The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 311: It's Not a Job, It's a Lifestyle with Tom Odom

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Our favorite modern-day cowboy breaks down what a day-in-the-life of a long-haul trucker looks like and how he manages to drive his office over 120,000 miles each year.  Oh yeah, and you'll also hear the chorus of a yet-to-be-written song called The Ballad of Tom Odom.

Hello, friends, me again, with another episode of the way I heard it specifically, 3-11, it's not a job, it's a lifestyle. Another direct quote, Chuck, from another fantastic guest. Yes, Tom Odom is his name. We heard him briefly on Will Swames' episode, which was 294. If you want to catch up on that, when we were talking about AB5 and how it's affected Tom Odom's life. I believe that episode was entitled The Ballad of Tom Odom.

Yeah, it's not mandatory, guys, but if you really want to sort of track the conversation, you might want to start with that if you haven't heard it. Episode 294, The Ballad of Tom Odom. Quick review. Our friend Will Swame wrote an article about a terrible bit of legislation threatening to completely upend the freelance world, as we know it, called AB5. It's happening here in California, but it's also been writ large in Congress with something called the Pro Act. Anyhow, Tom Odom is a truck driver, an independent truck driver who relocated his business from California to Tennessee

and is in the process of relocating himself and his family from California to who knows where. Because this law is completely upending not only Tom's life, but the last. lives of freelancers everywhere. And this has always mattered to me, you know, and for whatever reason it matters to me now more than ever. I think maybe because our foundation right now is giving away another bunch of money for work ethic scholarships. And so many times, you know, I just assume that the people applying are going to be working for a wage. But that's not true. So many of the people that MicroWorks has assisted work for profits. They're a freelancer. They're freelancers. You know? And from where I'm sitting, there is an all-out war on freelance, and Tom Odom is on the right side of it. Will Swame is on the right side of it. And modesty aside, I think you and I are on the right side of it.

Well, yes, we both have been freelancers for large chunks of our lives. Right now, though, you know, in working for you, I'm more in the wage category. But, um, Who said you'd be working for me for much longer? I didn't project anything into the future. I realize I'm always under the sort of Damocles. At any moment, this all could come crashing down, a literary reference? Look at you. Not just literary. Grecian.

I thought you were going to go with, remember, I think it was a princess bride, where there's that great point where somebody's telling a story about how, you know, the man in black said, I'll probably kill you next week. You know, I'll probably kill you next week. But he never does, of course. I'll probably never fire you. But if I do, it'll probably be next week. One side note, before we jump into this,

Tom has been difficult to nail down because he's constantly on the road. He's always. We started this thing like three times. And every time he's been in a place where there's just hasn't been good service. Yeah. And yeah, tell him what happened on the morning into this. We'll explain it in the conversation, but we finally got him holding still somewhere in West Texas. He's got his headset on.

There's a little hinky audio issue, a little bit. It's not too annoying, but it's not on your end. It's on our end, but we got it sorted out pretty quick. And look, the purpose of this conversation is really twofold. I want to keep AB5 and the Pro Act on people's minds, and I want people to understand there is a war on freelancing that's impacting guys like Tom. but I also really want people to get a better sense of what it takes to be an independent truck driver today, the number of truck drivers in this country, the role they play in our own individual lives. You can't overstate it, friends.

We are dead, screwed, blued, and tattooed without truckers. And this legislation really is an existential threat to a lot of them. So when you listen to Tom Talk, you're listening to a Patriot. You're listening to a guy who loves his country. There's a flag in his cab. Yeah. He loves California too. And his heart is broken because he has no choice but to leave.

Final note, we called episode 294, the ballot of Tom Odom, because we said, man, this guy needs a song. Tom Odom just sounds like a guy who should be in a song. And then somebody went ahead and wrote. a song for Tom Odom, didn't they? I'm working on it. I got a chorus that's coming together. Here, let me just give you a little teaser right now. Fair warning. Not a lot of things

rhyme with Odom, but Scrodom does. And I'm pretty proud to get that in the chorus of a song yet to be written. Here it is. Tom Odom, Tom Odom, they kicked him in the scrotum. They took away his rights and that was wrong. But Tom did not accept his fate.

He up and left the golden state. Now Odom is rolling along. Tom. Odom is rolling along. Now he's in the title of a song. Tom. Odom is roll. Yeah, well, there you did it.

There you did it. You bet you rhyme it with scrotum. Very well, I might add. Thank you. All I need now is a few verses. I might call my friend John Rich to see if he can help me out with that. But I love this idea. Enough of our blather.

Tom Odom, you're going to love him. He's a terrific human being, a great truck driver, and he's got a story worth telling. It is episode number 311, and it is not a job. Make no mistake about that. It's a lifestyle, and it starts right after this. Well, are you sick of it yet? Are you sick of AI hogging up all the headlines

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And again, it's free at netsuite.com slash mike. That's netsuite.com. I can't decide who looks more like a trucker right now, Tom, and I say that with great respect. This is my best trucker. Look, I was literally out for a jog, and Chuck called me and says, we got him. He's pulled over somewhere in Texas. We got a good signal. We got a window. Ran back home. I put on my trucker cap. And here I sit, man. I'm so glad we finally got a chance to catch up. Well, I'm glad we did, too. I really am because we've tried a couple times, and I just haven't been in good areas. Well, I mean, you've got a pretty good excuse. You're in a different state virtually every day. Sometimes.

