Married Couple Looking to get into the Expedite Business.
- Thread starter LizSmiles
- Start date
LisaLouHoo
Expert Expediter
"Bruises fade and bones will mend-but a psyche can be ruined FOREVER" : LisaLouHoo, c. 2008
Here is a suggestion, silly yes and no, but try it for 24 hours. Sit in ur existing van or what ever at a truckstop for 24 hours. You can go eat where u want to, but u must go back to the truck stop to sleep or what ever. U will really like the pan handlers and their stories........IMHO PS sit there for 3 days if u really really want to see the truth.
PS sit there for 3 days if u really really want to see the truth.
mcavoy33
Seasoned Expediter
Here is a suggestion, silly yes and no, but try it for 24 hours. Sit in ur existing van or what ever at a truckstop for 24 hours. You can go eat where u want to, but u must go back to the truck stop to sleep or what ever. U will really like the pan handlers and their stories........IMHO
This is actually a really good suggestion.
Here is a suggestion, silly yes and no, but try it for 24 hours. Sit in ur existing van or what ever at a truckstop for 24 hours. You can go eat where u want to, but u must go back to the truck stop to sleep or what ever. U will really like the pan handlers and their stories........IMHO
It's not a silly suggestion but not realistic either. LizSmiles said in her original post that they have yet to get their CDLs. Sitting at a truck stop in a FedEx package truck is nothing like sitting in an expediter van or straight truck. Expediter trucks of any kind serve as our home away from home and they offer comforts a package truck or even a rented truck used for this purpose would not.
There is no need to spend time in a truck stop to subject yourself to panhandlers, hookers and the pee in the parking places that your fellow truckers leave behind. Those experiences will come in their own time once you get on the road and strategies will be developed then if not before to adapt.
(This is the part where Moot usually jumps in to make fun of my mental rehearsals that develop strategies ahead of events. In this case: (1) React to a panhandler, (2) React to a hooker's solicitation, and (3) React to a mysterious puddle and the smell of pee in your parking place.)
On the positive side, you will meet but not be overrun by panhandlers. Hookers don't bother you every night, the rain washes the pee away, and you don't have to park at truck stops all the time. It's all just part of the game, and a small part at that.
While you don't need to spend a night or three at a truck stop right now, LizSmiles, it would be a great exercise to spend a couple hours or more at one just to check the place out. Observe truckers fueling their trucks. Check out the laundry. Look at what is for sale there and get familiar with the devices you do not recognize.
You might even get up one morning, take your shower bags from home, buy a shower at the truck stop and take your morning shower there, and eat breakfast at the truck stop restaurant.
You have months before you get into the business. Attend an EO Workshop if you can (the 2012 schedule is being developed now) and the Expo too.
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mcavoy33
Seasoned Expediter
This is where I begin to question myself. Am I not trying hard enough? Why is it that I have never met a lot lizzard?
I may not want them to bother me every night but I just wish they would do it for one night so I can experience it.
LisaLouHoo
Expert Expediter
Also, the Pilot just outside Laredo, exit 13. Saw them at the J in Franklin, KY too.
In time, a short time, you will develop favorite truckstops, places where WallyWorld is preferred over any stop available in the area, which Wally cops will run you off, thus sending you to the nearest Home Depot.
You haven't lived though til you're forced off the freeway at 4 am due to a fatal accident on black ice near Lexington, KY. Exhausted in the first place from driving 16 hours and making the delivery in bad weather, your expediting boyfriend and you decide the back of that Speedway parking lot looks good. Alot of space, too.
Come sunup, you wake to discover it's NOT the Speedway, but rather an adjoined lot, and you are in the back of the Spearmint Rhino Gentleman's Club. In a white van with no windows. Why gee, no, that doesn't look suspicious...
"Bruises fade and bones will mend-but a psyche can be ruined FOREVER" : LisaLouHoo, c. 2008
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