What would you recommend to get my trucking career started?
Your in a pickle alright, especially if you were a teamster. Your days of getting paid like that are over for the time being. First you need to re-align what you consider the ideal job would be. You have already figured out that you can't get a job without experience and most good paying companies can afford to be pickier because they pay so well. So even after you get your two years your options are going to be less that ideal. Plus, if you get a union job for an LTL company your hours will be 24/7 on call. No schedule or set day's. This will take you through the next 5 to 10 years because the seniority list is so long and nobody ever quits. You have to wait for someone to die or retire, just to get on full time grave yard. I just spoke with a lady who has driven for AG for 15 years and she just got moved up to day shift. That's the truth about those good paying jobs. What you will have to apply for and possibly get is a job as a picker at a wharehouse, then maybe you can move into the yard as a hostler. Other than that, you will end up delivering furniture or mattresses riding along in a straight truck. You will only be a back up driver. If you do go over the road, the bigger companies are not as bad as the previous driver stated. There are pro's and con's on both side's of the coin when it comes to OTR companies. I worked for a smaller company for 8 years, it was great at first but then they start pressuring you to do runs, logging creatively to make it happen. They do this because they need to move freight and your the only driver in the area. The also would rather have you sit for 2 days and wait for a load than to pay for your fuel going somewhere empty. They streamline the moves, and your sitting around waiting for a load is of no concern with them. The larger companies move you, keep you moving. Plus when you want to sit you can. They have plenty of drivers. Another thing if you go OTR, your going to have to train for 4 to six weeks with a trainer. You already sound like you may have an attitude about being over the road, please try not to take it out on the guy who is training you. He is there to do a job, your doing exactly what he did and every other driver in this business had to do. Including me.
Can a collections agency sue me if I am making payments towards my debt?
Long story short, I have been through several hardships and I have an $11,000 credit card bill. They sent it to collections, and now the collections agent is threatening to sue. My question is, can they go forward with a lawsuit if I am willing to pay? I have expressed my desire to make things right and pay back the debt I owe. I know I have to be held responsible for my actions...I'm not trying to get away with anything here. The problem is, they are demanding almost $3000 in order to stop persuing the case against me. I don't have that kind of money and I have no way to get it. I am willing to make small payments ($100 or so) from now on. I can even put this in writing for them if they want. I tried to look this up online - some places say they can't touch me as long as I am making some kind of payment. Other places say they can do whatever they want if I don't pay the whole $3000. Can anyone help?
I need to provide fake income?
I just got approved for a house I want to rent except he needs proof of income. I know it's bad to lie but sometimes you have to. I told him I work a full-time job but the truth is I would be paying for it by cashing in my stocks I have invested on the market. I have plenty to last me but being truthful with that would not have gotten me the apartment that I want. You want a bank account statement or paystub's. I don't know what to do any advice?
If a person received over $80,000 severance must that be used up before collecting...?
I worked in a payroll office for 13 years and filled out many unemployment forms that were forwarded by the state to us. Annual leave payouts and severance pay had to be reported. We only had one case of severance pay, but I remember having to extrapolate it out and report the time frame which it covered; as if the person was still on the payroll. Same thing with annual leave payout. The period of unemployment starts once PAY is no longer being received. To give a simple example, if you made $1,000 per week and received $10,000 in severance pay, you would not be able to start unemployment benefits for 10 weeks. In Virginia, at least, you can go ahead and put in paperwork so that you get a "head start" on getting the paperwork started. If you have unused vacation pay, it will also be "extrapolated out" as to how long your pay would continue. If you have both unused vacation pay AND severance pay, they will be extrapolated out consecutively, not concurrently. The amount of unemployment benefits is related to the income you were making, with a fairly modest "cap". I'm sure that varies from state to state. It would make sense that the payments might be higher in a higher cost of living area. In Virginia, you can only receive benefits for 26 weeks. I read recently that this is being reviewed in some states to increase the length of time to up to one year due to the economic crisis we are in and the high unemployment rate and scarcity of jobs. Just for amusement purposes two cases come to mind - one person filed for unemployment - reason for dismissal was imprisonment. Another voluntarily retired, then figured she couldn't live on the income and filed for unemployment. As Wiinston Churchill once said, "It doesn't TAKE all kinds, there just ARE all kinds". Good luck!