Ever wonder what it’s like to work the night shift? In The Know by Yahoo’s new series After Hours spotlights real people who’ve chosen not to work the traditional 9 to 5.
In this episode, Lex Bhola shares what it’s like to work as a truck driver.
Video Transcript
CHAVEZ BHOLA: I’ll drive, and I don’t even notice that, like– that, like, oh, wow, six hours just flew by.
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I just tune in and just go. Even though I’ve been driving tractor trailers for a long time, but when you really driving it, like, you’re really by yourself driving it, you’re like, huh, this is– this is different. But then, like, after the first two weeks, [? it’s ?] like just second nature now, you know? I encourage anybody to go get to their– to be a truck driver, if that’s what you really want to do. But you have to have patience. It’s like very difficult, very difficult.
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My name is Chavez Bhola, and I’m a truck driver. And I just have, like, little adventures that I do, like an entrepreneur.
My dad’s been a truck driver for as long as I can count. And his whole life, been into trucks. He was a master mechanic, a master tech. And then a couple years, he wanted to leave that alone. He wanted to get back into truck driving. So he went and got more trucks. I was probably, like, six, seven years old at the time. And he just kept going with the trucks.
He had dump trucks and then tractor trailers, and then we just kept going on, kept going on. I grew up. And I was like, you know what, dad? I actually started a van business. And then from the van business, I was like, you know, I’m going to get my CDL.
So I just– where we at now is here he’s teaching me everything he knows, and here you go. This is yours now, so you run with it.
– Well, when I start with the truck, the trucking is from my parents [? and them, ?] you know. And I’m a certified mechanic also– Caterpillar, John Deere, Cummins. It’s fun to do work on them. It’s very, very fun to work on them. Take the stress off of other jobs, you know?
CHAVEZ BHOLA: They’ve got things like lanes. A lane will be like a 9:00 to 5:00 job for you. Let’s say like Jersey to Virginia every day and back. That would be, like, your lane, right?
I liked it more working overnight because the traffic dims down. It’s just very dark. There’s a lot of places– like, we in New York, so it’s a lot of light. But when you get out of New York, it’s pitch black outside. But I personally liked it because that’s the way you’re going to get the best distance. If you’re running from, let’s say, New York to Florida, you’re going to want to run through that whole night.
They only allow you 10 hours of drive, so. And now in trucking, your time is literally your money. So nighttime to me was– that’s where it’s at. People in the nightlife, especially, they got to deal with a whole bunch of different type of personalities.
Most personalities– like, in the daytime people put on a different type of posture in the daytime. They act a little different. Nighttime is just like, ah, wild and crazy, you know? Everybody’s just going to see it different until they actually there, until they actually see, like, what we go through.
I saw this the other day. A guy was driving next to me, right, tractor trailer. He had dimmer lights than me. And for some reason, I kind of slowed down. Slowed down. Deer, right in front of him– boom. Whole truck done off. People in the daytime, though, they could see when that’s about to happen, you know? We can’t see that.
The hardest thing that I found, though, was I’d be talking to my son on the phone. And I’d just be like, damn, I wish I was home right now. It’s really hard for my wife. She got it the worst because now she got– she don’t have my help. I’m not here at home.
She was used to, OK, you know, he’s here. He can help me. But now I’m 500 miles away. There’s no– you know? Thank God for iPhone. You know, you got a FaceTime. But– but then, in the back of my head, it’s like, yo, if I make it, you know, we all– we’ll all be good. We’ll all be set. Sacrifice a little bit right now just for the bigger picture later, you know?
I don’t plan on driving forever, but I plan on running this forever, forever. I got four trucks right now, another maybe four. I really want to teach my daughter how to run this whole thing. My story is where it’s at because of my dad. I want my dad’s story one day to be told– 12 years old, building trucks all his life, going broke, coming back, then coming to America with two kids, with, like, $100 in his pocket, and then starting everything he got now– pretty good. I’m just trying to live up to his name, man. That’s really where I’m at.
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