distracted by other things that interested me more. Never did understand why homework would be, say 20 math problems. If I can do it right once it's the exact same process, just different numbers, so doing all 20 or 30 just seemed like pointless busywork.
Don't even get me started on English and Literature. Reading's great and all, just could never get into the crap they told me I had to read so I didn't. I'd try sometimes but would always catch myself daydreaming about halfway through a page. I'd still be reading but it was like part of my brain was somewhere else and if I were asked I couldn't repeat a word of what I'd just looked at. Had I been born 30yrs later they probably would've diagnosed me with ADD and drugged me to the gills.
Scared to death my kids, especially my son who acts like me most, will fall off the same cliff someday. Still have somewhat of an attitude regarding school. My wife's the primary contact with our kids' teachers and it's probably best that way.

I was on two heavy dosages of riddalin a day back in 1995 I just through out the copy's of the prescription from Revco (now CVS). Being on Riddalin is like being stone zombied off your @$$ you have no apatite what so ever your just a total Frankenstein.