Sara Rea-Ready for a new career? How about long haul truck driving!

Sara Rea, my oldest daughter has had a number of career choices throughout the years. 

Covid and life situations caused her to seek something completely different— Long haul truck driving!

Only 1% of drivers are women- welcome to a men's world. 

She's found that it isn't anything a gal isn't fit to do.... 
Time to reflect
Great pay
Working alone

Who wouldn't want to pursue that??

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Find me on my website: jan-johnson.com

Transcript

[00:00] Sara: I say go for it. Be that. 1% just because you are a female does not mean that you cannot do it.

[00:11] Jan: Are you looking for an inspiring lesson, something to motivate you? You've come to the right place. Welcome to Women of the Northwest, where we have conversations with ordinary women leading extraordinary lives. You know those women who everyone knows that are not afraid to have an idea and take the next step?

That's the kind of gals I'm talking about. These are the women I'll have conversations with each week, telling their stories and sharing their passions.

 Motivating, Inspiring, Compelling. Hello and welcome, everyone. Today I have the privilege of interviewing my daughter, Sarah Ray, who has chosen a new profession, which is being a long haul truck driver. Not something every woman decides to do. So I thought you might find this an interesting episode.

[01:10] Jan: Well, Sarah Rea. Welcome to Women of the Northwest. I'm glad you could join me tonight.

[01:16] Sara: I am so happy to be on your podcast, mom. We have something to talk about.

[01:25] Jan: I think it's kind of fun to get to interview my own daughters just because somehow it's got to reflect a little bit on me as to what a great mom I was.

[01:38] Sara: Well, of course, very well versed. Many things.

[01:43] Jan: True. All right, so you're starting on a new vocational venture. Why don't you tell us about that?

[01:53] Sara: This is a vocational adventure that I never thought in a million years would I ever, ever attempt. And that would be truck driving.

[02:05] Jan: I don't remember you as a little girl playing with trucks and things, so I don't know.

[02:13] Sara: That's because I didn't even play with anything. I was an artist. That's right. And I didn't know how to play house. And I remember distinctly my friends wanting to play house, and I'm like, how do you play house? I have no clue how to play house, but I know how to play with transformers and gi. joes and Star Wars. Those were my gadgets. Those were my toys for drawing and.

[02:44] Jan: Creating all creatives things to be putting together.

[02:48] Sara: Yeah, right. And transformers you take apart and you put together.

[02:54] Jan: Exactly.

[02:54] Sara: That was my favorite.

[02:56] Jan: Yeah. Engineering. Okay, so truck driving. What brought you to that decision?

[03:06] Sara: My boyfriend, who has been a truck driver for over 20 years, and he has persuaded me it's a great job. You get great money. You don't have to work with anybody. You're on the road by yourself. Exactly what I needed to be away from people. I'm not really away from people because I do pick up and delivery, and I have to deal with customers well.

[03:33] Jan: But it's still so those are skills that you had before dealing with customers.

[03:39] Sara: Exactly. And I always considered myself a people until I started working in law enforcement and dealt with the worst of the worst, but I was still considered the nice one.

[03:54] Jan: In contrast to your other coworkers. Or in contrast to the members of.

[04:01] Sara: Your community, working by myself and being trusted to get my job done without someone standing over me or watching every move that I make or sitting at the other desk and scrutinizing everything. It's a freedom. And I don't know if it's the right word, but I feel like my boss trusts me and doesn't have to look or check in on me because he knows it's going to be done.

[04:37] Jan: And you went through COVID without having a job and having to I mean, that kind of messed up things there. So it was a good time to start something new, right?

[04:49] Sara: So I started doing just to make ends meet and work on my own shift. I did like Door Dash and delivery and then I worked for the brit Festival in the summer, which was an amazing job. So I picked up the bands and the staff. It was mainly the band members for the music festival. So I met a lot of famous people and took them to the brit Festival or to their hotels and then I also purchased the items on their list. They had a grocery list and man, those guys are specific and we are a decent size town, but this paleo and things I had never heard of. And I'm trying to search the store to get this specific food because that's what they eat. That's kind of crazy. But that was a great summer and then that proceeded into well, why don't I become a school bus driver? I'll be working during the days and I'll be around kids and so I got my Class B license and decided that was definitely not the job for me. And that was because not necessarily the kids, but more of a management issue because I was doing special ed and there were certain students that in special ed needed more help and we didn't have the staffing for having a monitor for those drivers. I could handle it and I must.

