Becoming A Truck Driver: How I Got Started

How It All Started

I was 21 years old and working at a warehouse outside of Atlanta, GA. I'm originally from Buffalo, NY where I now reside 14 years later. But when we were 19, a couple of buddies of mine and I jumped in an old van and drove from Buffalo, NY to Atlanta, GA on a wing and a prayer. We were all about the adventure. Actually, I was all about the adventure and LOVED dragging others into my adventures with me so off we went!

After a couple of really fun years my one buddy and I found ourselves working for $5.50 an hour in a warehouse. We worked a ton of hours and enjoyed it. The people we worked with were great and we partied a lot! We damn sure weren't getting rich, but we were getting by.

One day we got to work and saw a large six wheel rental truck sitting in the parking lot. I asked the boss what was up. He said we had some pallets we had to run into downtown Atlanta (about 10 or 15 miles maybe) and pick up some others and bring em back.

Well, I had never even seen the inside of one of those trucks, let alone drive one. I knew they were automatics and figured I could drive it easy enough. I eagerly volunteered for the task. My boss asked with a skeptical look, ""have you ever driven a truck like that before?"" and like any responsible adult looking for an opportunity to try something new I lied my brains out!!!!! I said' ""Oh yeah! My aunt moved twice and my grandma moved once and all three times we needed a truck that size and I drove it."" He continued with that skeptical look and said he'd talk to the other boss and let me know.

Well, I bugged him repeatedly for the next hour or two and to my absolute delight they said I could do it! I was freakin! This was gonna be a blast! At least I had hoped so. Hell, I had never done it before but what the hell... it'll be fun I'm sure! So we loaded up the truck and off I went.

It handled like a big pickup truck. Nothing to it. So I cruised down into the city, found my destination, and made the delivery. Well, before they could reload me it was their lunchtime. So I wandered the city for about 45 minutes, came back, they reloaded me, and off I went back to the warehouse.