Game Warden or Truck Driver?

There's millions of employment possibilities. Be 16, get a job somewhere and go to school, then figure it out. Some people don't find out until they're 30 what they will do for a career.

 

Union Trades are excellent jobs. Carpenter,electrician,plumber or pipe fitter.

 

When I was in high school, I wanted to become a porn star. Don't sweat it, you most likely become something else in 10 years time.

 

HAHAHAHA THAT'S THE BEST DREAM EVER

 

HaHa, I don't know about that one though. I'd go crazy, so many girls and so little time.

 

LOL

If I had a choice between the two, I'd go game warden. Also you can look into forest ranger. They get to wheel all the time because of work. Might be hard to get into those jobs, but start doing research now, talk to people, do your homework. Those type of jobs are the ones that people don't leave because they're usually cushy. My .02

 

Game warden so you don't get hemorrhoids

 

...or Type II diabetes, from the lack of sleep - which messes up your metabolism.

Here's a word of advice - from someone who STILL, at 56, doesn't know what he wants to do when he grows up:

Stay OUT of the transportation fields! Trucker...locomotive engineer...hell, even airline pilot. Long hours, erratic sleep/wake cycles...your personal life will be a wreck and your health wrecked, too.

I tried to be a newspaper writer. Long story why that didn't work out; but my Plan B was my CDL. Nope, not a good plan.

I stumbled into railroading...still in it. Some jobs are cushy, with years of seniority. But I got caught up in a merger; caught up a manager myself, a push-button boss from the new masters in Florida...fired for insubordination. Got back but no back pay; so I quit.

At the wrong time; 2008. Now I'm last-on, first-off at five different railroads, and doing the work the kids are expected to do. Nope...I'd stay as far as POSSIBLE from transportation.

Join the Coast Guard. Be a Game Warden. Learn appliance repair...ANYTHING! With time, you'll probably find your path...and if not, at least start OUT with something reasonable. If I were to do over again, I'd learn plumbing or a construction trade.

 

X2. Take his advice, not many us "youngsters" take our elders advice but I would for sure on this one. Plus you are part of the state if your a game warden so you get those benefits.

 

Well.... My dad used to own his own business that he graded and laid pipe. I can drive any tractor he had better than some of his workers. I actually worked with him over the summer and ive kind of not wanted to do that. 90+ degrees In the summer and 30 in the winter out side in a ditch or standing on pavement is not what I plan on doing. My dad also said he will not let me pursue the career he is in cause he doesn't want me to be like him, he was making $2000 a week with a horrible boss and away from home every 2 weeks though.

 

Well no matter what you'll be out in the weather between those 2 jobs.. You'll have to use chains a lot in the winter if your a truck driver and deal with pissed off companies if you are late on shipments (weather delays, traffic etc..). I would not want to chain up an 18 wheeler ever.

 

The trucking industry is not something you want to get into right now. Government regs and all that goody two shoes bullshit has truck drivers regulated so hard they can barely make a living. Used to be you could drive 15 hours a day with 9 hours rest, now it's down to 11 on the road with 12 hours rest. That 4 hour difference is huge, since you are paid by the mile, 4 hours on the road equals to about 250-300 additional miles per day that truckers now loose thanks to the new regulations. Drivers used to be able to find ways around it, but now everything is going electronic so it makes it harder to trick the log books. There is nothing called "seeing the country" driving a truck either, you watch the road ahead of you, your gauges and your mirrors all the time. There isn't time for gawking or sightseeing, you are hauling 50,000+ lbs of weight behind you, that's too much to risk to be taking your focus away from driving. The only outfits that can make a decent living trucking this day and age are owner operator couples/partners that take turns driving to keep the wheels turnin'. One in the sleeper, one at the wheel.
And not only that, your life is the highway. If you drive OTR, forget about ever enjoying a personal family life with a woman and children if you decide to have them in the next few years. You live on the road, gone for weeks and sometimes months at a time. I thought about trucking too and glad I didn't, there are so many better options out there. I have a Class A CDL and there is a array of jobs I can still do with that that don't involve driving OTR.

As far as the game warden goes, you will need about 4 years of college to get into that. I hope you enjoy biology and math because those are the main focus of study for that field! The law enforcement side of it can be very risky also. You don't want to be a tenderfoot in this field. Think about it, you are assigned a remote area during hunting season and come across some crazy ass drunk rednecks poaching game with high powered rifles in hand and a bad attitude. Not trying to freak you out or put you down, but those guys put their lives on the line doing what they do just like regular police officers. I live in Montana and some of the retired game warden guys I've talked to have had some pretty close calls in their careers. Game wardens have to be assertive, they are the only form of law enforcement that can search a private residence without a warrant at any given time if they believe game was hunted illegally and stored in freezers and such. Both these fields are not easy, and I really hope you do more in depth research before you get into either one that way you know what you're getting into.

