My story feels so crazy that I genuinely don't know where to start. I can assure you that for every detail I give, there are many more just as interesting to share, but I'll try to keep it brief to respect your time.
Before I came to work at Shipex I had legitimately been out of a job for several years. Back then I blamed it on the economy, as at the time I lived in Florida and worked in the construction industry. As the banks failed in 2007-2008, housing failed, and we entered into another cycle of financial redistribution. I remember the very conversation the day I was called into the office and was told I had to be let go. The feeling that permeated me was striking even to this day. It wasn't one of fear, but of excitement. I remember vividly telling the man on the other side of the oak table "No, this is a good thing. This is what must happen, and I will be alright". I don't know how or why, but I knew that things couldn't be any other way, and my acceptance actually filled me with some of the most genuine feelings of optimism, destiny, and freedom I have ever experienced. It was truly beautiful.
It's too bad that my poorly habituated and naive nature failed the vision I held in that moment. I like to try and forget the person I was during those times, but what is true is true. By the time the first 6 months had rolled around and I was still jobless, I hated my life and I hated who I was because of not having the self worth that earning a living brings. And what's worse, I had the psychological torment of human devaluation that comes along with being dependent on others. For a multitude of reasons, I sat there silently struggling with myself, while projecting some sort of happiness on the outside for several years on end.
For reasons I will spare you, there came a time when I decided to make a massive change in my life. I left Florida and flew up to Michigan, where I unexpectedly found myself now homeless with only enough cash on hand to get a hotel room for a week. I quickly found an ad on Craig's list that spoke to me. It was an ad for a trucking job, which I had some prior experience with. The reason it stood out to me (aside from the fact it was a driving job and I knew I could do that) was because it was written with such peculiar phrasing. It said something like "Life is too short to waste. Take your life in your own hands and come work for me!"
Being that I had only a day or two left before I was out on the street I called the guy who placed the ad, told him my situation, and we set up a meeting that next day. Unfortunately, I ended up getting into a pretty severe car accident which not only broke my nose, shattered my teeth and melted my glasses, it delayed my meeting with him. I was filled with fear, as I was certain he was going to give the job to someone else. I finally met him in person and he told me that because I was essentially homeless, I went to the top of his list and had the job. I was relieved. I was so desperate for a job that when he offered me 16 cents per mile to run his flatbed, I took it without question. For me, It was a home, and it was my foot back in the door of the trucking industry. I had never tarped in my life, but I didn't care.
Fast forwarding a few months, this man turned out to be a complete scam artist. I eventually came to understand that there was a good reason he never had any paperwork for me to sign, and that I never once, even at 16 CPM, got everything I was owed by him. When we had first met, he told me that he had paid cash for his rig, and had just bought a second one. Later down the line after much trouble with him, he finally called me one day and asked if I would like to buy the rig from him. I thought to myself "Hell yeah, I'll finally be able to work for myself and collect a full paycheck!"
His response was "Alright, let me get you in contact with the lien holder".... I was initially shocked, but it all made sense soon after. When the real owner of the truck called me, we spent about an hour discussing all the shenanigans that I had been witness to, including this guy driving drunk in this rig and nearly killing a lady on his way home from the bar. Yes, he drove his rig to a bar to get drunk! The owner divulged to me that he had never even met this guy in person, and that he was owed over $25,000 in payments! Somehow he had been convinced into buying this truck for this guy under a verbal agreement that he would be paying lease payments and a percentage of every load perpetually. The owner had some wealth from his previous role at an insurance agency, which he was able to successfully roll into real estate, but as that market began to collapse he was understandably looking for other streams of viable income. Because trucking was not this guys area of expertise and the scammer could play a good game, he was had.
By the end of it all, I was told to repossess his rig and bring it back to one of his homes in Boulder City Nevada, where we "might" be able to form some kind of deal. It seemed I was just moving from one uncertainty to the next. And I was.