Where are you now, exactly? El Paso, Texas. That is West Texas, right? Yes, sir. That's the famous Marty Robbins song, out in the West Texas town of El Paso. Out in the West Texas town of El Paso. I fell in love with a beautiful girl. Yeah.

Wicked Philemonia. I actually had a girlfriend over the line in New Mexico in Las Cruces, right? Like it's a pretty quick drive from El Paso. Not quick, but you can get there. Yeah, cruis is like 45 minutes west. Didn't they hang Billy the Kid there? Billy the Kid was hanged in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. It's a couple hundred miles north.

Oh, really? That's where he's buried. That's where he's buried. Yeah, I've been to his grave a couple times. Why? When you drive through the town of Fort Sumter, there's these great big signs that say Museum, Billy the kid's grave.

So you stop and you check it out. Sometimes you press for time so you don't have enough time. So you stop again. So, I mean, I've got so many questions, Tom, specifically about all this AB5 stuff. We'll get to it. But just indulge me for a couple of minutes. and talk about being a long-distance trucker.

I mean, how many miles do you travel a year? How many cool museums have you wandered in simply because you saw a billboard? How many friends have you made in, you know, just in the course of doing your job? What's it like to be Tom Odom for a day? Okay, so I've gotten into plenty of different museums all across the country because I've seen signs anywhere from, the Billy the Kid Museum in Fort Sumpner to the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, where they, you know, where they buried the Cadillacs. They got a bunch of Cadillacs buried halfway into the ground. Anyway, but yeah, you've seen it.

It looks like, it looks like they were dropped out of the sky, like lawn darts. And they stockhead first. It's like Cadillac Stonehenge. Yeah. You know, I used to run to at least. a lot. Before Interstate 20, I think it's 26, went from Birmingham up to Memphis, you used to have to take the backroads to get from Memphis over to Atlanta. There used to be this really good barbecue place. But when they put the interstate in, you just don't go buy it anymore. I mean, you find these little places that have really good food or, you know, really strange oddities. You stop.

Is it lonesome, by and large, being out there? Yes. Yeah, because if you think about a prison inmate, a prison inmate has a cell that's about six feet wide, maybe 12 feet deep. Mm-hmm. My tractor is maybe seven feet wide and ten feet deep. Mm-hmm. I'll spend anywhere from, you know, a couple of days to a month, you know, by myself and my truck, you know, just hauling freight all across the country, depending on where it takes me.

What do you haul in today? Today I delivered a load of milkway from the Central Valley of California over here to El Paso. It's going into Texas. It'll become ingredients for all kinds of different things. And so right now you're parked, you've dropped off your stuff. How do you get the next load coordinated, and do you know at this point what it's going to be and where you're going to go? Laptop. Yeah.

I have about 12 load boards that I get on, and I place bids for loads. And the first broker that takes my bid gets my truck that day. So you don't know, like, a week in advance, sometimes maybe even, what, a day in advance, where you're going or what you're hauling? Nope. I work what's called the spot market. And I work contract freight. I like contract freight, but it can get boring. What's that mean, Tom?

Sorry. Contract freight is where you have a contract with a certain shipper to be at a certain place every week. haul the same load, you know, back and forth. That's contract free. I've done independent contractor, which is what we're here to talk about, where somebody else decides, well, they don't really decide. They offer me several different loads from their customers, and I can choose between those loads. Because of AB5, I've had to go back to my own authority where I work with the about 20 different brokers. And I bid on their loads. The first one who takes my load gets me that day or that week, depending on where the load goes to. So on the positive side, you have

variety and flexibility that you would never get with a contract scenario. But on the negative side, I guess, those are just other words for uncertainty, right? You've kind of got to eat what you kill and you don't know from day to day to week to week. So why does that work for you? Why does that level of uncertainty when it comes to making a living? How is that a good thing for you? I've been doing it since 1998. I've had my own authority since 98. I started driving in the late 70s with an uncle. Then I got my license in 85 when I turned 21. And in 95, I bought my first truck, I've been doing it so long that when things are good, we save money so that when things are bad, we have money. The truck is paid for, the trailer's paid for. The trailer belongs to my

aunt and uncle, so it's paid for through them. I don't have some of the expenses that these other guys have, but I'm very selective who I'll work with and where I'll go, so I still make a decent living. Tom, you said you put a bid on a job, you know, to haul something from somewhere. Like, what's the calculation to figure out, you know, what you're going to charge? Well, in the mornings, when I get up, when I get up in the mornings. Which is what time? I woke up at 3.30 this morning.

Okay. And I was on the loadboard by 4.30 doing me. my research. I look at the national weather reports to see where bad weather is because I don't want to be heading into bad weather because that'll cost me, you know, extra time. I do my weather research first. Then I go on to DAT services, which is the biggest load board in the country. And I look at their freight market report to see where they project the best chances of getting freight are at. So if they project like a 40% for Salt Lake City, you don't want to go to Salt Lake City because there's six trucks to every four loads. Right. So you want to try and keep it above

50% at least so that you have a good chance of getting a decent load. Right. There's certain markets that no matter what, they're just so cheap that you have to charge a really high rate, going in so that you can afford to haul out of there when they pay you so little that it just barely pays your expenses. Is there a route that you look forward to? Like, never mind the weather, never mind all of the vagaries, but I mean, obviously Route 66 is a thing that everybody knows, but you mentioned before that the interstates, you know, have really simplified things, made things more efficient, but you also, you lose the charm.

of really seeing the country, right? You do. That's like a lot of guys, if they're running to, like, Lubbock or Amarillo, Texas, coming out of Los Angeles, they'll jump on Interstate 40, and they'll go, you know, they'll go up to Interstate 40,

and they'll go across and go straight into Amarillo. I'll come across to Interstate 10 to El Paso and hook a half right, no, a half left. I'm sorry, if I hooked half right, they end up in Mexico. I'll hook a half left. go through Carlsbad, New Mexico, and Hobbs, New Mexico, Roswell, New Mexico, and then on up.

