My journey to become a heavy haul driver

I didn't know where to put this, so I put it here. I need your guidance. I am super frustrated. But not at anything work related. It's the wife.

Back in January she went to cdl school. She did awesome, she made the adjustment, got the kids ready (1&3 yr old) every morning and dropped them off at daycare on her way to school, which started at 7 am. It was a 2 month course but we adjusted fairly easily.

Now it's taken her 4 months to find a local job that will hire someone with no experience. But I had to pester her to not just apply for jobs online, to go knock on doors. And for small companies to go back and see them every week. I tried to tell her if you go there every week, after a couple of months, they will hire you just to make you stop bugging them but she would only go sporadically.

Finally a friend of mine had a guy that he did 2 loads for to help him out of a pinch call him for a load that he needed to cover, my friend didn't want to do it, so he gave me the guys info cuz he knew my wife was looking for work but he knew that I needed to do the negotiating.

Well this was 7 pm and it was a run to Oklahoma and had to be there by 9 am. It was a flatbed load of pipe and my wife didn't feel comfortable doing it by herself. I got the guy to agree to pay another driver to ride with her. He ended up paying $400 to the other driver, $400 to my wife and $100 for me for setting it up.

We'll none of the drivers I contacted would go, my wife ended up finding one of her cdl classmates to go that did 3 months otr but had quit. Well he was down in League City and the yard was in NW Houston. He ended up getting a flat on the way so my wife ended up having to go pick him up somewhere, so they never left till 11 pm.

They struggled but made it there by 10-11 am which the customer was happy with. They had another driver meet them there to deliver the load because it was an oil rig and the backing involved was probably beyond their capabilities.

So they were waiting in the other drivers truck. She finally called to give me an update and told me he got pulled over 3 times for no plates. It had a temporary paper plates. I told her to check for temporary plates for the trailer she couldn't find any.

Knowing ahead of time that no company likes to deadhead, in my negotiations I asked about if there would be a backhaul and he said that they would be meeting another driver and swapping trailers. So I got my wife to talk to the office people while they were unloading to make sure everything on that other trailer was legal.

Well I guess when they realized my wife wouldn't run illegal, they just told her to bring back their original empty trailer. So they start heading back. Well they haven't slept, my wife only felt comfortable driving 55-60 the whole way so it took them longer than it should have. Well she wants a nap but her partner can't navigate and needs her to sit beside her while she drives. So now it's 2 or 3 in the afternoon the next day and they still haven't made the Texas border.

The boss calls and says he has a backhaul he needs them to pick up. He says, they just need to get it loaded, and he will pay for 2 rooms for both of them to sleep immediately and they can drive back the next day. The other driver refuses to do it, we'll then he offers my wife for her to get a room and he will buy the other guy a bus ticket.

I tell her to do it. I call my friend who gave me the contact to call my wife and tell her to do it, he has been coaching her too, to find a job. Well she refuses to ditch her classmate like that. They decide to not take the load and just drive all the way back.

Well my wife realizes she is too tired to drive so the other guy drives. It takes them till 10 pm to get to Dallas and he can't drive through a big city. So she drives through it but is exhausted. So she gets him to 45 where there are no more turns or exits and finally goes to bed. They arrive at 3 am or something.

Afterwards, that whole time from 3 pm till 3 am she realized she made a mistake not listening to me and not getting the room so they could sleep. So come the following Monday, the guy also agreed to hire her on and train her. Well after not covering that backhaul he booked, he is obviously pissed and ignores her calls and doesn't hire her.

So now she is twice as pissed for not listening to me to get a room.

So she spends another month looking for work, she is getting frustrated to the point of where she is considering looking for non cdl work.

Well I ended up finding a lady on facebook that would hire someone with no experience. At this point, I seriously looked into buying her some sort of cdl truck but all my research kept telling me it wasn't the right market to be profitable. I was also giving up on her finding work that I set the wheels in motion to start a business that I would do for a 2nd income for us.

We'll the lady never got my wife's initially message, internet problems. Well a couple weeks later, she posts the ad again and I talk to her and ask why she never contacted my wife. So they connect, well a couple days later, she contacts me at 7 am and says my wife can interview at 10 am but my wife's phone goes straight to voicemail.

I call a border who is staying with us to wake my wife up and tell her she has a interview at 10 am, well our 3 year old used her phone and killed her battery.

Ok just remembered 2 more parts of frustration, my wife initially had a job shortly after cdl school driving an rv that was turned into a mobile clinic. It was a pretty gravy job, only 3-4 days a week, 8 hours a day. Basically the perfect job to get her one years cdl experience so other companies could hire her with their insurance.

Well she didn't feel like she was a trucker, she wanted to be a trucker. It was only 14 / hr and no benefits. She agreed to take the job initially for a couple weeks till they could find someone and we needed the money after spending money on daycare the past month so she could find work.

