This week on the Oakley Podcast, hosts Jeremy Kellett and Megan Cummings chat with Jeff Nusbaum, one of our Owner/Operators at Oakley Trucking. During the episode, Jeff shares his journey from a heavy equipment operator to a seasoned truck driver, emphasizing the challenges and rewards of transitioning to an owner-operator. The discussion highlights Jeff’s family life, hobbies, and the importance of financial management in trucking. The episode also underscores the value of passion, effective communication, and positive public perception in the trucking industry, offering valuable insights for aspiring and current owner-operators. Don’t miss this great conversation!
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Previewing Today’s Episode (0:58)
- Model Truck and Trailer Display Here in the Studio (1:45)
- Importance of Owner-Operator Stories (3:27)
- Jeff’s Background in Trucking (5:53)
- Moving from New York to South Carolina (10:10)
- Full-Time Trucking Experience (11:26)
- Family’s Trucking Legacy (14:38)
- Transition to Owner-Operator (16:08)
- Making the Decision to Become an Owner-Operator (19:18)
- Tax Benefits of Being an Owner-Operator (20:29)
- Learning the Business Side of Trucking (22:13)
- Managing Business Finances (24:46)
- Mental Preparation for Driving (27:24)
- Perception of Truck Drivers (30:01)
- Communication with Dispatchers (34:37)
- Jeff’s Future Plans (37:30)
- Final Thoughts and Takeaways (39:27)
Oakley Trucking is a family-owned and operated trucking company headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. For more information, check out our show website: podcast.bruceoakley.com.
Transcription
Jeremy Kellett 00:12
Welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. This show is brought to you by Oakley trucking, headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. The purpose of this podcast is to communicate with Oakley owner operators and their families by giving them up to date information concerning Oakley trucking and the trucking industry, from business advice to safety updates to success stories, also to give an insight to outside truck drivers that might be interested in joining the Oakley family. Welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking business and family. My name is Jeremy Kellett. I’m director of recruiting here at Oakley trucking, and I’m your host for this podcast. And in this episode, we are sitting down with another one of our owner operators, Jeff Nussbaum, and I tell you before we get to talking to Jeff. Megan, sitting with me on this one. Hey, Megan, What’s happening? Glad to have you.
Megan Cummings 00:58
Glad to be here. I was getting afraid. I was getting booted and you just hurt my feelings. Why
Jeremy Kellett 01:03
Did we miss one?
Jeff Nusbaum 01:04
You’ve missed a couple of couples.
01:06
See, I’m not. I mean,
Jeff Nusbaum 01:10
Were you here at work? Yeah,
Megan Cummings 01:14
surely,
Jeff Nusbaum 01:17
Just kidding.
Megan Cummings 01:17
I hope that you would, if you ever did bite me from the podcast. You wouldn’t say anything to save my family. Well,
Jeff Nusbaum 01:23
I quit watching There we go. She’s not there. That’s right. There we go. Thanks, Jeff. Well,
Jeremy Kellett 01:28
we’re back here now. We’ve gotten through that. Megan is with me, and we are running an episode today. Stream teams back again. Dream teams got Jeff Nussbaum gonna hang out with us a little bit, the number one driver at Oakley. Oh, good. Self proclaimed. Okay, good. But first before we get to that, I want to be sure and zoom in on this little addition to our studio right here. This is a truck and trailer. It’s like a model truck and trailer. It’s probably 12 inches long, something like that. One of our ex owner operators retired, John Haley, you might know him if you saw him, Jeff. He was from Minnesota. Now he lives in Arizona. I bet you know him because he pulled a tank. But anyway, he made this for us. And he called me and said, Hey, if I send you a truck and trailer, will you put it up there in the office somewhere? I said, You betcha, John, be glad to. And I want you to look. You should see the details. I don’t know where he came up with I mean, it’s his old truck that he had when he was leased on here. He’s got his truck number on there. He’s got the Oakley decals on the side of his truck. He said it’s even got suspended. So if you push on the top of the truck, it actually goes up and down, because he’s got suspension. He’s got his airlines there. I mean, he’s got a trailer. I don’t know where he got the Oakley decals. They look just like it. So, I mean, John, we figured this would be the best place to display your presents you sent us. We love it. We’re gonna add it here to the studio. So I hope you don’t even know if he watches, but I hope he does. I’m gonna send him a message to be sure and watch this next week. So John, we appreciate you, man, we miss you around here, for sure, before we get started, sponsors,
03:18
aero truck sale and LubeZone. Okay, enough of that too.