Yeah. It's a little bit farther, so it costs me a little bit more. But the ride's a whole lot nicer. Yeah. You know? So, after you've been doing this for a while, you learn where the nice rides are. I have a whole photo album on my phone of nothing but sunrises and sunsets. You know, think about it.

You know, if you're a truck driver, you're up on Interstate 70, you're looking down towards Denver, and the sun's coming up. The view is just beautiful. Yeah. You drop down in, you make your delivery, you hang out for a little while, you go back up over the mountain. You come down the mountain just in time to see the sunset somewhere around Grand Junction or Glenwood Canyon. Oh, man, that's like, you just can't believe it. There's a highway. It goes from, I can never say the town.

Kimmer-M-M-M-R-M-R. Kimmer-M-M-R. It's on the border of Wyoming and Idaho on U.S. 30. You get to it from Pocatello. And when you're heading west, you're going down this hill and into a valley, and then you come up the other side of the valley. But when you start down that hill, it's just like there's very little population there.

And you look in that valley and it's like, it's just so beautiful. And then, you know, you're coming down and you get to a certain point and the way the sun hits it, everything just starts to shimmer as you start up the other side. So, Tom, I think it's important.

People are so in the dark, I believe, as to what it takes to be a trucker, especially an independent long-distance trucker. And I know that they don't immediately associate poetry and beauty and solitude, right? I mean, the way you're talking about the job is important to me. I mean, I've been to all 50 states. I imagine I can't even compare to the places that you've been. but how do you see yourself, like in the broader scope of the workforce, how do you see trucking in general, independent truckers in particular,

and finally yourself as a cog in this great big giant machine we have here? There's about three and a half million truck drivers in the United States. Three and a half million people. We have what we call the independent like me, the one truck guy. I've had one truck. I've had 10 trucks. I've managed trucks for friends.

I managed to flee from my aunt and uncle. I'm back down to one truck. I'm happy at one truck. I don't have to worry about what my drivers are doing. But there's three and a half million drivers in the country. 80% of all of the freight that's moved in the United States is moved by companies that have 25 or less trucks. So the small trucking companies are very important to the country. All right?

You have nothing. You have nothing that wasn't on a truck at least one time. Yep. Okay. Everything is on a truck multiple times. The milkway that I brought here, the milk was picked up at the dairy by a truck. taken to the processing plant they made cheese

they dried the way they bagged it they sent it to another warehouse I picked it up there I brought it here this warehouse is just transferring it from my trailer to a Mexican domicile trailer it's going across the border to become ingredients and something else

it'll come back across on another trailer you know everything we have is dependent on trucks and truckers just my opinion but no I don't think it's your opinion man I think trains and trucks

combined surely are the circulatory system right upon which we all rely but to your point trucks in particular that's where the wet work happens that's where it gets personal so keep going

three and a half million people are primarily responsible for making sure that 100% of every single item in every single home apartment and place of work gets there. Right. So you got the government estimates that there's like a 40,000 driver's shortage for the industry. Okay. There's not a driver shortage for the industry. There's a retention problem. There are thousands of drivers every year that come into the business and then leave the

business every year because driving a truck is not a job. It's a lifestyle. Who wants to be away from their family for three days to three weeks at a time? You're by yourself. There's a lot of guys who run team. They run team with their wives, their brothers, their sons, you know, their friends. I can't do that because. I can't do that because I can't sleep when somebody else is driving. I've tried. Control issues, Tom. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit.

But there's people who leave because it's not just a job, it's a lifestyle. You know, my wife is trying to get me to slow down after, geez, almost 40 years of doing this. She's trying to get me to slow down. and wants me to semi-retire. But that terrifies me. Because I've been out here by myself for the last 20-plus years. And now she wants me to be home with her all the time. And I'm like, um, is she going to divorce me?

You know she's going to hear this. Yeah, yeah. She's probably got to listen to this, brother. Oh, yeah, I know. Oh, and she told me to tell you hi. Give her my regards. What's her name? My wife's name is Dorinda.

Hello, Dorinda. You got a good man here. How many miles a year, on average, do you drive? Somewhere around 120,000 miles. That's about how many miles I flew last year. Not that that means anything, but the average person, if you drive 30,000 miles a year, that's way more than average, just commuting, getting around in your car. So you're on the road constantly.

You've described this lifestyle. How much of the lifestyle that you described, though, is unique to independent truckers versus contract truckers. And how many of the three and a half million total truckers that you talked about are independent versus contract? Well, people are still raving, raving, I tell you, about my mother's performance in the latest, Pure Talk commercial, and if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to give it a look on my

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really is an unmitigated bargain from an American wireless company that keeps all their customer service in this country, supports our veterans in a meaningful way, as well as the Microwworks Foundation and allows me to exploit my own mother in a national advertising campaign. Do what my mom did. Get yourself unlimited high-speed data for just $34.99 a month at puretalk.com slash row. You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row. Pure Talk. Well, I'm sorry, I can't give you an exact number.