It's possible that I'll never forget the night before I made it back into Boulder City. I had parked for the night in a Walmart not too far out, and I was outside polishing the rims and fuel tank on this guys bobtail when the security officer drove up and started talking to me. He was bored and just striking up a friendly conversation. We got on for a bit and after he reminisced about his trucking days, I happened to divulge the details of the last few months of my life and what had gotten me to that parking lot. It's meant a lot to me even up until now, what this guy said to me. He said "You're going to be a millionaire someday." I paused for a moment, confused and said "Why do you say that?"
"You're out here" he said "spending hours on your hands and knees in the heat of this city, to polish a truck that isn't even yours, for a guy you've never even met. People like you go places."
It can't be stated just how powerful it can be to have someone genuinely, with no reason for ulterior motive, believe in you so much.
When I got the truck to boulder city, I was lucky enough to end up staying in a vacant side one of the owners roach infested duplexes. I'm not joking, they were everywhere. Thankfully his girlfriend had enough of a heart to convince him to let me stay in the guest house at his mansion, where for the next 3 months I did exhausting yard and maintenance work for an hourly wage as I attempted to research all the necessary information to form our own entity and get a trucking company set up. I even cleaned up and painted the roach infested duplex.
For those of you interested in the glamorous life of your very own trucking business, let me tell you now. Do not waste your time creating all the required paperwork and getting permits yourself! Pay an outside source that specializes in that to do it for you. Also, DO NOT lease on to anyone without extensively going through the numbers and speaking to others already involved! That business model is usually entirely designed for you to make a pittance while accepting all the risk! They want you making just enough to afford the truck payment so you are essentially a slave to them.
Anyways, now that that's out of my system I owe you some furthering of the story. The breakdown is basically this: I spent 3 months of my time researching and building this business for this guy, while he pissed away money he desperately needed on things I told him not to spend it on. By the time we got the ball rolling, I ended up being someone he had too little respect for and was basically just being used because I had compassion for what could be made out of this. I really don't know how to say it correctly while giving so little exposition, but I poured my soul into something and was just looked at as "a hopeful" it seemed, not a partner who had earned any respectable level of trust.
One winter morning as I set out to start my day, my trailer brakes wouldn't release. I had no clue what to do. Luckily right behind me on the other side of the truck stop, was a little service shop called Truck and Trailer Service. I called them and someone quickly came over to unfreeze my air lines. Turns out I also needed some other service, so I pulled around the corning and into the bay where I was approached by a man in a cowboy hat. He looked at me and said "You know I can tell you're not making any money" and I said "How's that?"
"Look at your tires" he said as he pointed to my embarrassing unevenly worn drives. "If you were making any money you'd have some good tires on there." He continued. I agreed with him. He asked me what I was making (per mile) and I told him.
"I'll pay you another cent per mile to come drive for me"
I honestly thought about it. We talked for a few moments and he explained to me that he worked with a logistics company that could run me anywhere I wanted to go, and that I'd essentially be my own boss. Heard that one before, hadn't I? After going over it again and again for a few days, weighing it against the situation I was currently struggling with, I decided to make the transition. I told him that I wanted to be respectful and give 2 weeks notice with the guy I was currently driving for. He said he couldn't wait two weeks and the he'd likely give the position to someone else. I told him that I wanted to prove to him that I am a respectable man, because if he sees me ditch someone like that, what reason would he have to think I wouldn't do the same to him? So I gave my two weeks, and with much resistance from the last guy I parted ways.
I'll tell you, this was a very rough period of my life. I can't emphasize that enough. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't have any money. I had no hopes anymore, and no confidence in people. I just wanted to find something I could count on. I was still missing a tooth because I had no money to get it fixed, so I felt like an incomplete person. I hated smiling. Putting my hand over my mouth became a subconscious action pretty much whenever my mouth opened wide enough. I was tired of people saying one thing, while truly offering something else.
And then it happened again... This new company had sent me out in their truck that had almost a million miles on the dash. 500 miles down the road when the differential started making a weird noise, I called them to let them know. I was told to pull it into a service shop and have it diagnosed, where I relayed to them the estimated $1,500 for a rebuild. I was told over the phone "Just keep going, we'll look at it when you get back" Well, a few miles into the next day and the differential basically exploded and I was barely able to creep into a TA truck stop. $5,000 later, I was back out on the road, and when I had returned to collect a paycheck, $500 had been deducted from it. I asked them what that was all about, and they told me I was paying for the differential, $500 per week until it was all paid back... I was ready to give up on humanity. After years of being a jobless wreck, all I wanted to do was work hard, produce, and have an honest life. Strangely, it seemed too much to ask for.