[06:52] Jan: Have put you in some compromising, possibly dangerous situations.

[06:57] Sara: It sure did and it really provoked and brought up some issues from the past. And I care about people and I didn't want to put other people in harm's way because of actions caused by children. So I went to where my boyfriend works and I have been working there for over nine months continually and they put me in truck driving school to get my Class A and I found out that I am the 1% of female drivers. So I am in the man's world and customers definitely treat me like I'm in a man's world. Sometimes they're either very impressed that I can back up a 32 foot truck or how I can get into tiny places in my box truck. A lot of people think I am a size of ups, but I am actually the same size as a semi. I just don't have earth tractor and trailer with a hitch in the middle. So I am 1ft shorter and 1ft shorter in length and in height. So what kind of things did you.

[08:28] Jan: Have to learn different from, say, just.

[08:32] Sara: Their average Ups truck or a standard car or a truck or a standard car? Well, first of all, in a box truck, where it's all attached, there's no back window, so you cannot see. You have to rely solely on your mirrors on your right and left. So there's actually six mirrors. There's two in the front on your hood to the side, like a bus. So in the bus, though, they set out further off. So on a school bus, the front two mirrors on the hood sit further out than on a semi. And that allows you to see when students are crossing the street. So it allows you to see almost up to 10ft in front of you. But in the semi they're further on the side and cars in the lanes next to you. So when you need to get over to the left or the right, you rely on those. Well, you rely on all your mirrors, a smaller mirror underneath that, which is angled more downward. So you're checking your mirrors constantly every six to 8 seconds.

[10:03] Jan: And then there's obviously different shifting patterns.

[10:13] Sara: I never wanted to drive a stick shift ever again. After living in Astoria and learning, being the first child to learn with my mother in Mini San Francisco, I've always wanted to drive an automatic. But in order to have more opportunities, getting a manual license is what I need to go for. Not only did I have to go to Texas or truck driving schools in Texas, and being thrown into a truck and trailer for training purposes, it was the longest trailer there is on the road, 53ft. And then the tractor was a sleeper. So that means that there's a bed in the back for those people that are on line, hall and long haul drives. So they have the bed in the back. So that's an additional ten to 12ft. So the total length of tractor trailer combo was 83ft.

[11:39] Jan: How does that compare to an RV? But that's about the size of a bus though, isn't it? An RV is about the size of a full sized bus.

[11:50] Sara: I know I was trying to look up school bus length and to see if those were shorter than what I'm driving now, but I honestly have not found the answer. I didn't look intently into it, but it's been on my mind. And RVs come in all different lengths, so it's comparable. But an rv or a motorhome is more like the box truck that I have right now. And then you have a fifth wheel and a truck is more like a semi because you have a hitch. So when you're backing up everything's backwards, because you have to think backwards, it's.

[12:37] Jan: Like backing up a trailer, like a boat trailer or something right?

[12:42] Sara: Exactly. Which I had no experience with. But I got to go on the road today. I was so happy.

[12:49] Jan: Was it scary?

[12:50] Sara: I was so happy. Well I haven't been able to drive on the road because we haven't had the trainer for me because we're a small terminal and we don't have that many drivers and one of our drivers was on medical leave for three months and they still needed me to do my route. So next week we will have one of our guys back so I will be able to train finally after over a month coming back from Texas. So I'm pretty excited about that.

[13:37] Jan: Tell me what kind of things you haul.

[13:39] Sara: We're an ltl company which means lighter than a load. So we pick up items, everything's palletized. So go to Home depot and pick up items that they're returning to their main hub or pick up returns or we have small companies that are shipping nationally. So it could be one palette, it could be twelve pallets. But lighter than a load means we're not just going to for instance Home depot with just all their items and they offload it. So when I go to Home depot or Lows, just easy to say. Those semis are generally a 53-footer and they are packed to the hilt. The entire truck is full all the way to the ceiling. So when those truckers are going really slow it's because they're really heavy. So just respect them on the road. They don't want to go slow. We get it. But you got to allow them to do their job.

[15:13] Jan: What are the things do drivers around you need to be aware of?

