Good experiences: why SHOULD one choose trucking as a career?

Yeah....You were definetly on display when you drove a GMC Astro/Chevy Titan 90.
I always liked the layout of the dash in those from a drivers standpoint...But it made it very hard to get into the bunk.
Ol' Bobby used to complain abut that from time to time.

 

I'd like to take a stab at this if it's alright...

Asking when people began to like it strikes me as a little odd. You've got to love it and want it from the beginning or it just won't make sense later on.

Before I started trucking I literally used to dream about it. The small town in Florida I grew up in had a U.S. hwy that ran right down the middle of it and I would hang out in empty parking lots at night and watch the trucks roll through. During produce season I would ride over to where some of the sheds were, park and walk around just taking it all in, all the while dreaming of the day I could get behind the wheel and drive.

When I started driving all I wanted to do was get better, and the only way to do that is to drive. It wasn't enough to just get the truck from point A to point B, I had to be smooth, in control, as perfect as I could be. When I started I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn while backing, much less hit a dock. So I not only backed my truck in every time it was loaded or unloaded I asked to back others in as well (yes, it was a different time), and even if the drivers wouldn't let me I'd watch them like a hawk. Eventually I got very, very good a backing in, and even though I'm not driving professionally any more, or at least right now, backing is still something I take great pride and joy in. For years we raced motorcycles and my son was constantly amazed at where I could put our race rig.

Stress is just a part of life, and how well a person deals with it depends on many things. But stress on the job is something that we all have to deal with, and what makes it bearable is how well we enjoy the other aspects of it. Keeping up with all the paperwork that the trucking industry not only demands, but creates (Sometimes I think most of it is just to keep the folks that dream it up and have to handle it afterwords employed..) isn't a lot of fun I'll grant you. But it isn't all that bad. Dealing with the DOT, scales, people on the docks, whatever, while a pain in the butt at times, isn't the worse thing a person could be doing. All I have to do when I think I've got it bad is think about other folks doing their jobs, like a soldier in the middle east, a fireman, a cop, talk about stress... And what about the things like Mike what's his name does on "Dirty Jobs", there are a lot of jobs a person could be doing that really suck. Regardless, for me, all of the BS faded away as soon as I slipped the truck into gear and pushed in the trailer supply and emergency buttons.

And that lasted well beyond six months...

Your friend needs to really ask himself if he loves driving a truck, because if the answer is no, he'll never enjoy being a trucker.