Jeff Nusbaum 03:23
Just kind of,
Jeremy Kellett 03:28
Oh, they’ve been great. They know they’re great. We’ll run their edit here. But good. Hey, I want to talk to Jeff for a little while. Jeff, man, I appreciate you sitting down with us, because, you know, I think we say this every time. I mean, we love having owner operators. I was telling David, go through a good friend of mine today, he came in and fed us some barbecues with the advertising company, and we were talking about the podcast, and I said, you know, it’s to me, I really like interviewing our owner operators my life for people to see that these guys are hard working Americans trying to make a living, just like anybody else. And people that are going down the highway probably don’t think that, you know, I mean, we’ll get that from Jeff, because I’m sure he can attest to that. But, you know, I think it’s to me, it’s we’re trying to help that cause Megan to where it shines a light on owner operators, truck drivers in general, that they’re good people. Yeah, yeah.
Megan Cummings 04:28
I mean, it’s like, whenever you’re talking to somebody on the phone, and then you meet them, perfect examples, working here in the office, and people will come in and be like, Oh, it’s so nice to finally put a face to the name, or a face to the voice or whatever. It’s the same thing with drivers. It’s like, these are actual people that are behind the wheel. You know, yeah,
Jeff Nusbaum 04:47
The same kind of work backwards, too. When guys get a chance to come in the office, and it is different to come to, you know, our office here, get a chance to meet everybody, dispatchers. It’s not. Every place you’re at where you get it, get that interaction when you get to the office, it’s a lot of times, just separate it out completely. I
Jeremy Kellett 05:06
i didn’t think of that point of it, because I guess there are a lot of drivers out there that will kind of put that stigma on the company. You know, I just, I don’t want to go to the office. I’m gonna stay away from them. I don’t want to know they’re real people trying to make a living and do a job every day. You know, they’re a company. They’re against us. Yeah, I
Jeff Nusbaum 05:22
I could say we’re actually enjoying that part of it, when I make it to Little Rock, to come into the office to see my dispatcher face to face, and everybody else. I could say hello too. So always make sure I pass through right to the recruiting section. Always say hello to Corey, because he was my recruiter. He’s kind of like the go to guy for me. If I have a question for anything, it’s easy. I just called Corey. Corey will know who I need to talk to, right? So that makes it easy. Little
Megan Cummings 05:51
Free Press for Corey,
Jeremy Kellett 05:52
Yeah, tell us about Jeff Nussbaum. Where you live, family,
Jeff Nusbaum 05:57
hobbies. Well, I’m from South Carolina. I’ve been married for 30 years. I’ve got four, four kids. I’ve got 123, grandkids. My oldest just got married last weekend. So that was congratulations. We put a trip into New York City, and we did it all as a family. So that was pretty neat. But I’ve been trucking for 30 years on and off, and so far, I’m enjoying my adventure here at Oakley. What do you do in your spare time when you’re not tracking? Well, mostly in the summertime, I enjoy riding my bike side by side. We’ve got a couple of them up in the mountains in West Virginia. And so when I call back to dispatch, I say, time to head to the mountains again, and he’ll get me close to the mountains, which works out great. I don’t even go to my house. I think the last time I went home, I was at my house two times before that, I bypassed my house all together and went straight to the mountains and met all my family up at the mountains. And we’ll go up to the Hopfield McCoy trails in West Virginia. Oh, that’s cool. And go ride side by side.
Jeremy Kellett 06:59
Where do you stay? I
Jeff Nusbaum 06:59
have a camp set up right up. There’s property, nice. That’s my get away from it all. Location up there for sure. Oh, that’s what kind of side beside you. Get a Polaris razor. We have a couple two seed machines. Couple four seed machines. So I’ve got one. My wife’s got one, my daughter’s got one, my oldest boy’s got one. It’s a family affair. It is. We have a good time when we go up there. A lot of people do a lot of that, right? And I see that a lot. It’s not a cheap hobby. I can assure you that, no, I don’t think there are any cheap ones, but that’s definitely not one.
Jeremy Kellett 07:36
How’d you get started in trucking? Well,
Jeff Nusbaum 07:39
if we want you back. It all started originally. I started as a heavy equipment operator years ago. And I’m originally from upstate New York. And so upstate New York, you cannot go play in the dirt year round, and so in the weird time, you get laid off. And I found that there were some driving opportunities, so I started to pursue that, and got my driver’s license, and then it just went full time into driving. So you’re from New York, originally, upstate New York, upstate New York, just outside of Albany. So I’m originally from, I moved to the Carolinas about 1213, years ago. Were
Megan Cummings 08:19
you in New York until that time I was really
Jeff Nusbaum 08:23
It’s beautiful up there, but I am glad to be glued in the Carolinas.