I can only give you a personal estimate. Sure. Okay. So if 80% of the market is 25 trucks or less, then I would say that probably somewhere between 50 and 60% are guys who own one to five trucks. And if you own one to five trucks, you're probably still driving and trying to to manage those trucks while you drive. I know when I had less than five trucks, I still drove.

So there's a good possibility that 50% are, you know, one or two trucks just out here by ourselves? Chuck, I think Will said it was like over a million independent truckers overall in the country, at least, right? Yeah. I'll put it about 33. Yeah. All right.

I just want people to understand really what's important here is you've got not just a million people who essentially own their own small business who work as freelancers who are being impacted by this. It's not that random. We're talking about people like you who are directly responsible for bringing us every single thing that we need. So I don't want to get in the weeds with it. But what does AB5 do specifically to you guys? in California. And, like, the real financial impact of what's been proposed is what?

Okay, so AB5 removes a driver's ability to have his own business, but to lease that business to a larger carrier. Under a larger carrier, I would get fuel discounts. Well, number one, I would get insurance discounts. When I was with Landstar, my insurance cost me, I think it was $8,600 a year. When I was with RDS Logistics Group, my aunt and uncle's company, my insurance was, I think, $8,000 a year. When we lost our bid at the Supreme Court to put an injunction on AB5, my aunt and uncle said the risk is too high. we're going to require you all everybody to have their own authority.

So you had to go and get your own authority. That's the easy thing to do. Okay. Can you just explain exactly what that means, getting your own authority? What's it mean? The federal government regulates who can haul freight. They ensure that every truck that's on the highway, when you look at a truck, on the side of the truck,

you'll see it says MC number. It'll say MC and it'll give a number. and it'll say U.S. DOT and it'll give a number. That number is government issued registration number, authority number that guarantees that I have insurance and I've met certain safety standards to be on the road. Okay. Sure. So that's your own authority or company's authority. Okay.

I got my own authority in 1998. eight and I worked my own authority for a while and then I had I had my fleet of trucks and I had a driver that had an accident and it cost me 50 grand out of my pocket then shortly after that I had two heart attacks my wife said you either have to get more trucks so that you can not work as hard as you do, or you've got to go down, back down to one truck so that you don't have to work as hard as you do. So I went down to one truck. How would more trucks help you to work less? I had two office employees besides myself. If I had gone from 10 to 20 trucks, I could have hired one or two more office employees, and then I could have had a day off. But would I have taken the day

off? I don't know. Probably not. Control issues. Yeah. Well, it sounds like you would have wife issues if you didn't take the day off. Yeah. With one truck, I actually make about the same amount of money in my pocket as I did with 10 trucks. Sure. That's called margin, right? So you don't really work for wages. I haven't worked for wages since 1996. I work for profits. Nice. Right. As an independent trucker, you've got to look at your cost. You've got to look at the total expenditure for all of your capital investments. Then you have to look at what's left over after taxes, regulations, fees, and so forth. That's your profit.

And that is all on you as an independent. You have to, it's not just a lifestyle. You have to have a mind for business because the business is yours. As opposed to a contract trucker. And Tom, this goes back to the other thing I'm trying to get at. It's like, I'm assuming there's a different mindset, vis-a-vis this lifestyle that you're describing if you're a contract trucker versus an independent who has to worry about a whole different list of things. And I'm just trying to get at before we get to the next thing, why that's appealing to you.

Because you got to know, this country's filled with people who love the idea of having an employer, who love the idea of being in a year. Union who love the idea of the certainty that comes with having somebody else deal with all that crap. Why aren't you in that camp? In 86, I was a Teamster driver. And I got fined by the Union for working too hard. Oh, God.

All right, walk me through it. What happened? I got onto a contract delivering bagged flour and bakery. ingredients to bakeries in the Southern California area. And I was 22 years old. I ran 10 miles a day. I was in really good shape. My dad taught me, if somebody's going to pay you a decent day's wages,

you give them a decent day's labor. So I would go out and I would make all my deliveries and then I'd come back. and I'd load my truck for the next day. And if I had time, I'd go out and make a couple of deliveries. Well, the other guys would go out, and it would take them 10, 12 hours to make their deliveries. They'd come back and they'd park their truck. They wouldn't reload their trucks until the next morning. By the end of the week, they had five loads done.

I had maybe six, sometimes seven loads done. so the other guys complained that I was making them look bad and the boss was saying hey Tom's doing this blah blah blah so the union told me to slow down and I didn't do it I just kept working the way I always work and they find you yeah you you realize how controversial this is I mean just as a general thing for me especially because I I run a foundation we award work ethics scholarships I'm in violent agreement with everything you've said. But look, I also have a lot of people, you know, especially in the plumbing trades, who have come through our program and now are really happy working in a union. So I don't want to paint with too broad a brush. However, the thing that really gets to me, and you know, and I know Chuck has seen this in our industry, you know, the electrical unions, if you're on a set, you can touch that cable, but not that wire. You can stand here, You can't stand there.

