I am a truckdriver looking for a career change. Thinking of being a sleep tech.(with no exp.) Any suggestions?
373350
Well, I think it pretty much goes without saying that if you want to have any chance of being successful in the medical field you will need to go back to school and get the necessary education/degrees, first. If you are like me and not too keen on the idea of school, you should consider medical professions that only require 1 or 2 year technical college degrees. \n\nFor instance dental hygiene and dental assisting are both offered in 1 or 2 year programs at technical colleges and you get paid a lot in both professions. Here are a few pros for technical colleges: you don't have to go to school for as long as you would in a traditional college, you don't have to pay for a bunch of "electives" that have nothing to do with your degree, programs are very focused to the area of study with lots of "hands on" learning, and finally technical colleges are one heck of a lot cheaper than 4 year colleges with the same if not better quality of education. \n\nSo my advice is to look into the two year colleges in your area and see what they have to offer. Going that route will have you trained and back into the workforce much faster than anything else I can think of.
1166705
I was in the Air Force driving 1000 miles to go home for a month leave. While I was driving in the high mountains around Reno, I fell asleep. I was traveling about 85 mph. My truck veered off the highway. As soon as I felt the truck leave the highway, I woke up and found I was heading downward on the gravel part of the side of the highway. My truck seemed to be driving itself I was in shock. The steering wheel was moving under my hands. I can't describe it any better than this. As the truck moved back up to the highway, I pulled over and tried to calm down. It was a really frightening moment. What was even more frightening was just 1/4 mile more and the side of the highway no longer had gravel. There were large boulders. I still get chills thinking about it.\n\nTill the day I die, I know I was not the one driving my truck at that moment.\n\nbtw - I have had several other experiences where the circumstances involved other than human interaction. I guess I am just one of the few to have been fortunate enough to experience it.
1037986
Are you a night owl? I am and I'd be good for such a position.\n\nYou also would spend less time with family and friends
258052
A freight agent.   You go to a school which can be expensive and you most likely have to travel to go to it, but well worth it, about $1,000 - $2,000, and it is only for seven days.  Anyway, you get a job with a trucking company and route their trucks all over the place.  You do it from your home phone and computer and get a commission off every truck load you route along with a wage.  Some of these places give benefits.   The trucking company can be located anywhere in the US and you still work from your own home no matter where you are.  The average income for an agent is between $20,000 for part time to $80,000 full time.  Then after a couple years, you can become a broker and work for yourself doing the same thing, but the middleman is cut out.  you have the potential to make over $200,000 then.   \n\nThats what I do and it is a great living.  If I have something to do that day, I don't answer the phone.   The trucker gets routed to another agent somewhere else.   If I need the money, I answer every call I can and tell the company I am available so please load me up.   I highly recommend it to any at home mother or single mother.
708924
How can you sleep during the day if you're working?  If you work swingshift or graveyard then, No! -most would sleep during the day.  Kinda looking for something to talk about? ;)*
1074210
The best way to know the business is definitely on-the-job learning. If you can find some good literature on the topic, that would only help. Try to look for forwarding/dispatching/truck broking jobs in your area. \n\nAfter a year or so you should be able to enter the business on your own. This is an industry undergoing massive consolidation so it might be difficult to find your niche. However, I keep my fingers crossed!
806985
you can contact some of the trucking companies and they will perhaps hire you but you must have a good work history and pretty much a clean criminal record. some will hire right out of schools ,they will train you then give you your own big truck but let me warn you you want be able to go home as often as you would like.you could have gotten the state in where you leave to pay for your schooling there are programs out there that would have paid for everything,its through the employment office that's how I got my cdl.contact the trucking companies you can pick up a booklet at a truck stop if u live near one. or you can contact driving jobs.com for trucking companies. good luck too yoo
948154
There are some really nice pilot training schools throughout the country.  Not sure if there is one in Texas though.  The pay is fairly good, but like long distance truck drivers, if you count the time you are not actually at home, then that alone narrows it down to a lower pay scale.  If you had an email address posted, I would ask a few people whom I know, then I would tell you.  But you don't, so I can't.  Click on my avatar, and email me.  I can get back to you as soon as I can.  See ya.
878760
I assume you mean semi-truck or freight truck drivers?\n\nNo particular person comes to mind at all.  I've seen a wide variety of people and met quite a few that have delivered freight to businesses I've been in.  I haven't met a bad one yet.\n\nYes, it's an honorable profession.  Truck drivers are responsible for moving the vast amount of products you & I use every day.  A lot of thing would grind to a hault if these men and women were not out there doing their jobs in professional and timely fashion.
