Posted on 11/21/2017 9:23:12 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
A lot of millennials haven’t even learned to drive. Uber’s good enough for them.
FWIW, I’m an independent owner operator hauling propane with my own trailer and operating authority. My tractor is a restored 99 Pete 379 Extended Hood, so I’m exempt from E-Logs.
I run locally - home every night (well, Day, because I run at night to avoid the horrible traffic in Seattle), and it took years to get here. Started off hauling nothing but hazmat tanker for the most part. (Gasoline, chemicals.) I run about 65-70 hours per week, 51 weeks a year. A good year grosses $400K, but average years are closer to $300K. Net around $150K after all expenses. Once the equipment is paid off next year that adds $75K to the net.
Had someone told me 10 years ago that I’d be buying $70K worth of fuel annually I would have laughed my ass off. Not now.
Millennials are too lazy and too drug addled to work the hours required to get where I am, even though it can be done in 5 years if you work really hard.
Then there is the credit issue. Not many firms will loan $300K to someone without a really good background and experience. Propane and cryogenic equipment tend to be expensive..
That’s one thing that I think I would have liked to do: long-haul trucking. See the country; I wouldn’t mind the hours. Sleep in the truck. Shower at Petro or Loves. These millennials do not know what they’re missing.
I’m 50 however; at such an age, the long-haul lifestyle would probably put me through the wringer.
Diesel fuel is icky and causes globull warming!/s
They will be happy when the Tesla truck saves the planet!
I am not a Millenial, but could never get the hang of backing up a trailer.
Because they were taught in our communist schools that government is going to give them everything.
JoMa
My instincts tell me that they don’t want to be stereotyped but it is they who see it as such.
I like Mike Rowe and “Dirty Jobs”, but he needs to come to a state like NJ where those jobs aren’t even offered to Americans. Like the meat-packing plants where Americans were replaced with illegals (who were then replaced by the same Americans after ICE raids), Americans will do ANY job - but not for horrible wages/no benefits. Contractors using American workers are underbid on every job, and they are then forced to 1) close up shop, or 2) hire illegal aliens.
Also, in high cost, high-tax states like NJ, the $15 per hour minimum wage will be inevitable because that is how much it will cost to get an ILLEGAL to do the job; several years ago they were already getting $10/hour cash. It is a job-killer, but the alternative we are experiencing is even worse: the flight of productive young Americans who can’t afford to stay here. That starts a deadly spiral where no new company even tries to move in because there is no talented labor pool anymore.
I want to see Mike Rowe crash a jobsite filled with illegals.
That’s OK. I see “professional” truck drivers that have been doing it for years that can’t backup for anything. Now the local delivery guys are a different story. One local that drives for Saia could back across the country at 30 mph and never miss a beat.
I see Uber as a symptom of the horrible reality that many young people can’t afford cars (and in my state of NJ, car INSURANCE); it is also a sign that for the primarily foreign Uber drivers, that is the only way they could afford a vehicle young enough for Uber - they have to share it.
The only truck drivers I know that do well are unionized ones (UPS, etc.) - and that is after they have some years under their belts. Otherwise, I suspect drivers bump against an earnings ceiling where companies will just find cheaper drivers (like any other field).
Here in the oilfields of the Permian Basin a kid can come straight out of high school and go to work in the oilfields making 60 to 75 thousand a year. It’s hard work and long hours but it’s there. The trades have been long ignored and it’s starting to show, plumbers, welders, electricians and carpenters are in demand but they’re just not out there and a good one can draw a premium wage. Many take it even farther and start their own business with incomes far surpassing most if not all degree’s. Come with headaches but the payoff is worth it.
Our oil haulers work 24 hours a day 7 days a week and they still leave us waiting 2 to 3 days to pick up a load of oil. Get a little wet weather and it jumps to 5 to 7 days, they work all the hours they legally can. 100 grand a year is not unusual for that business.
Truckers have to work.
Local WI company was advertising on billboards that their average pay was 72K plus.
Then there are open pit coal mine truck jobs that do pay over 100K - driving really huge dump trucks, the kind that have to be disassembled to be moved in or out of the mine; the kind that has 15 foot tall tires ...
When railroads were first being laid, the legal situation of dead cows and other annoyances had to be resolved first. That was a much simpler time.
I do not believe the legal complications of driverless vehicles will ever be resolved to the point that they can appear on the highways.
truckers do make 6 figures, however, the accounting is a flipping mess, the trucking company tries to screw them at every turn, the deadlines are unattainable, it sucks as a job
Driverless trucks are on their way.
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