And look, I know there are reasons for all of that. But in the end, a policy is either good for initiative or bad for initiative. I'm talking about personal initiative. So is that where you're coming from? Like, did you feel like the Teamsters and the world you were in were affirmatively telling you not to distinguish yourself, not to go the extra mile? That's what the Teamsters were telling me. The teamsters were telling me, only do the minimum you have to do to make the maximum amount of dollars.

And I have nothing against anybody who wants to be in a union. Unions have their places. Okay. Sure. If you want to be in a union, go be in a union. Okay. But if you're going to be in a union, you've got to follow the union rules. Okay.

And the union rules, even if you're doing your job and Tom over here is goofing off all day and you're going to have to pick up the slack, the union's going to protect Tom. Sure. You know? And I just don't think that's right. You know, because I think because I've worked for profits and not wages so long, I just look at it as the union is not looking out for. if the employees don't look out for the employer, there won't be an employer. You have to walk that tight line of doing what's best for your employer by being a good employee. And it seems like the best way to do that is to distinguish yourself.

And the only way you can distinguish yourself on the job is to outperform, outwork, and otherwise outshine. the people who are around you. That's right. And so that's the fundamental problem as I see it, right? And this, man, I literally a week ago in Phoenix, I spoke to 2,000 mechanical contractors, the big mechanical contractors association, wonderful group of guys, they're there with their families,

they're all union. And we had a similar conversation. And man, it's really hard to try and parse this whole thing, but for me it just came down to look. And this is a version of what you just said. I said, look, guys, you can't ask me to be pro or con. You can't ask me to be with you or against you. There has to be a more nuanced way for people to have this conversation

because I completely respect your right to exist. And there are many, many unions that I actually affirmatively do support, but not all of them. And if I take that position, I'm immediately dead to a lot of people. It's like if I don't support the teachers union the same way I support the rod busters and the iron workers. If I don't support public sector unions, the same way I might support a plumbing union, right? Then I'm a bad guy. So it's just a really personal and really frustrating situation for me because I've not been able to thread that needle. So I guess my question is, how many friends have?

have you lost? How many fights have you had? How much drama has what we're talking about right now informed your existence in this field? I have a couple of friends that have been union drivers. When we're socializing, we have come to the point where we don't talk about it anymore. We just agree to disagree. Because the mindset between an employee and an independent

is so different that the employee comes to work, does his job, goes home. He doesn't have to worry about anything at work when he's at home. The independent

worries about everything. I've got to know what the average price of fuel is in Texas so that I can figure out how much fuel it's going to take me. I have one son that's a truck driver. Okay. He didn't do very well in school. And well, dad, why do I need to take, why do I need to take algebra? I'm never going to use it in my lifetime. Well, he's a truck driver now. So I asked him one day, I said, I said, son, you're going to make a run from Los Angeles to El Paso. How many miles is that?

It's 750 miles, Dad. How much fuel are you going to need? Well, I don't know. Well, how many miles per gallon do you think you're going to average? Well, about six and a half. Yeah, we get six and a half miles of a gallon. And so, you know, it's like, okay, so if you average six and a half miles of a gallon, it's 750 miles, you're going to use about 85 gallons of fuel. Right?

He goes, yeah, so, so the number of gallons of fuel is X divided by the miles is Y. Oh, you just used algebra. And he's like, sometimes I hate you, dad. That's actually the answer that I was rooting around for before. The mindset is tied to the lifestyle. And when you wake up as an independent, it's caveman stuff in a good way. It's time to eat what you kill. It's time to get your affairs in order.

It's time to look at the reality of the day. And it's time to go out there and do that. And that is fundamentally different. I don't want to put a value judgment on it. Because for some people, I just talked to a guy who came out of Microworks. It's like, look, for me, I got a wife, I got two young kids, my family is the most important thing. I love knowing that I go, I do my 40 hours, I do the best work I can, and then I flip a switch, and I'm this other guy. Right?

So let's just stipulate that those are good men and women. They walk the earth, and they're working in this world with you. but talk to me about the supply chain shutdowns during the lockdowns about what happened in California and what, if any, difference was there during that period for being an independent versus a contract guy because, I mean, weren't we locked down when AB5 reared its ugly head in a big public way for the first time? I think AB5 started just before the lockdowns. I think the Dynamics case is what started AB5. And when the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of the drivers against Dynamics

and changed the test from Borrello to the ABC test, the state of California decided that they were going to codify that judicial ruling into Assembly Bill 5. Now, if you look at who wrote Assembly Bill 5, Lorena Gonzalez, she was a high-ranking official, I believe in the SEIU, Union. Mm-hmm.

And she left the union, got elected as an assembly person, got several pro-union bills through. AB-5 is one of those. And now she's the, head of the affiliated unions in California? Some other acronym for sure. But just so people understand, SEIU, service employees international, right?

That's a public sector union, right? Yes. Right. So the fundamental difference being that, yes, everyone's taxes are wrapped up into that situation, which is different than the iron workers, just making that distinction. But also, Tom, could you just real quick explain what the ABC-T test means for freelancers in general and for independence in particular? The problem with the ABC test is the B prong.

The B prong says the independent contractor cannot be engaged in the same primary business as the contracting company. So in my aunt and uncle's case, RDS logistics group, they cannot have independent contractors that because they provide trucking services, they cannot have independent contractors that provide trucking services. So, road or router can't hire plumbers that have their own equipment to do jobs that Rotor doesn't have enough people to do. That's it. I get it. That's what People need to understand. It's the same problem you described with the Teamsters.