Megan Cummings 08:27
I heard there’s a lot of red nicks in upstate New York, I swear, I promise, like in the right part of New York. Oh yeah, that’s how they just yeah. That’s true. Can
Jeff Nusbaum 08:38
You people have a misconception about New York. A lot. When you say New York, you think of the city, and that’s just us, a very small piece of the state of New York. If you go upstate New York, there’s some beautiful country upstate, lots of apple orchards and lots of it’s beautiful in the fall, for sure. We
Jeremy Kellett 08:55
I changed the subject, but my son lives in New York City, and we went up there two years ago and went to Grand Central Station. We jumped on a train that took us an hour or so up the river into a little town that was really neat. You know, getting completely out of the city is beautiful. It had a big mountain that you go hiking on, you know, we got lost. We thought we were going to be there for days. We were about to give up on having water. It was just, it was kind of a disaster. But anyway, it was fun. It was a neat little, you know, you think you go to New York, like you saying, and, I
Jeff Nusbaum 09:37
mean, an hour we’re out of the city and up in this nice out in the country. You’re probably up by the ski mount areas up in Durham, up on the Hudson, yep. So not too far up there, Oakley has got a customer in East Durham, New York, which is okay, right up in that neck of the woods. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I
Jeremy Kellett 09:56
agree with your misconception about New York, because. I had it till my son moved up there. So now not as bad, but anyway, so New York, and what’d you move to South Carolina for?
Jeff Nusbaum 10:09
At that particular time, I was in the environmental business, and my job had me managing oil terminals up and down the East Coast, and so I did a lot of traveling from Oh Portsmouth, New Hampshire, all the way down to Fort Lauderdale, for Lauderdale, Florida, and as far over as East St Louis. And I was just looking for a change. Taxes in New York are ridiculous. And I said to my wife, so we’re moving. And she’s like, where are we moving to? I’m like, I travel to the Carolinas lot, and I just like it down there. Still got four seasons, and the taxes were 1/6 of what they were when I left New York. That was 1213, years ago, and so I didn’t look back after that. New York can keep their taxes. I’ll go visit and more.
Megan Cummings 11:01
Is there anything you miss about living up there?
Jeff Nusbaum 11:04
The fall is really nice, especially during, you know, apple harvest time, but it’s always, it’s always a nice thing up in New York. Now, we kind
Megan Cummings 11:12
I miss out on that down here. It kind of jumps straight from summer. We get maybe a week or a week and a half of fall times for I
11:20
got you signed, tracked on that. Sorry about that. Get back to driving a truck you drove that turned into a full time. It did. It went full time. Then How old are you at this point? What years is, I
Jeff Nusbaum 11:31
guess? I’m gonna say that it was probably around 90. I actually had a driver’s license coming out of the military. Oh, you went, you were in the military, and they converted. I was in the military. I served in the Marine Corps, and they converted my license to a dump truck license when I came home. And so I did that, and it turned into a class A license. And then when I got married at 20, I was driving a truck, and I did that for a number of years, and then things changed over the years. I went from driving to dispatch and managing to driving, and it just kind of went full circle, and in the past several years, I ended up back full time driving again before I came over to Oakley, just, I don’t know just how it worked, I think it was a good place for me to be at for my age. What I like about this, yes, yes, okay, my driving jobs changed. I had jobs that were, you know, gone for two, three days at a time, come home for two or three, but the full time. Yeah, of course she would like me to be home more awful. It’s a lot easier. Now, all my kids are growing up. My youngest is in college. So that’s helpful. I think if my kids were younger, it probably would not be a job for me. No, I probably need to be home a lot more, maybe an end, I’m driving home every weekend. Yeah.
12:59
How often are you home now?
Jeff Nusbaum 13:01
It varies. I’ve been on like a three week routine lately, out for three and going home for a couple of days. That seems to be working out pretty decent. You’re
Megan Cummings 13:11
a back tank.