965432
I am an anesthesiologist, and wouldn't trade my job for anybody's.  Congratulations on making a smart choice!\n\nResidency sucks, no matter what specialty you choose.  It is the price you pay for becoming a trained doctor.  We all did it. \n\nAnesthesiology is great.  You really do make a difference in people's lives.  You can be their comfort in times of stress.  And you NEVER have to find them a nursing home, tell them they have cancer, or that their baby is dead.  We get out of a lot of the crappy things that go with medicine.\n\nYou alleviate pain.  You reassure them that they'll do just fine with the surgery.  You will make hundreds of friends on the obstetrics ward - laboring women with functional epidurals are among the most grateful people in the world.\n\nWhen patients ask if you are the one who is going to put them to sleep, tell them, "yes, and keep you alive and wake you up again.  Anybody can put you to sleep, but the other two things are a bit trickier!"  Be excellent at what you do, be friendly, be caring... patients will start asking your name if you do these things.\n\nYour life *will* get better.  I am the mother of 3 kids (2 were residency babies - kept me out of the ortho rooms while I was pregnant!) and now I DO have time to run them to dance class, help with homework and go to their school band concerts.\n\nYour career can be anything you want it to be once residency ends.  I haven't been on call since 2001.\n\nHang in there.  Life will get better!
717362
They are one of the largest trucking companies in the US.  Depending on the job, I would say that they should be a pretty good company to work for.
1187751
Hey Jose,  I quit a job as a manager of UPS for 19 years to stay home and watch the kids (3 and 8 months).  Also to go back to school and become a teacher.  This was 2 years ago and it was the best decision I EVER made.  I plan on starting work again after the kids start school.  My wife works 30 hours a week and we now live on a very fixed budget, but I am the happiest I have ever been.  I used to work 70 hours a week and was miserable, but now am a new man and get to see my wife and kids all the time.\nVERY SATISFYING to quit at the time, also!!!!
1128892
I'm not going to pretend that I know what it is like to do the 7 on 7 off schedule, but the transition from day to night is rough. I invested in those room darkening blinds ($10 at Walmart) and stole a pair of ear plugs from the factory I worked for. If you're in a factory, you probably agree that the industrial ear plugs are good enough that you don't hear the trash man outside, but weak enough that you can hear the alarm. The new blinds didn't make my room pitch black at night, but it helped. As far as switching the schedules, try to push yourself on Friday (or whatever your last work day is) to not go to sleep until anywhere from 8-10 that night. It'll wear you out enough that you won't be up before the crack of dawn. You'll also get enough sleep that you can enjoy the weekend "properly". Also, try to get on a sleep schedule as soon as possible. If you stick to the same schedule everyother week your body will get more used to it quicker. ie. don't stay up til noon one day and get in bed at 8 the next.
576282
Im a truckers daughter, Its a community of its own if your truly wanting to be a truck driver notify a local company and ask them what truck driving school they reccomend.\nDo you have your CDL's? \nAlso, beware of company's wanting you to haul oversized loads.. They pay good money but will run you ragged, because there are some states you cant travel thru with these types of loads.\nIt's a solitary lifestyle, with no kids has your wife thought about joining you in this venture, I know several driving teams that are husband and wife..\n\nGood luck in your venture, and thanks for serving our country for the past 6 years.
1073942
So the hubby is in the way, huh?\n\n I was an EMT on a rig for 2 years on a 911 provider ambulance in So CAL., it was the best experience of my life. I saw many things that people would up and run from. But it served to make me a mature, ambitious, responsible individual capable of leading a team of EMT's or a corporate meeting.\n\nWhat you do;\n-Wait a lot, for calls and patients\n-physical stuff lifting, pulling, pushing, and so on.\n-assist paramedics\n-radio and computer communication\n-customer service\n-vitals, spiking bags, splinting, backbord and c-spine, setting up EKG's, CPR, moving patients, documenting, oxygen therapy\n\nThe pay sucks, you make your money on OT but it opened a lot of doors for me, currently I work per diem in a hospital as a tech, EHS coordinator. You can't pay to get that type of experience. \n\nEMT is definetly not a life career but it is a stepping stone to bigger and better things. \n \nThere is nothing more satisfying at the end of the day knowing that you saved or impacted somebodys life.
572060
You need to get a different career than trucking.  Either go to school to get a new trade or just apply for a job in a different industry.  Perhaps you could be a dispatcher, for example.  The trucking is not going to work with your meds.  You won't be able to get your CDL renewed if you have to take the meds anyway.  Your health is no longer good enough to drive for a living.  If you keep sitting that much you will lose more and more function and circulation in your feet and eventually may lose your feet, which happens to a lot of folks with diabetes.  You need to get busy and find some other kind of work.  Your employer will probably do whatever they can to avoide workers comp or UI.  You can fight them or you can just go get another job.  That's what i think.
357657
Look into a truck driving training center.