The rule discourages initiative because it starts with the assumption that the lifestyle you've described is the lifestyle of a victim. It's the lifestyle of somebody who doesn't have any choice, right? And who is therefore being used or exploited by the industry or the world and so forth. That's what rankles me. The working assumption is if you're independent, it's because you were forced into this place. And I think in a general way, you're kind of saying that's a bunch of bull crap. Well, okay, so I got paid $2.30 a mile to go from California to El Paso with this load of milkway. I got offered a load this morning going back to Los Angeles for $1.45 a mile.

I told them no. Because if I take that load today for $1.45 a mile in six months, if I'm here again and they have that same load, they're going to say, well, six months ago, you hauled them for $1.45 of mile. Why can't you do that today? So is there thinking, Tom, look, this guy's got to go back to L.A. anyway. He lives in L.A. He's got to go. I mean, he's not going to go back empty. So we'll lowball him. You know, is that, that, that's what the industry calls a backhaul. Because they think you want to get back to your primary hall. Okay. So the industry will lowball you. if they see that your authority is in Los Angeles,

any load going back into Los Angeles, they're going to try and lowball you on. And that's what happened to you this morning, you think? Well, I think it's part of it. Because of AB5, I moved my business out of California and I moved it to Tennessee. And when did you do that?

August of last year. because between the time that AB5 was passed, we had an injunction from the Southern District Court in San Diego, Judge Benitez. The state of California appealed to the Ninth Circuit, the Ninth Circuit disagreed with Benitez and lifted the injunction. If you look at how the Ninth Circuit's opinion was written, the Ninth Circuit is actually asking the Supreme Court to settle it. But the Supreme Court right now is on a state's rights issue, and they send it back to the district court to have the actual court hearings. They'll hear it after Benitez makes his decision after all of the testimony and everything. So what's it mean? Like, what's at stake, Tom?

What happens next? and say something, if you would, about why somebody should care about this who's in Ohio or Baltimore or Tallahassee and has nothing to do with the trucking industry. I got to find a way to make this relevant to everyone. I love stories like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben Still was a musician. He had zero interest. running a food company, but he was annoyed that so much imported meat was being deceptively marketed

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Ranch, get good ranchers now. The trucking industry is regulated by the federal government under what's called the F4A. And if states are allowed to regulate the trucking industry, individual states have individual rules. If AB5 is allowed to stand and take somebody's ability to be an independent contractor away, The Democrats have a bill called the Pro Act. There's an amendment to the Pro Act that codifies into federal law, AB5, word for word. It passed the House, but it couldn't get past the Senate. Julie, I think you pronounce her last name, Sue.

Was the labor person in the state of California, is now, Biden's Labor Secretary, she hasn't been approved by the Senate yet, but she's Biden's Labor Secretary. And she has stated that she's going to put AB5 in as a regulation. Bypassing Congress, correct? Bypassing Congress. Okay. So if AB5 goes national, think about that hairdresser in Des Moines, who rents a chair in a salon that can no longer rent that chair, but has to have a competing salon next door. Sure.

Or be an employee. Or be an employee. If I'm an employee driver, my wife got a really bad case of bronchitis. If I'm an employee driver and I decide I'm going to stay home for a week and take care of my wife. What's my employer going to do? Nothing good. My employer is going to say, Tom, I can't leave that truck sitting still for a week.

That's $100,000 of trucks sitting there making me no money. Well, I'm sorry, but my wife's sick. I'm going to stay home. They'll probably fire me or something like that. As an independent contractor, I can just tell, hey, dispatch, I'm going to be gone for a week. I'll let you know when I'm ready to go again. That's the flexibility we talked about before,

and that vanishes if AB5 is put into law, and it vanishes in every state if it gets caught up in the slipstream of the pro act. Yeah, I mean, moving from Borrello, which was a test of economic realities, to the ABC test where the B prong says you cannot have an independent contractor that's in the same business

as the contracting entity. That's the problem because Chuck's job is to produce radio shows. I was wondering what he did. Your job is to own a radio show, right? Mm-hmm. You're both in the business of a radio show.

show, a podcast. Right. Chuck has to be your employee. He can't be an independent contractor. He's got to be my employee. That's right. If he's being your producer for five hours a week, I don't know how much it is, but if he's being your producer for five hours a week and he wants to go over and work

for just the name that came to my head, Joe Rogan. Right. And be Joe Rogan's producer for five hours a week. he'd have to be Joe Rogan's employee, too. So who pays for the benefits? Oh, I'll tell you, Joe Rogan. Joe Friggin' Rogan pays for those benefits. I mean, Chuck's a bad example only because I've, you know, I've known him 45 years,

and we have other things to think about and do. My company hires people who wear lots of different hats. But I've had cameramen, and I've had editors. Editors. Right? Yeah. And writers. And these people, they don't want this.

Sometimes, over the course of a year, circumstances might favor it. But by and large, these people don't want this. And they're being told we're being driven apart. Because if you follow the narrative and they are being seen as being exploited or being victims, then that means I'm the oppressor. That means I'm the guy, you know, I'm the son of a bitch doing all these bad things. It just forces people into that place that you described before, where suddenly your initiative is being seen as problematic because you're making your brothers look bad. And that, you know, I know I'm oversimplifying it, but that has to go away.