Jeff Nusbaum 13:12
I am. I like it. That’s been a pretty fun adventure. I’ve never done back tankers before. Years ago, I did some pneumatic work on Hall limestone. I actually did that for my father in law, driving an R model Mac from Canaan, Connecticut down into port, reading New Jersey every single day. Oh my gosh. That means run across that George Washington Bridge every day. Yeah, I’ve heard about that and how terrible that is. Oh, my goodness. How bad is it? I have not been on that George Washington Bridge in a good number of years, and that’s that was back in the 90s. So when I came to Oakley, I hadn’t been up in that area for a long time, and so I started out on the end, um, and had a load going to Kearney, New Jersey. Kearny New Jersey, which is right there right now, you can look right across the river at New York City, but it’s right up there. And I had to drive right past that same exit, and I called my brother in law, but said, Hey, exit 12, you know it’s like, oh yeah, Fort Reading, New Jersey. I said, that’s the one. So it was pretty having flashbacks. Yeah, don’t you know? I just kept going up there. I’m like, I moved away from this area, and can I never have to drive in the Jersey area again? Here I am. Now,
Jeremy Kellett 14:33
you talk about your brother in law. Is he trucking too? You got family, family, and
Jeff Nusbaum 14:37
truck is, yep, my brother in law, he’s, he’s an older operator as well, and his brother, his company driver. There’s a lot of driving in the family. My side of the family stayed in the excavating business.
14:50
You are the first truck driver of your family.
Jeff Nusbaum 14:53
My dad was a truck driver on and off when I was growing up. So my dad did some truck and he had some story. Dollars way back when Sears at Roebuck, they used to haul oil back in the day. And I can remember as a kid, he showed me a picture of the truck he drew. It was a single axle tractor that they would pull oil tankers with. And this is up before they put in the major roadways up in the adiron hex in New York, and they used to truck up that way. And so I can’t imagine
Jeremy Kellett 15:25
driving back then. Yeah, I couldn’t, I don’t know how they did it. And, I mean, the trucks have come so far.
Jeff Nusbaum 15:33
And my father in law, he was an owner operator his whole entire life, too. So wow, lot of
Jeremy Kellett 15:38
trucking around. Yeah, so y’all got plenty to talk about around Christmas dinner.
Megan Cummings 15:42
I’m sure your wives love
Jeff Nusbaum 15:43
it. Loves
Jeremy Kellett 15:46
it. You would think what kind of truck you own now.
Jeff Nusbaum 15:49
I currently drive a 2019, international, LT, 625, I bought it last year when I came to work here. You’ve
15:55
I have only been here for a year.
Jeff Nusbaum 15:57
It’s been a year. Wow. When was the year? July, August, August 21 was my question. So I am a first time owner operator.
Jeremy Kellett 16:07
Are you as of last year? I
Jeff Nusbaum 16:08
I mean, this is the first time I ever owned my own truck. So that, in itself, is a story to tell me, and it’s similar to a lot that you’ve had on your podcast before, but when I was driving a tanker, chemical tanker, I would stop every Oakley driver I found at the truck stop. And there’s a couple of those guys I still talk to, which is pretty neat, but, you know, I I talked to one guy on a CD radio when I’m driving down the road, and that really piqued my interest. And then I caught a guy in the truck stop and got more information, and then I just started bombarding his phone, like every week or so I call him up, it’s like, hey, what about this? Hey, what about that? And I did talk to Corey, and Corey had sent me a bunch of great information, which was super helpful being a first time owner operator. Yeah, information is key, and I found that this is as transparent as can be for trying to get information. And he had no problem at all. I said, I’ll send you, and you know, the end of the year statements from some guys, and you can see what they did. I’ll send you some weekly settlements, and you can see, you know, what comes out. And that was so helpful to make that decision, because it’s a hard transition, especially first time owner financing alone is a challenge. So you need to make sure that you account for everything, because there is no turning back. A lot of times when you make that decision to become an owner operator, yeah, you put a lot on the line to make that change. And I felt hesitant. I’m not gonna lie, there was a lot of anxiety going on, but at least I had all the information that I needed in order to make the decision you were. Just kept waiting for something unexpected to pop up that you and it did, and it was on your podcast the other day. You know, you catch a guy who had a bad time, had just an off day, a bad day, and I can remember I had all the information I needed. I just needed one more reason to make that change. And it happened. I called in my dispatch where I was working and it’s like, well, I got nothing for you tomorrow. I’m like, All right, that’s fun. What are we doing the next day? What are we doing Wednesday? Well, actually, I don’t have anything for you till next week, and I’m like, it’s a full time trucking job. I don’t know how that works with not having any work for a whole entire week. And I said to myself, if I’m gonna have to make a one week, one week leap between jobs, I might as well own my own truck. I said, then I can better manage how I’m going to go about that. So that was it. That was the week I called Corey, and I said, I’m ready. When can you take me, put me on the boat? Actually, I think I might have called him to come in early, because I was right in the middle. I found a truck, which was another process that I didn’t really fully think about until I had to buy one. I knew trucks from all my life, but when you start thinking about the gear ratios in the rear end, how they’re going to affect what you’re calling and what your fuel mileage is going to be, all those things add up in a hurry. So yeah, that was the week I said I’m legal, you know, it’s,