[15:20] Sara: Do not cut us off. You don't like being cut off. But when you cut a semi off we cannot stop. So when you're going to change lanes make sure that in your rear mirror you see the front and two tires of the semi. That gives them enough space to pass and we're not going to slam on our brakes, and we're not being cut off. And then we also have governors in our trucks, most companies have them. So once you hit 65 you cannot go any higher. But when you cut somebody off or you think that we have an excessive amount of room in front in the following distance we have a beeper that goes off constantly if you're in that space. So we have to leave two to three truckloads the length of our truck in front of us so that beeping does not continually, constantly is going off. So just be mindful of that because we cannot stop on a dime. Especially when you're coming to let's say you're in town and a red light is coming up and you've already given yourself you're slowing down and you've given yourself enough space because nobody is in front of you and then somebody wants to swipe right into right in front of you. And then slam on their brakes because it's a red light. Well, that just cut our stopping distance. You're going to die. Just stay in your freaking lane. And when the light turns green, then get over. But we can't stop.

[17:22] Jan: What are some of the challenges?

[17:25] Sara: The challenges of delivering to people's houses are that they think that you can turn onto their property on a very tight, narrow road. But you also have to think, I'm not a ups. I'm not the postal service. I'm not in a small vehicle. So if you have low lying trees, we can't drive down there. If you have like a ranch sign, we have a clearance of it has to be 12ft high. If you're going down gravel roads, we have a pallet jack, but you can't move the pallet jack with freight anywhere on gravel. So where it lands, it stays. Or if you have a double pallet. So a standard palette generally is like a four x four, and then a double pallet could be an eight x four. So treadmills or huge vanities. I delivered a pool table the other day, and normally that wouldn't be a problem. It was in town. But their curb was one of those rounded curbs. It wasn't a standard curve. And in the newer neighborhoods, they have these rounded curves, but even their driveway was not it didn't go from the road. I can't put a 500-pound pool table on a pallet jack because there's no lip. There was no ramp. Like your wheelchair ramps. Yeah, you can't lift it and I'm like, I don't want to leave it on the road, but I don't know how to get it to you. So I had to call my boss and another worker and they had to come out and manhandle it and put it in the house. Or you also have customers because the company says it will be delivered in the first dry spot on next year door. Well, yeah, if you live in town on a paved road in a driveway where you can access. But not everybody. If you live out in the country, come on, think about this. Nothing. We would love to deliver it to your door, but if there's no turnaround for a 32 foot truck, how do you expect me I can't do that. It's not possible. So consider where you live and consider the driver. We know you want your freight there but consider the driver. Because once we get stuck, we're stuck. And a lot of people don't think about that. They just want their freight and it's a headache. Or the big one to me is on the bills. It will say, call 30 minutes in advance. Okay, if I call 30 minutes in advance, please answer your phone. So, I mean, if you know that your freight is going to be delivered that day or you have a shipment and yeah, I get that you won't think we're spammed, but answer your phone, because then now we can't reach you and you're not answering, and you get upset.

[21:15] Jan: Yeah. how's the pay for that kind of job?

[21:24] Sara: Let's say I make $6 more an hour than what I did at 13 years at the sheriff's office.

[21:31] Jan: Okay. All right. Do you have any advice we are almost at the end here. Do you have any advice for other women who are interested in possibly taking on that career?

[21:45] Sara: I say go for it. Be that 1%. Just because you are a female does not mean that you cannot do it. Because I know that my coworkers that are all men, I think they respect and encourage females to do it. Plus they want to see a lovely lady in the office. Right. But be that 1%. Be the person that is against the standard norm. If they can do it, you can do it. And I'm actually very happy in the position that I'm in, and I can see myself traveling the world now, even though it's on the road, but you have the freedom, and you can get a job anywhere. And being a truck driver, well, they're in demand. That's an odd job. What?

[22:47] Jan: They're in demand also?

[22:49] Sara: Exactly. They're high in demand, because if you want your package that you ordered online, it has to be delivered, and that's how it's going to be delivered.

[23:03] Jan: Yeah.

[23:05] Sara: So it's a tool that you will use every day because you drive, and it just makes you a better driver.

[23:11] Jan: Okay. Anything else you'd like to share?

[23:14] Sara: No, I'm just happy that you put me on your podcast, mom.

[23:19] Jan: Well, Sarah, thank you very much for joining us today. This was a fun experience to hear all of that, I'm going to drive vicariously through you because I'm not getting behind the wheel of semi truck, and everyone will be glad that I'm not.

[23:38] Sara: I agree with that.

[23:41] Jan: All right, well, thank you very much.

[23:45] Sara: You're very welcome.

[23:47] Jan: You can find show notes and more information on my website@jan-johnson.com. I hope you'll join us again next week for another exciting episode. Meanwhile, have a great week.