That way of thinking has to stop or we're just going to be punching down. for the rest of our lives in every single thing we do. I agree with you 100%. And, you know, people want to be recognized for what they do, whether it's financially or a pat on the back or whatever. I think the government and the unions push to make everybody exactly the same is part of the problem. You are not exactly the same, Tom Odom. You seem to be marching to the beat of your own.

drum and you've been doing it for a long time. And I think people need to know that you're out there, in part, because this will sound weird, but you saw Smoky and the Bandit, obviously, right? I mean, you had to. It was required viewing, right? Yep. When I think of those movies that were made in the 70s and when I think of Jerry, what's his name, you know, the truck driver back then.

Jerry Reed, right? Jerry Reed. Jerry Reed. Right. Jesus. And the point I'm trying to make, yeah, convoy, C.W. McCall, Wolf Creek Pass, all those great tunes. They were written at a time, I think, when truckers by and large, were independent and when there was this identity of a cowboy. Like, what we started talking about is what I want to finish on.

This notion of a guy in his cab who's been out on the. road for two, three weeks, and he's coming over the Butte, and he looks down and the sun is rising, and he's the king of his own castle, and he's hauling whatever he's hauling, and he's just out there, you know? That is sexy. That is romantic. That makes me feel like it's not about truck driving. It's about being your own man. And, well, the lifestyle that he said before. Exactly right. I'm afraid that this conversation about AB5 and the Pro Act and all of the transactional realities that are driving you out of California, let's make no mistake. You've already taken your business out.

It's only a matter of time until you leave, the Golden State. That's all still subordinate to the big idea of lifestyle and opportunity and hard work and distinguishing yourself out there. That's what I meant before, Tom, when I was talking about the lockdown. And I want to ask you again, what were you thinking when you saw 100 freighters anchored outside the port of Los Angeles and longshoremen not there to work and truckers not around? I mean, this is the thing I have a hard time explaining to people in the middle of the country and on the East Coast. This will impact them if you just follow this all down. during the lockdowns

when everybody was screaming where's the toilet paper where's the toilet paper the truck driver was king everybody loved us because we brought the toilet paper

now and I'm not kidding you there is a bill in Congress to fix this issue now truck drivers get to these warehouses and if you need to use the restroom, oh, there's an outhouse out in the parking lot.

You can't use the same restroom that are... You're kidding. No, I'm not kidding. You cannot use the same restroom as our employees do. There's an outhouse out in the parking lot. It has its ups and it has its downs. Let me ask you to, I'm sorry to hopscotch all over the place, but how I don't quite understand how you got into this business and where you came.

I mean, I know you came up in East L.A. and I know it wasn't easy. But I'm asking not to pry into your personal life. I'm asking because the opportunity to drive a truck for a living, you make a pretty good living. How did it work out for you to wind up in this business? Okay, so my parents moved from Denver to East Los Angeles in 1969. We grew up really, really poor. because my mom was sick a lot. My dad was a nurse.

And back then, nurses didn't make a whole lot of money. They didn't make, then, what they make now. But I quit school when I was 16 and went to work full time. I was married at 18, had a kid, went in the military for a little while, got out of the military, and I was bouncing around from, you know, minimum wage job to minimum wage job. I'd been in trucks with my uncles, you know, for a long time. I've been around trucks for a long time. I'd driven a truck with my uncles a few times, but you cannot get a license to drive

interstate until you're 21 years old. So in June of 1985, when I was 21 years old, I got my license to drive. No education working minimum wage jobs. I went from making $3 in change an hour working at a convenience store and being a security guard. So when I wasn't at the convenience store, I was being a security guard. And both of them paid, you know, like minimum wage. I went from making $3 in change an hour to making, I think, think it was like $10 an hour for training.

So the month before my 24th birthday, no, I started in April and I got my license in June. So two and a half months, I made like $10, maybe a little bit more. Then once I got my license, I was making like $35, $40,000 a year. Mm-hmm. You know, unfortunately, I can't tell you not because I, can't tell you it's because I don't know exactly how much I made in 2022 but in 2021 poor kid from east L.A. dropped out of high school at 16. I did go back and get a high school diploma. Okay. Mm-hmm.

But I build $297,000 in 2021. Now, if you take out all of my money, you take out all my expenses. Let's just say my expenses were 50%. Okay. That leaves me $146,000. Poor kid from Los Angeles. Quit school of 16. Makes $146,000. Welcome to the 1%.

My brother has a master's degree and two separate bachelors. he works for the government the last time we spoke about his income I was in excess of 100 and he was only making 80 it's hard to know Tom really what to lean into

because the case for independent trucking is financial and you can point to it and I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of other people out there like you who are doing better than well but the real appeal

is that other thing right? Is the freedom? Is the flexibility. Yeah, it's freedom. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you're sitting in your cab right now. The Texas wind is blowing it looks west across the plains. There's an American flag behind your head and your salt and pepper hair is flapping gently in the breeze as you talk to me from your real office on your headset. And it is a lifestyle. And anybody who doesn't see that or value it is just

I think trying to force you into a box that you don't want to live in. The Cowboys from the 19th century, the 1800s, the early 1900s, drove the cattle and the wagons. The teamsters come from what somebody was called that drove a team of horses. Okay? So the teamsters that used to drive the wagons across the country, From the railhead to the cities, because the railhead didn't go to every city. From that time to this time, you take the old cowboys that drove the beef to market, the sheep to market, whatever it was.