Jeremy Kellett 19:24
it’s so hard for a lot of guys to make that step, yeah, to be in a comfortable company driving job, that a lot of things you’re, you know, I can hear them. I don’t have to worry about a truck, I don’t have to worry about maintenance. I don’t have to, you know, worry about this kind of stuff. And I don’t have any benefits. And, I mean, there’s a lot to that, so it really, I mean, I’m sure you and your wife had to have some serious conversations about, is this right for us or not? Well, especially
Megan Cummings 19:50
whenever, okay, you said, first time owner operator, you said you’ve been driving for how many years I’ve had my class a driver’s license for 30 years? Dollars. So, I mean, 29 years of things working out just fine, and then all of a sudden it’s like, I think I want to try this. Benefits
Jeff Nusbaum 20:07
were a huge concern. In My last company job, I had great benefits. And so it and, you know, it was a tough decision to make that change. So
Jeremy Kellett 20:19
can I ask you now, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. But I mean, how have you adjusted to the benefits of being an independent contractor? What have you done? Well, I
Jeff Nusbaum 20:29
think you never, you’re never going to know, until you do it, and then once you make that change to do it, the options become more so what do I mean by that? There’s good money in being an owner operator, but there’s also a lot of benefits to being an owner operator that you don’t always think about as a company driver. Is your write offs, your expenses, what you can expense. And so what? How much do you really make after you know, you look at, well, my cell phone bill now is a business expense. It’s not something that I just have as a company driver, so all those things in consideration, start looking at the other benefits and now they’re more affordable, instead of trying to look at your budget from you know, how you looked at it as a company driver, yeah,
Megan Cummings 21:17
we should really do something, maybe an episode where we’ve got somebody that comes on and tells everybody everything that you can expense on your taxes, because I’ll listen to especially around the time that we do 2290s and people will ask for copies of it after it’s finished being paid. I mean, you can just about expense anything. Yeah, a lot of people don’t know that, especially personally,
Jeff Nusbaum 21:41
A good tax consultant or somebody to do your business taxes is pretty important, very, yeah, very important to have somebody. And you know, you need to have somebody. You can ask those business questions like, you know, when is the right time for me to buy a truck? Buy another truck. How much depreciation is left? Those things you never really thought about as a company driver, but as a business owner, it’s like, oh, wait a minute, there’s some benefit there. Yeah. So you have to change your way of thinking, No, completely. And you learn a lot Absolutely.
Jeremy Kellett 22:18
Did you learn any of it prior to going in?
Jeff Nusbaum 22:21
There was a lot that I understood. I’ve got some other business. I’ve got a grading and estimating business as well. That’s what my son does. And so I understand the bookkeeping and business side of it, but trucking in specific that you know, you don’t again, you don’t know till you know. Yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 22:43
So I assume you’re glad you made the jump. I
Jeff Nusbaum 22:46
I am very glad I made the change. It was, I’m not gonna lie, it was my timing. And the actual timing of things is never one in the same. It’s, you know, you tell your wife you can get this project done in two hours, and she’s over there. It’s an all weekend project. Well, it’s kind of the same thing with owning your own truck. I thought, you know, I’m gonna go strong at it the first six months, and I’m gonna get a good bank account set back, and I’m gonna be taking it easy from there, and it’s gonna be fine. Well, that’s not true. Yeah, it takes a lot more in six months of hard work. And I feel now after, you know, after I hit my one year mark, the bonus is, was huge to be able to put that right to the bank account. And I always said it, once I get to the bonus part, then I’ll feel much better. I’ll have that money sitting back in the bank. I don’t have to touch it. I tried not to look at the bonus as much as I did. You were holding back 10 cents a mile. I’m a load mile away from paying me. So it was paid for the mile. Just don’t get it to the end of the year right. And so you keep that right in your business. And if you’re smart with your money, it’s going to take care of itself, yeah. And for
23:57
People that don’t know we pay our owner operator a 10 cent a loaded mile bonus, which is huge, and you get it on your anniversary date, or there about you have to make your anniversary date to get the 10 cents. If you don’t make your anniversary date, you don’t get it. And then the next year goes to 11. Next year at 12. There’s no cap on it, so the longer you hear, the more the bonus you’re going to have. And we did that a long time ago, because it gives you something to look forward to. You know, it’s a great retention Yes, a retention tool, and to help you save money, I mean, or not, to get too in depth with your finances, but I mean, managing money is critical, isn’t it business? Yep, when you go separate the business from the house, absolutely.
