How to convince my wife to let me become a trucker

OP,

While you're still young (I'm assuming) use your GI bill or whatever benefits you're getting and use it to get a real education. Driving should be your last option. Your very last option. Yes, some of us have made a good comfortable life for ourselves driving trucks but it took some time, hard work, luck, and some fate to get us here. Many have fallen off the wayside.

I have a 14 year old son and I'm grooming him to go to college. He only knows private schools and he will be going academic tutoring this summer. HE WILL NOT BE A TRUCK DRIVER.

If you're wife whose father was a trucker says she doesn't want you to be a trucker take it as a very BIG hint.

 

I just asked my Wife, Hon, Ya want to go see America with Me? She said Ya.

 

please do not UNLESS you will be home every night.driving isn't all that and you are a young man.stay close to the house.

 

You think the BS is bad in the military you haven't seen BS until you have been in the trucking industry where the companies don't care about you, the dispatchers crap on you just for fun, the shippers & receivers treat you like crap, the cops/DOT target you 24/7, and the public hate you and look down on you.

After I got out the Marines I started driving and my kids where so ashamed that I was a trucker they told everyone I was still in the Marines. Teachers, Principals, Friends, Parents of Friends, Church Leaders, Church members, Etc. .. would snub my family when they heard I was a truck driver.

I you got issues dealing with the BS in the military you are never going to make it as a trucker, so listen to your wife and stay far away from it.

 

I second that, and as you can see we were both in the service and are both drivers etc.

I almost forgot this, you have 30 days paid time off, try to get that after ten years if you are lucky driving a truck

Stay in until 20 or switch service, you my not realize what you have in front of you, almost every person that got out after the first hitch, now seeing how well my wife and I live all say the same thing I SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN, just the medical, can cost you 1,000's a month for insurance fees and meds for the family if something was to happen to someone God forbid!

 

She is right, do not do it. It is hard to make it in this industry even if your spouse is on board. And if you think the military is full of BS you have to deal with, you have not seen anything yet. Remember all those guys that did not make it through MEPS and then even more that did not make it through basic training? Those guys wind up in trucking because the standards in the trucking industry are much lower than the military. You will be taking a step down not up. Take your GI Bill and go to a trade school, not a university, and get a skill that is actually in demand and is mobile. Advanced welding, electronics, advanced diesel engine mechanic etc. Save your marriage and save the grief. You are thinking about jumping into a career path which will put you in direct competition with guys wearing turbans and others who speak Russian. This is the direction this industry is going now and its getting worse every day. Companies send jobs overseas because people there are willing to work for nothing. Since the mega's cannot send the trucking jobs overseas they get around that by bringing the labor here and still pay them nothing.

I squandered my GI Bill, got two masters' degrees and two nice decorations for my wall. I lucked out and made it through my first year of driving doing regional delivery. Used an inheritance to buy my first truck and trailer and leased on to about 15 different carriers before I finally wised up and realized the only way to make money was to be independent and I have been for the last 14 years. But if I had it all to do over again I would be the best welder in north Texas being fought over by potential employers. Think about long and hard before you commit.

 

I agree!

Look at the last 3 replies, we have been in this 15-17 years each, and have been in the service.

The schooling advice is spot on, trade schools, the right one is the way to go. College has turned into another business.

And he is right on the money about competing with non-English speaking foreign nationals driving a truck.

And finding a good paying driving job, they are there, there are some good companies left that will pay and have good trucks and get you home etc. but here is an example, with my perfect dac record, perfect psp report, and letters of reference and military service, and great job history I still went up against 85 qualified drivers for 2 driving spots.

 

I wish i was able to join the military, marines,navy airforce but i was not allowed to join...
Why cause i was cursed with chronic asthma as a youth. I am deemed unworthy of serving. I wasnt able to go to college parents had 8 kids and i was the last and not an athlete.
I went to job corps at 18 and got trained to be a stucco man but when i got done there wasnt much of a need for one in my home town. so I wondered aimlessly for a few years just doing whatever construction jobs i could than moved out of state to toledo ohio and worked factory job there than got married relocated to columbus for a stucco job, thought yea i finally made it.
busted my rump for 5 yrs and wife convinced me to move back to AZ. i did and got a job here as a Stone mason and loved it even more than stucco well construction crapped out here and moved from job to job doing all sorts of masonry work. got tired of that so

i got my cdl and that was great untill i had family medical issue to take care of after 6 months. 6 yrs passed construction work here and there during that time just to stay alive. now trying to get back into trucking as i actually enjoy doing it, and have wanted to do it for the longest time but when i was married i didnt want to lose my wife due to the lack of home time.
moral is ...be grate full of what you have now and it will pay off much better than this poor bloke who wasnt good enough for the military

 

AMEN! I say that all the time. I am trying to get back in at 31. The Services all say they take up to 35 but they sure as heck aren't doing that know. I am in awesome shape. I do crossfit 5-6 days a week and have around 15% body fat. I can do 85 push-ups in two minutes and 103 sit-ups in the same time. I wish I would have stayed in got my degrees on their dime and retired at 40. Instead I am unemployed with an MBA and 60k in student loan debt. Stay in if you can. Become a Mustang and save as much money as you can.

 

Don't do it. Hate to say it but with and wife and kid it will never work. You might be able to cope with being away but she won't. If you don't mind her cheating on you and leaving you, then by all means. I know its harsh but its the truth