Good luck and I wish you the best!

 

To put in perspective on how much truck drivers are loosing thanks to the new regs, I did some math because curiosity was killing me..

Okay, so say you are being paid 45 cents per mile, that's average what a company OTR driver makes. Because of the current 11 hour a day driving limit versus the old 15 hour limit, you loose that extra 4 hours and possible 250-300 miles of extra pay per day. Now say you are on the road 6 days a week, that 4 hours that is lost adds up to 24 hours, and the mileage adds up to approx. 1650 miles lost at 0.45 cents a mile=$742.5 a week that you will never see. Imagine what that comes out to with 52 weeks in a year. Big loss, that 4 hour difference really bites!
Also keep in mind that many drivers have to pay for their fuel, and of course you will need to buy your own food and other odds and ends that will take a toll on your paycheck. Just some more things to chew on. The trucking industry isn't as glamorous as it sounds. If it was, it wouldn't be so overwhelmed with a shortage of drivers and waning interest that it is facing right now.

 

I would like to stick my 2 cents in on the trucker work/rest criteria. I was on a NIOSH Fellowship, in Safety Engineering and we got interested in work/rest cycles based on some terrible accidents. And we looking at drowsy/nodding behavior when the new regulations were discussed.

There is a good reason for the new rules and for the electronic log keeping. However, it drives the need for increased transportation costs in terms of trucks, drivers, rest areas. However, since we have busted the unions, the wages of drives isn't going up and they are getting shafted.

Unless you want to own your truck, live on the road, use your breaks to broker your next load and end up at the end of 5 years with a truck with a million miles and no cash in the bank, learn a more useful skill...plenty of very good trades out there, and if you can hack the math, I know VERY few engineers who do not have full time steady work.

 

Not a massive surplus of jobs that pay well, don't require sacrifice or periods of misery, let you be home at 5PM every day and have excellent bosses.

I feel like the military would be a good experience for you in several ways.

 

This is simple, DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO....

And there are many different careers to chose from other than the ones you picked so far...

You got time, but forward planning is a real plus....

 

OP, a lot of advice already here, but let me add this:
Pick something that you can grow in. For example, I am in civil engineering. You can start as a designer, work in the office or doing construction out in the field, then move up to project manager, then later more business development if you want to, etc.... The options are there. Some careers lock you into a specific job for the rest of your life, unless you go out and start a new trade from scratch.
Many people do one thing and enjoy it for the rest of their lives, but I like the fact that I have been doing so many things, while still staying in the same field of study.

Some schools or colleges offer career counseling which include aptitude testing. This will help you determine what your strong and weak qualities and interests are. Then explore from there.

 

Same.

 

Sorry, but you are only 16. While it's ok to be heading in a general direction, very few have the vision or determination to stick with any path picked that young.

Problem is you don't know what you don't know.

And every choice made narrows the path a bit further. Keep it as broad as you can as long as you can. For example, if you'll be going to college, even the first year there has so many required courses you don't have to worry about declaring a major, so you've got a minimum of 3 years.

Some great advise I once heard was 'get a degree and learn a trade. That way you'll never be out of work'. One simple example was a school teacher I knew that was a licensed carpenter. Taught shop at a trade school and built custom homes in the summer.

Also remember it's more important to do what you enjoy than how much you get paid. While pay is important, why would you want to work a miserable job just for $. Hating getting up and out in the morning isn't fun. Or healthy.

Find internships for summer jobs now, in different fields, so you can see first hand what a few things are like. Don't bother flipping burgers or washing cars, find 'real' work. Even working construction, working on a survey crew, working for a parks department all expose you to different things. Learning is good.

And yes, I was friends with a Game Warden. But he had a degree in criminology as well as a passion for the outdoors. But it can be dangerous, as working poachers at night can get you shot. So don't think it's all about checking someone's live well or measuring the buck.

Because of his education and demeanor, he wound up as a very high ranking officer in the State system. But that brings the challenges of paper cuts, incompetent employees, dealing with low life's smuggling in exotic animals and politicians.

Point is, nothing is perfect. So the important part is to have the skills to change from one thing to another as needed, do your best at all you do, and work to enjoy every day..........

 

I was at the Verizon store yesterday and some dudes were telling me that its actually a damn good job to have when you turn 18. Boy I can't wait to apply there..