Tobin S. (7,110 posts) http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018708548
My DOT physical certification is up in the air.
I'm a trucker and all CDL holders have to pass a Department of Transportation physical given by a certified doctor. My physical certification expires in a few days so I went to the doctor to get re-certified.
A new thing starting last year with the DOT physicals was that they have to check for signs of sleep apnea. These include body mass index and the size of your neck relative to the size of your throat. I am a fat guy and I have an 18.5 inch neck so they said I have to get tested. I can do everything at home, but it's going to put me out of work for a little bit.
Back when I smoked cigarettes, my wife told me that I snored a lot and sometimes gasped for air in my sleep. Around the time I quit smoking I tried to get tested for sleep apnea, but my insurance wouldn't cover it. Evidently, I had to be dying from it before my insurance kicked in. They wouldn't just allow me to get tested. The test at the local hospital costs $4800 and I can't afford that so I went without the test. As time went by without me smoking, my wife said my snoring greatly improved and I stopped gasping for air in my sleep so I figured I was okay anyway.
I don't have any of the symptoms of sleep apnea now, but the doctor said that since I have the physical traits that can cause it I have to get tested regardless. If it does turn out that I do have it, I'll have to get CPAP machine to sleep with, and do another test with it before I can be certified to drive again. This time the insurance has to cover it.
Commercial drivers are held to a much higher standard when it comes to certification and their licenses. You can't just decide you want to drive a truck for a living one day and just hop in one and go. To haul hazardous materials now you have to be certified by the TSA. You know how dealing with them goes. I was born in Germany to American parents. They ask for your place of birth on the hazmat security clearance application. I have to put Germany down and I can't offer any explanation at the time I'm filling out the application that shows that I'm a U.S. citizen. So I turn in the application and my clearance gets denied because they don't think I'm a U.S. citizen and that I'm in the country illegally. That's happened to me both times I've applied. The second time despite actually having obtained clearance the first time I applied. Then I have to go through a month of bullshit proving I'm a U.S. citizen that involves sending copies of my most sensitive personal documents in the mail.
**** that. I let my hazmat endorsement expire when I started driving for a company that didn't require it.
CaliforniaPeggy (112,891 posts)
1. It sounds like you know what you're facing, my dear Tobin.
I hope it goes smoothly.
Hey, I can dream, can't I?
Good luck!
Tobin S. (7,110 posts)
2. There is a silver lining. This gives me a few days during the week to scout for jobs. I have an interview that I just scheduled a few minutes ago that I would not have been able to go to if I wasn't going to be off work. I got the call that they were interested while I was in the exam room at the doctor's office waiting for the doctor.
Tobin S. (7,110 posts)
5. They have a new addition to their repertoire of guages. The tape measure.
DUmmie Tobin must live in a blue state.....
DUmmie Tobin must live in a blue state, because I've had a CDL since 1984, including the required bi-annual physicals (the last one last year), and have never heard of such.Hi5. You called it. Tobin is lying. This is just another way of saying he got fired. Probably for failing a drug test,
Outside of a basic vision test, color blindness test, and the standard height, weight, BP, etc., I have NEVER had to do anything more strenuous than "turn your head and cough" for any of them.
Hell, I passed one of them with a fever of 100.4 (bad case of bronchitis).
Hi5. You called it. Tobin is lying. This is just another way of saying he got fired. Probably for failing a drug test,
DUmmy Tobin S. resides in the DUmp nuthatch most of the time.Or extreme fatitude.
If he was denied a CDL, which even rsmithnumbers could get, it may have had something to do with his repeated involuntary commitments to public loonybins.
Or extreme fatitude.
An 18 1/2 inch neck, tapering to a size 6 7/8 head.Or a traffic cone.
Tobin sounds like an aardvark.
He does. Indiana.
You're joking, right? I live in IN. The only blue areas are in the state are INDY (excluding the burbs), outside of Chicago, parts of Fort Wayne, and Monroe County (where IU is located, they let the students vote locally).What about Columbus?
You're joking, right? I live in IN. The only blue areas are in the state are INDY (excluding the burbs), outside of Chicago, parts of Fort Wayne, and Monroe County (where IU is located, they let the students vote locally).
Indiana is kind of like Illinois, isn't it? Most of the liberals are concentrated in the big cities?
Indiana is kind of like Illinois, isn't it? Most of the liberals are concentrated in the big cities?
That's pretty much the case in every state.
Even California would be repuke without the L.A. and Bay Area cesspools.
**** that. I let my hazmat endorsement expire when I started driving for a company that didn't require it.
Whoa. What a thick neck the primitive has.
If one of Skippy's pals got a hold of him, it'd take far more than one slash of the scimitar to lop that head off.
An 18 1/2 inch neck, tapering to a size 6 7/8 head.I just chortled :rotf:
Tobin sounds like an aardvark.(http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ant_and_aardvark_4352.png)
DUmmy Tobin S. resides in the DUmp nuthatch most of the time.
If he was denied a CDL, which even rsmithnumbers could get, it may have had something to do with his repeated involuntary commitments to public loonybins.
I'm concerned for two reasons. Would someone who's been nuts before really be competent to drive some monster-sized vehicle weighing several tons? One has to be careful, because he might have a recrudescence of his fits. And also, he's probably on pharmaceuticals to "stabilize" his sanity. Pharmaceuticals tend to have unanticipated side-effects.
And okay, so he just got his degree in business administration, and kudos to him for that. But would someone who's been nuts before really be competent, for example, to manage, to supervise, other people? He might go nuts again and make decisions that screw up other people's jobs.....and lives.
We've all worked under managers and supervisors with mental problems; it never ends well.
I honestly don't think the Tobin primitive should fill either sort of position. Since he lives in Indiana, I'd suggest some sort of assembly-line or agricultural work. He might think himself "above" or "too good for" assembly-line work, but hey, it's union wages and union benefits. It's not a bad life if one accepts one's limitations.
If he can't own a gun legally then why in the hell can he have a huge truck that can take out more people than a gun?
Response to DFW (Reply #9)
Tue Jan 13, 2015, 04:05 PM
Tobin S. (7,172 posts)
10. Nah
We do appear to want to spend more time together than many couples do, and we are all about the happiness. I suppose I wasn't frivolous enough in my OP to show that it's a joke between us. I confused Peggy, too.
My bones ache from 18 years of trucking. I've been hanging around the house for the past five days because my physical certification is up in the air, and it's been nice just to be able to do what I like. I'm in the middle of a career change. I just graduated from college and I'm looking for a good job- something that I want to do that won't put me in a wheel chair or an early grave. That makes both us very happy
Upadate!!! Tobin is still looking for work and he's still fat:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018711063
I've been hanging around the house for the past five days because my physical certification is up in the air, and it's been nice just to be able to do what I like.