Jeff Nusbaum 24:46
And that’s yeah, the easiest thing for me was to just establish their own accounts, check an account, credit card account, and that’s the business, and leave it alone. And I don’t know, put it in your right pocket. And. And put your personal money in your left pocket, you know, and keep it that way, and it makes your tax advisor and tax tax guy so much happier. It’s easier to keep up with for sure. Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 25:13
Yeah, it’s unfortunate. We see a lot of people mismanage their money to, I mean, to their demise, I mean, and we’ve lost some great owner operators that just didn’t know how to do it, didn’t know how to manage the money. And, you know, spend it like they, you know, were the cartel, like
Megan Cummings 25:29
they spend it like they had it. I do that every weekend, every Monday, I wake up hating myself. So
Jeff Nusbaum 25:39
Normal life is what most people do. You know, that’s exciting when you get a nice settlement check at the end of the week, you know? And, yeah, it’s like, wow. Well, whoa, this is nice. I’ve had a couple of those, you know, zingers in there, yeah, that are just really good. Like, oh man, yeah, ice cream this
Jeremy Kellett 25:57
weekend. Yeah, first call is to the wife going, Okay, now don’t, don’t do anything yet, until we talk that’s right, we’re
Megan Cummings 26:05
going to sizzler tonight. You need
Jeff Nusbaum 26:10
to plan ahead, because this those times where you want to go home and you’re not
Megan Cummings 26:14
working. There’s no paycheck that’s been pretty consistent with everybody that we speak to. Yep, is the money management, and it seems like, if you can get that down, yep, everything else kind of falls into place with being an owner operator.
Jeremy Kellett 26:27
Couple more questions, Jeff, anything you’d like to add there? I think we pretty much covered, you know, advice on becoming an owner operator that’s good advice on what to do and the research. But what do you think? I mean, we kind of fight, as a trucking company and truck drivers, we fight, we kind of fight that stigma of being, you know, no good truck driver, no good trucking company. You know, the billboards are up. They’re gonna, you know, get out of my way, type deal? Well, you’re in that seat every day in traffic on the interstate, and you’re having to deal with the general public that has not everybody, but a lot of them, because of the advertising, already have a negative attitude towards truck drivers. How do you handle that? Actually, on the road every day,
Jeff Nusbaum 27:23
you’ve got to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. And the best way to do that is to model the actions and behaviors that you want to see on the road, as opposed to reacting to all the nonsense on the road. And it’s not always easy. It’s easy to get frustrated on the road, for sure, but at the end of the day, I need to make a living doing this, and I need to drive tomorrow, and so if I just keep thinking about that all the while, then it makes it a little bit easier. But yeah,
27:55
well, that’s a great answer, because you mean to me, I would have to mentally prepare. Okay, all right, I’ve got to get on I 40 and go to Memphis. I’m gonna have to mentally prepare to get to Memphis, you know, safety, yoga, music or something like that, because I know it’s gonna be a little more volatile than maybe, you know, going to Oklahoma City.
Jeff Nusbaum 28:19
Yeah, that stretch from Little Rock to Memphis has got a bad rap, it does. And it’s really no different any other highway and all the red Okay,
Megan Cummings 28:29
bad example,
Jeff Nusbaum 28:31
not really, but that’s what you have to think about it. I mean, it just is what it is. It’s a two lane road, and you know, you’re gonna have two trucks out there doing 69 miles an hour, and you’re gonna get aggravated. Yep,
Megan Cummings 28:45
I always think that there are many reasons why I don’t drive a truck. Let me preface it. But anytime I consider, I think about all those videos that you see of people driving big trucks down like the streets of New York or just other places that are particularly cramped, there’s no way to think about that all the time. I don’t ever hear anybody complain about it, though. You know, I don’t know if we don’t. I know we do some tank loads up that way, but I don’t know how much inner city stuff you guys do.
Jeff Nusbaum 29:14
I’ve been through the city a few times. The roads are horrible. I’ve never had to deliver into the New York City area, I don’t think I would want to. And it’s funny, because when we were there last weekend, I said to my son, ” How do they do trip driver deliveries through here? So no way you’re getting a tanker or, you know, a combination vehicle down these roads. Everything has to be in a van, truck. But there’s just no way. Yeah,
Megan Cummings 29:40
I did. Speaking of perception, I always have this burning question in the back of my mind. I haven’t asked anybody yet, but I was curious. You know how you see in TV shows or movies, how the truck drivers are just greasy, dirty, lazy? Yeah. A redneck, just idiots. I mean, just like, Oh, you’re driving a truck because you can’t do anything else.
Jeff Nusbaum 30:05
Does that bother you? There are those people out there?
