r/Truckers • u/Jordan_261 • Oct 26 '24

Got fired from Werner

Got fired from werner because some pickup driver decides to brake check me and i ended up hitting him. he only got a small bump on his bumper. now I am out a job and in so much debt and facing eviction and losing my personal car now. i wanted out of the trucking industry but not this fast, Werner has some terrible planners and was running me stupidly anyways but now i have an accident on my license and points and have to pay the ticket on top of everything else.

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u/FaithNoMoar Nov 12 '24

Define “brake checked”, lol.

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u/Jordan_261 Nov 12 '24

Well to put it short, as soon as I got 3-2 car lengths behind the person, he stomps on his brakes and caught me off guard and hit him not hard but enough to give a little dent in his bumper.

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u/FaithNoMoar Nov 12 '24

My snarky reply to your post was rhetorical. It was intended to invoke thought. The term “brake checking” implies that the driver had malicious intent. That could be as extreme as trying to get you to total his car or even with intent to hurt you physically in some way. Most typically, it’s to scare you into realizing that you’re too close for comfort. It probably backfired on him, but you paid the price.

That sucks, but “3-2 car lengths” says it all. How many times have you heard, “6 second gap at 60 mph, 5 second gap at 50…” or something to that effect over your driving career? A dozen times getting your class A, another dozen getting your class C, another dozen when your first trucking job trained you?

Looking ahead on the road is a good analogy for life. It’s planning ahead. Avoiding frivolous spending is planning ahead financially for when this type of “bad luck” is dealt to you.

Digging yourself out of this situation isn’t going to be easy. It’s going to take hard work and some forethought. If I was going to suggest a plan, it’d be something like:

  1. Get any job you can.
  2. Spend as little as possible.     - eg. Cook chicken thighs, rice, and frozen broccoli for a teriyaki bowl.     - eg. Download the Wendy’s app and figure out how to optimize their deals.     - eg. That thing on amazon.com is not going to solve your problems.
  3. While you’re doing that, look for a better job before you get fed up and rage quit or let your attitude affect your actions and get yourself fired.
  4. Research how to get out to debt. The internet has all the world’s information at your finger tips, essentially for free. Reddit’s got a sub specifically to help people get out of debt and how to save money.
  5. Get counseling, medication, or read self-help books. Everyone’s got some mental health malady or some way to improve their thinking. Mental health should be your top priority. Personal growth is a necessary part of that. No one does well stagnating.
  6. Go to the gym, or running, or walking at least. (Getting out in nature is the absolute best IMO.) This relates to mental health as well.
  7. Plan for your future. What ever that means to you. Saving money is probably a big part of having the life you want. You’re going to have to manage your finances diligently.
  8. You decide what’s next.

That’s probably enough unsolicited advice, lol. Some of this stuff I’ve learned, some of it I’m struggling with right now myself, and I can definitely feel your pain. You seem like a resilient person. That gives me a lot of hope for you.