If you could do it all over again...

I would keep it all the same.

 

I got my CDL back in 1991. If I could Go back in time I'd go to school for HVAC like a friend of mine tried to convince me to do. I was successful in convincing my son to go that route and he has the beginnings of a nice, we'll paying, non office, home every night career going.

if you're specifically talking about trucking, I didn't go to school. I learned the hard way. I wish I would have gotten a job with UPS or some such similar outfit with great pay and benefits including retirement. As it is, I'm my own boss. It's not all bad and I make pretty good money but there are a lot of headaches.

 

There is this one waitress at the Cracker Barrel in Atlanta. I would do it all over again, and again, and again, and again. And then I would again and again and again.

 

Learned as a teen on an uncles dairy farm....high school , the army , then home to work... afew months in a dump , then 3 years OTR , the next 33 with the same company , retired at 62 in 2011...nope wouldn't change a thing.

 

If you went to school and had an office job then you would be complaining about how you wished you would have gotten your CDL back then instead. I had the nice office job in a skyscraper downtown with flirty receptionists. However the stress was amazing. Plus driving through rush hour traffic took up about two hours of my free time going to and from work so by the time I got home I only had time to eat, shower, and go to bed to repeat the drama.

 

If trucking was like it was when I started, then I would do it all over again. But!!!! It ain't !! So I would not do it again. Oh, I got started in 1963 and I have seen "the race to the bottom" from the time the green flag was dropped. I have witnessed an once proud profession turn into a "scum-bag". It would take pages to actually expressed my true thoughts.

Oh, guess what? I am still trucking, why? I don't know anything else. Since the early 80s, when the decline started, all phases of the industry have been affected, wages, benefits, caliber of drivers, working conditions, harassment from the law, no respect from the public or even your employer. I havemade a fairly good living from trucking and my son has followed in my footsteps, but I would never recommend for a young person to get into this business now.

 

I would skip having kids and just had grand kids.

 

[h=2]If you could do it all over again...[/h]I wouldn't .

Actually I would do everything completely differently , 180 degrees the opposite of what I did.
Then I know I would be perfect.

Seriously I would do the same thing but a bit differently.
I would not have been a show off loading spare wheels on to the back of flatbeds on my own.
I would not have driven 72 hours straight strung out of 6 months worth of caffeine
stimulants.
I would not have jumped out of the COE and off trailers all the time.
In short I would not have abused my body because it is now abusing me back.

 

I wouldn't have let my CDL expire and would have stuck with trucking when I was young and single.