Megan Cummings 30:08
Well, yeah, but
Jeff Nusbaum 30:11
the fact that you got that image, I mean, in your mind about truck drivers. I mean, a lot of people have it, but certainly here, I mean, you know better, because you see the guys coming in and out every day. And I don’t think that is a real accurate portrayal of the American trucker. If it was like, if I was watching a movie smokey and the bandit, yes, sure, yep. And well, more broadly speaking, if
Megan Cummings 30:39
I was watching a movie, and I’m like, man, every single movie I see, I always have somebody that’s really stupid playing the character named Megan. And I don’t know why. I think that would start to get to me a little bit. So I just always wanted to ask and see if that was, you know, if you guys kind of noticed that, I think it’s we get the creme de la creme here we do, you know, so we don’t really see any of that, so it’s never equated in our minds, but it kind of rubs me the wrong way whenever I see that. Yeah, so
Jeff Nusbaum 31:09
That was a decision, too, about coming to Oakley. That made it much easier, because I never saw a bad looking Oakley truck on the road.
Jeremy Kellett 31:20
That helps, that helps, for sure. And you talk to Jimmy. I talked to Jimmy before or after he got I talked
Jeff Nusbaum 31:27
to Jimmy afterwards. It’s what I started doing more of my research on Oakley, and I came across Jimmy’s YouTube channel, Jimmy’s road live, Jimmy’s Road, live, yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 31:38
l y f E, L y f e, that’s right,
Megan Cummings 31:40
it’s the cool spelling of and now you’re both back tanks, and
Jeff Nusbaum 31:46
Now we are, yeah, yep. He’s a good resource for me as well. I’ll call him up and say, Hey, I need a hand. How do I do this? Or, or I’m going here. Have you seen it? So it’s good. I’ve made a lot of friends here at Oakley. It makes the job easier. I’ve got five or six guys that I can call any minute of the day and say, Hey, I’m I got a problem. Yeah. So
Jeremy Kellett 32:10
that helps. What’s the worst thing about working at Oakley? Worst thing
Jeff Nusbaum 32:16
Well, I really don’t know what the worst thing is. I mean, no
Megan Cummings 32:19
pressure,
32:21
no pressure you can be on.
Jeff Nusbaum 32:24
I don’t like driving at night, and certainly that’s not a job requirement to speak here. Well,
Jeremy Kellett 32:30
I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but I mean it’s true. I mean, there are things that, you know, we do, that I do, that she does, that we don’t like. Yeah, you know, at this company, not me, especially Megan. Anybody hear about it all the time? Oh, what? Just kidding. But no, I mean, you know, we just, you know, there’s always things, I mean, and that’s good that you can’t just instantly come off with one, because, I mean, it means a lot to us too. I mean, you know, we are so spoiled here at Oakley by having such good owner operators. It amazes me to this day, and you don’t realize it, because, you know, we’re in it every day in this office, and we, you know, we just take it for granted a lot of days until recruiting doesn’t because we are constantly talking to people that do not qualify to come to Oakley. It is a constant battle. But, you know, I think we all get spoiled with guys like you that work here and help us grow this company, get have a good reputation, you know, and move it forward to where we’re given that positive image of truck drivers and trucking companies to the general public, I find just give them to watch this podcast. Yeah, yeah, I keep watching and missing that. That’s
Jeff Nusbaum 33:47
right. Start giving
Megan Cummings 33:48
out the winning lotto numbers.
33:50
We could. I do not.
Jeremy Kellett 33:53
I would. No, never. Okay. What about your dispatcher? So a lot of people, you know, these days load boards. You pick your own loads. You do all this. You know, that’s what a lot of companies do to you. You know, we’re not going to be a dispatcher that tells you where to go and what to do. Tell us about you’ve had a couple dispatchers here, I assume because you were pulling a dot and they pull a pneumatic tank, give the listeners and maybe, uh, somebody listening that’s thinking about coming over to help them diffuse that fear of dispatchers being bad or controlling or, you know what I’m talking about,
Jeff Nusbaum 34:37
I don’t think so. I don’t. I’ve not had any of that problem with any of my dispatchers, and sometimes it’s a mindset on the front side for it’s a driver. And for me, it’s easy if I’m not home and I’m going to be out working, I don’t care where I’m going, and so I don’t care. Give me a load. Yeah, it can be a long one. It can be a short one. Communication with the dispatcher is important. Sometimes I talk to guys and say, Oh yeah, I call my dispatcher in the morning. I call many afternoons. I do that every day. And I don’t know whether that’s the norm or not. It’s just what I do. And I think it makes it easier, because the dispatcher knows where I’m at. Don’t have to guess, gonna have to guess I’m gonna show up. And if I tell them I’m gonna be somewhere, nine o’clock tomorrow, that’s where I’ll be, and if I’m not, I’m gonna call Yeah. So I think it’s pretty simple. Sometimes expectations for guys making a change from that load board mentality, it can be a challenge for them. Not knowing where you’re going next is always a challenge, and I think that has a lot to do also with just the workload in general, though we have today, because, you know, you talk to guys, say, three years ago, dispatch was laying out loads for them for three or four days in advance, because there were just so much work they were having a hard time keeping up. And so it’s not quite that way now. So you have to put yourself in the dispatcher’s shoes sometimes to understand what they’re going through, knowing that they’ve got 50 guys. Everybody’s looking for that next load. You can’t give what you don’t have? Yeah? So I think just if you can mentally prepare for that, it’s not going to be a problem. Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 36:28
a lot of people, I get a lot of honor operators that will tell me, Hey, man, this is I’m so less stressed, you know, I don’t have to worry about rates, what the loads pay, how far I got a dead head man, ya’ll, have taken that load off of me to where now I can concentrate on just driving and customer service, and it’s, you know, so lot less stressful.
