More Than Just the Blues

More Than Just the Blues

/ Guest Post / Copyright Sandy Long is a guest writer for the blog. If you are not a trucker, she still has some great ideas that can help anyone!! The Australian Trucking Association (ATA) has added testing for depression to its medical survey of truck drivers.  This follows along with the recommendation of the FMCSA Medical Review Board (MRB) that suggests American truck drivers be screened for depression and other mental illnesses as part of the medical qualification physicals.  While the FMCSA has yet to act on the Board’s recommendations, it is most likely to do so sooner rather…
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Perpetual Victims

Perpetual Victims

/ Guest Post / Copyright Sandy Long is a guest writer for the blog. If you are not a trucker, she still has some great ideas that can help anyone!! Perhaps one of the greatest lessons I had to learn was how to not be a victim or remain a victim after my bad childhood and the things that have happened to me since childhood.  It was actually a very freeing thing to learn as I learned to accept responsibility for just what was my mistakes or errors in judgment and let others take their share. When one is a…
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Finding that Special Someone

/ Guest Post / Copyright Sandy Long is a guest writer for the blog. If you are not a trucker, she still has some great ideas that can help anyone!! Being a single lady driver looking for a partner is hard in the trucking industry.   The cards are stacked against us from the git go due to the perceived image of us as being tough, independent, spitting, scratching, cussing females.  Add in that we are not home often as a rule, we are tired when we are home and we don’t have a lot of free time when home because…
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Maintaining a Relationship   

Maintaining a Relationship   

/ Guest Post / Copyright Sandy Long is a guest writer for the blog. If you are not a trucker, she still has some great ideas that can help anyone!! A driver friend died in May.  I only mention it because he and his wife taught me how to maintain a relationship.  “Bill” and “Fran” were married for forty years, most of those years Bill was a trucker, the last few years driving for the same company as I do.  Fran would come out on the truck with him once in awhile and that is where I met her.  When…
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Loneliness

Loneliness

/ Guest Post / Copyright Sandy Long is a guest writer for the blog. If you are not a trucker, she still has some great ideas that can help anyone!! People, people everywhere and no one to talk to describes a solo driver’s life.  Trucking by nature is working in isolated conditions for long periods of time, the only people you have contact with being shippers/receivers, company support staff and truckstop employees. Feelings of loneliness affect individuals differently.  Some people thrive on not being around people, but the majority of us need to have human contact.  Loneliness and isolation added…
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Fear Factor

Fear Factor

/ Guest Post / Copyright Sandy Long is a guest writer for the blog. If you are not a trucker, she still has some great ideas that can help anyone!! Lucius Annaeus Seneca: “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear.” We are all afraid at times; of that black cloud ahead of us, that icy road, of trying something new, being alone, changing jobs, failure, and if you are like me, of snakes.   Just because we are afraid, does that mean that we stay at home in bed, under the covers and never face our fears? …
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Family Tragedies

Family Tragedies

/ Guest Post / Copyright Sandy Long is a guest writer for the blog. If you are not a trucker, she still has some great ideas that can help anyone!! Unless you are an orphan with no family at all, at some point in your career you are going to have some sort of serious family problem or family tragedy and either have to get home to deal with the problem or deal with the problem’s effects while still doing your job.  It doesn’t really matter the degree of the tragedy, it might be as simple as a child falling…
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Burning Out Doesn’t Mean Spinning One’s Tires

Burning Out Doesn’t Mean Spinning One’s Tires

Copyright Sandy Long is a guest writer for the blog. If you are not a trucker, she still has some great ideas that can help anyone!! A person is going down the road screaming obscenities at passing vehicles, goes home and cannot eat supper, cannot make love to their spouse, yells at the kids, kicks the cat, cannot sleep, is late for work in the morning and wouldn’t smile if a VW full of clowns suddenly appeared before them or they got a new truck.  What is wrong with this person?  Most likely burnout. Trucking is a high stress job. …
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Big Girls Don’t Cry, Or Do They?

Big Girls Don’t Cry, Or Do They?

/ Guest Post / Copyright Sandy Long is a guest writer for the blog. If you are not a trucker, she still has some great ideas that can help anyone!! Trucking is a stressful job.  Reefers go out under a produce load, tires blow out, trucks break down, ac units quit on the hottest days, heavy traffic and bad directions all contribute to the stress we all suffer on the road, add to that home/family stress and you have a volatile situation.  Men often deal with stress by yelling, cussing and throwing things; some even pick fights on the radio…
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A Quart of Chocolate Ice Cream

/ Guest Post / Copyright Sandy Long is a guest writer for the blog. If you are not a trucker, she still has some great ideas that can help anyone!! What do a quart of chocolate ice cream, a new hat, a box of tissues and a phone call to a friend in the middle of the night have in common?  They are all traditional tools women use to deal with the break up of a romance.  You might ask what this has to do with trucking, but dealing with a broken heart while on the road is tougher for…
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