Now you got the Cowboys of the Highway that take everything you need from production to use. I mean, even after you've used something, what do you do with it? you throw it away, a truck picks it up and hauls it away. Yeah, right. You know? So we're the 21st century cowboys, I guess. Well, you're the connective tissue. You're the grout in a wall filled with tile that's holding it together.

That's a good analogy. You can take it. You can use it. I got a million of them. Look, Matt, I know you've got miles to go before you sleep. I really appreciate your time and your insight. you know, I don't know how many long-haul truckers get invited on the podcast, but you're welcome back to this one anytime. I'm super curious to know what happens over the next couple of months in the courts. And I'm going to have other people on here to make sure, you know, listeners understand how that's evolving. But I think, honestly, Tom, the most valuable thing that you can offer you've already offered, which is a pretty good explanation of why you do what you do. And if there's anything you want to add to that,

I'm just trying to think about what you said earlier. There's a shortage of 40,000 drivers, but it's not really a shortage. It's a retention problem, right? It's a retention problem because this is a job that you have to love. You have to want to be a truck driver. Somebody can go and be a forklift driver, and whether they want to be a forklift driver or not.

I'm not denigrating forklift drivers. They are so important to me. But whether you want to be a forklift driver or not, that job will pay your bills. This job, you have to want to do it because you give up so much. When my kids, I have four sons, when they were young,

I worked a job that was an overnight dedicated route. I'd leave right after dinner, and I was home before they got up in the morning. I'd have breakfast with my sons. They'd go to school. I'd sleep. They'd come home from school. We'd hang out, have dinner. I'd go to work.

Once they became teenagers and what I say, capable of being without me, I started hauling longer and longer distances. And when my last son was 18, I started, you know, being more over the road than I ever was. Because when I was working local, I was an employee, you know, I think my best year as an employee may have been like 65 grand. But my wife didn't work until our youngest son was in school full time. And then she drove the school bus. She'd go to work for a couple hours in the morning, a couple hours in the afternoon. She was a union employee.

I love that union because we get a check every month. Sure. And it's funny. Just not for me. After an hour and 15 minutes of talking to you, we find out that the most important freight the Odoms have ever hauled was hauled by Mrs. Odom. Pretty funny. You know, pretty funny. She can drive this truck pretty well.

I've seen her do it. She told me one time, I want to run team with you. I told her, I said, you won't last six months. She said, we'll see. How'd that go over? Six months and one day. Six months and one day. She was just making a point.

Pretty sure. And she was like, I'm done. And went back to driving school bus. Tom Odom. Tell her again, we said hello. We appreciate your time. Hey, you know what else I glossed over? Just real quick.

What was it like growing up in East L.A. Back in the 60s and 70s? No, I mean, I'm just thinking because I'm about your age and I was back east at that point, but I'm reading about the Crips and the Bloods and the whole thing. You were right in the thick of that. I don't know.

Can you see the scar in the middle of my hand? Yeah. That was a knife. Fun? In a fight went through my hand. I was, I think I was 15 when that happened. There was another altercation where a shotgun went off between my legs. Big pardon?

A shotgun went off between my legs. I caught a few pellets in my right knee. Oh, well. So, yeah. That's better than what I could have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How does a shotgun just go off between your legs? What do you mean went off?

Who pulled the trigger? Well, I don't really know who the guy was. We were in a fight, and all of a sudden there was a shotgun, and I pushed it down, and it went off between my legs, and I caught a couple of pellets in the knee. How old were you at that point? How'd that fight end? Yeah.

Let's see. That happened. I was 13 when the knife went through my hand, and I was 15 when the shotgun pellets went off. Good grief. And you dropped out of school when? When I was 16. And you never went to college?

I took a business administration class at the local city college in my town when I was running my own company just so that I could understand a little bit more. I've got a few classes of college. I don't have any college education. I have a business administration class, and I have the classes that are required to be what's in California, what's called PC-99 certified. 12-99.

PC-12-99. All right, look, I mean, there are a lot of acronyms. There's a lot of detail. The bottom line is your parents were on welfare. You came up the hard way. you've been shot, you've been stabbed, you dropped out of high school, you went back, you took some courses, you started your own business, and now you're parked somewhere outside at El Paso, making time for us, and our time is up, man.

I just want to thank you again. I love what you're doing. I appreciate that there are guys like you out there on behalf of every single thing in my office, in my house, and on my body. Thanks for driving a truck. Well, thank you for having a truck. having me on your show. I'd be happy to come back after we go to court and I have something new to say. I really appreciate you taking an interest in this issue.

Look, man, it's only a matter of national security, as far as I can tell. And the heart of the species. And if you're hiring, Chuck is probably going to be looking for work. I'm going to let him go this week. So, you know, keep him in your thoughts. I will never have employees again. I've had several conversations with Chuck. I just don't think Chuck. I don't think Chuck could be alone in a truck. Chuck in a truck.

Let's see. I don't think that's going to work. Chuck in a truck. No, no. And that rhyme scheme is going to do nothing but get us into trouble. Thanks again, Tom. Thank you, sir. Tom Odom, Tom Odom.

They kicked him in the scrotum. They took away his rights and that was wrong. But Tom did that. accept his fate he up and left the golden state now odom is rolling along Tom odom is rolling along and now he's in the title of a song Tom odom is roll if you like what you heard and even if you don't won't you please pretty buzz grow well i hate he is