The saving grace was in one detail. The logistics company that had been talked about, was a little company called Shipex. These guys were leased on to Shipex, and I was basically hauling loads on their behalf. Through the crazy situation of them trying to charge me $5,000 I ended up speaking to Eldin (the owner of Shipex) quite a bit. Around this time I learned that the other company actually owed Truck and Trailer Service (Owned by Shipex) a ridiculous amount of money, and they had basically went AWOL. Neither Eldin nor I could get a hold of them, as it seemed they had skipped town to venture into the oil fields in North Dakota...
To my absolute amazement, I told Eldin what had happened with the differential, and that they were charging me for it. Because all the payroll ultimately ran through Eldin's accounting lady and they had not returned his attempts to contact them, Eldin gave me every cent I had earned from that trip. It was a tiny miracle. Given the absurdity of the situation, I begged Eldin to let me simply come work for him. He agreed to it, and my life has never been the same.
Sure it sounds cheesy, that a job can mean so much to someone. At the beginning of this, I said that the one truth I can walk away from so far in life, is that perspective is everything. You may not know me, nor I you. You may have lived an extremely different life than me, and thus you will see things differently than I do. But you see, it's not just the events that brought me to Shipex that have brought an immense gratitude to my daily life, but the events since, and the character with which Eldin has shown me. In no way was it suddenly a picnic. Not even close, because that was when I started truly working my ass off like I never had before. But the difference was, I finally had some security in my life, and that was priceless.
It's late, and I've already been writing this for hours as I sit in Oregon waiting for a call to get in my door. I have skipped so many details that are bouncing around in my heart, that feel so relevant to the message I wish I could transfer to you. But with what little time I have left, knowing that I can't convey it, I am trying to tell you that gratitude is always an option. Trucking isn't for everyone. Shipex isn't for everyone. Hell, life isn't for everyone. I've been here since we had about 30 trucks operating out of a tiny little service shop that also took on outside customers, barely leaving us any room to take care of our own fleet at times. I've been here since Eldin himself would take your trip packets, google your miles, and sign your check. The check was always good. If Eldin needed something, I did the best I could, and he took care of me in return.
It is too damn easy in this world to get spoiled, to get lazy and become ungrateful. It's also too easy to feel like you don't mean a damn thing to a company. And you know what? I'm going to be honest, I've felt like that here too in the past. Back when we were still in our relatively infantile stages, it was consistently difficult, and we hadn't learned operate at the level we now do. No one can get it right all the time. But here's what I know with all I've got: Shipex cares about you. There is so much going on behind the scenes that the average driver isn't aware of, so they can't easily have the best perspective about things when it gets difficult to reach someone, or to get home. I guarantee you, we are working on that, and we are the best we've ever been.
The reality is, Shipex is not just like family to me, they are family. Not by blood, nor by blind allegiance, but by my choice. I have seen Eldin sincerely wish drivers the very best as they move on to whatever they feel is going to fit them better, and I know he would not only do the same for me, but welcome me back with open arms. The question that really matters is, how did I come to feel this way about Shipex, and how can we get other drivers to feel the same way? How can we get drivers to see that we care? I think largely we are trying every which way we can to figure that out. I can't answer that for everyone, but for me, I feel very taken care of. I feel listened to. It's quite the conundrum we have in a time when drivers are so needed, that there isn't much incentive for a driver to stick around when they can just move on to the next place as soon as something displeases them here. The difference I have always seen between myself and those who came and went, was the effort to communicate. Other companies have conditioned drivers into this "Why even try, they're not going to do anything" mentality. If you need help with something, please, reach out and speak with someone. You would be amazed at what can happen with a little communication and patience.
I hope to leave you with some notion to reflect upon. On what exactly? Work related or not I don't know. But I know that for many, life is too short. I choose to be grateful, and because of that gratitude I've attracted some priceless things into my life. It's not magic, it perspective.