Jeff Nusbaum 36:53
We get that quite a bit. I was talking to somebody yesterday. It’s like, I don’t have to worry how many empty miles I’m going to run, because that’s not my job. My job is just to drive to where the dispatch has got me going to get the next one. And I know, you know, if I were to have to drive 300 miles to go get my next load, and I had to pay for every fit of that mileage to get there to get the next load. That next load is gonna have to be real good. That’s right. I don’t have to worry about it. We do. That’s right. That’s our job. Yep.
Jeremy Kellett 37:27
What’s the future look like for Jeff NoSQL, Oakley is number one driver, or Oakley self proclaimed number one driver. I
Jeff Nusbaum 37:34
do have disclaimer to that. I gave you the disclaimer now I don’t want to discredit all the rest of the good guys. We have a ton of good guys out there. We do. I’m one of you. One of what’s next for me is, well, I think next year, probably bring another truck. I’ll be at the end of the warranty on the one I’ve got now. And I like that sense of security, the feeling of having a backup plan. And so I’m, I’m going to find a way to have it again, like you get expired, you get another international. I definitely want something that’s going to be fuel fishing, brand spanking new one.
Megan Cummings 38:07
When you say new, or you mean new,
Jeff Nusbaum 38:09
we’ll see, we’ll see what the accountant says next year, and we’ll see what the bank account says, and we’ll see what the ambition says, No, what the prices are. That’s right, a lot can change, because new trucks are not cheap. No, no. Used trucks are, but new trucks are, but it’s a wild card. Anything
Jeremy Kellett 38:32
else you’d like to add? Megan? Anything for Jeff?
Megan Cummings 38:35
I think Jeff just speaks for himself. I was really surprised when he said you’ve only been here for a year. I knew you had been here for at least three or four. Yeah, I always have a good attitude when I talk to Jeff. It’s always nice to see him when he comes into the office. I don’t say that about everybody, but for real this time, it’s not interesting for real. But yeah, it’s been a pleasure having you. We love to we I think whenever people really enjoy what they do, you can tell, like it’s not, it’s easy to tell if they’re not brown nosing or, you know, just vibing, you know, you could see it. It’s genuine. Just
Jeff Nusbaum 39:13
here to make the money. Jeff, we
Jeremy Kellett 39:15
appreciate you, man, I appreciate you coming up and doing this with us. It’s just always good. You’re so genuine, and goes a long way, and we appreciate it. I Hope we get more operators like you. I thank you. Appreciate everybody listening to the Oakley podcast this week, man, you guys have been an awesome audience. We appreciate all the feedback you give us. Be sure to check out all our socials. Social media. Annabelle does a great job with our videos and stuff. Be sure and check all those out. If you have questions, even particular questions to any episode, like if you heard what Jeff was talking about, whether it was, you know, becoming owner operator finances, shoot me a message, and I’ll send it to Jeff, and you’ll probably get in touch with you. Be glad to share that information, because. Thanks. You know, the ultimate goal here is to help owner operators be successful in this business, and that’s what we want to do. We want to create more owner operators that are successful because it makes us successful. So appreciate you joining me this time. Megan, no problem. Good stuff. Hey everybody. We appreciate it. We’ll talk to you next week. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode with Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate or review the show in the podcast platform of your choice and share it with a friend. We love hearing from our audience. So if you’ve got a question comment or just want to say hello, head over to our website, the Oakley podcast.com and click the leave a comment button. We’ll get you a response soon, and may even share some of the best ones here on the show. We’ll be back with a fresh episode very soon. Thanks for listening.