She worked there a good month and proved herself, she also helped the nurses with intake and explained to her bosses about a lot of cdl regulations they didn't know about. But she wanted to be a trucker. So I told her to tell the company she would stay on full time if they hired her direct and gave her benefits.

This was basically to make them Gove her a job she can't turn down or let her follow her goal of being a trucker. They said they couldn't do it. So she kept working and looked for work.

Well she found a hotshot job driving a stakebed truck. Gave her 2 weeks notice and set a hire date. As we talked more about the hotshot job, it turns out that they have hardly no work for the stakebed and she would be mostly doing pickup work with the odd stakebed work. So she keeps working till her quit date but she also looks for work because this hotshot job isn't a real trucking job. So I change her job search to dump trucks because that is her best bet to find someone who will hire her with no experience.

The day before her new job starts she has an interview with a dump truck job and he wants to hire her. She doesn't know what to do. I tell her to take the dump truck job and to call the other job at 9 am and I give her a valid excuse why she can't make it but can start on Monday instead of Thursday.

So she goes to the dump truck job, at 7 am, I remind her to call at 9 the other job her excuse. Well she struggles because the 2nd driver who was going to train her didn't shown up and wouldn't answer her calls. She doesn't call the back up job, does a no call no show.

She makes it through that day, they ended up not working for that customer cuz they were only paying $35 a load. So that day ended by noon.

The next day she goes to work and the other driver tells her he is quitting to go wor somewhere else. It turns out that his brother owns the trucks and he books the loads. So the next week, he gets work and the truck broke down 3 times at this point and everyday he tells her the mechanic fixed the turn signals but they are still broke everyday.

Well she was at a job, breaking down and another driver who helps her tells her that he worked for him before and that the truck she is driving has a cracked frame.

After more BS breakdowns that day, I tell her to quit, it's not worth risking tickets and she isn't making money and I'm paying daycare for no reason.

Ok so back to her new job, her first day driving is Friday, she is riding along with the one other cdl driver. So from 6 am to 2 pm they are in the dump truck delivering rip rap to new construction sites for the entrances. At 2 pm, they go in the hydromulch truck spraying grass.

At 5 pm she calls me and tells me she has to work late and that I need to pick the kids up from the sitter at 630. Well at 4 or clock, I called her to see what the deal was because I had an opportunity to work late. So I had to call my boss and back out. She also tells me that she thinks she over heard him on the phone that he is going to quit this job.

So at 6 she calls me and says they got the truck stuck in the dirt. So they get unstuck after someone came to use the dozer to pull them out. So they need to get this job done, so they have to keep working. She ends up having to help the laborer drag the house around.

I tell her to dump water on her head to cool off, she doesn't listen. Eventually she got so hot, it looked like she was going to faint. The guys told her to go rest in the shade. They eventually quit around 9 pm and she tells me that the guy told her he has Monday off and is going to see about another job and of it works out, he isn't coming back.

I'm like booyaa! This is your golden ticket, now you will be the driver with the most seniority, you will be able to pick which truck you want to do. I'm thinking logistics. I know this is a good company, I've talked with the HR lady extensively.

Her start time is 6 am and it's an hour commute. She drops the kids off at daycare along the way at 5:15 am. Our daycare lady is awesome and agrees to change her start time to accommodate us. The rip rap truck needs a 6 am start time because their crews need to go spread the rock. Well hydromulch is only her and the laborer. After she proves herself, it makes no difference if it's a 6 am or 7 am start time imo because the past couple months with only one driver it hasn't actually started till mid afternoon.

So after her first full week, she tells me that she didn't want to go back on that first Monday but she only did because I kept on her about it but she is glad she did because now she feels comfortable in the truck by herself.

So that Saturday she has off but she knows that she will have to work a lot of Saturdays. Well we are already straining our daycare lady dropping off the kids at 5 am and not picking them up till 630 pm and she has like 10 other kids they watch. So asking her to work is not an option, that we will find someone else.

Well her sister in law is over and overhears the conversation. She offers to babysit Mon-Fri at our house and keep the house clean at the same time for $300 / week, we are currently paying $250 / week. Well my sister in law can't keep a job longer than 2 weeks. She also can't get along with anyone in our family, my wife's entire family refused to go to their house for Xmas dinner. My wife has gone 6+ months without talking to her brother cuz of her.

And we've been unreliable with our babysitter but she bends over backwards to accommodate her. I tell my wife, we are not doing it, she won't last a year, our kids are a handful and after a couple hours, I'm pulling my hair out. I tell her it's not fair to our daycare lady to keep being unreliable.

So I start driving the kids to daycare at 630 am to accommodate. Well after a week my car kicks the bucket. So she has to drive the kids again. Well it takes me a week to find the truck I want and another week for it to be delivered from Oklahoma. All this time, I'm having coworkers pick me up. So this past Friday, I get the call it's ready.

Well at 5 she tells me she has to work late. So I find a ride home. Find another ride to pick me up and take me to the dealership and pick up the kids along the way, it's an hour away in traffic.

She calls and tells me she is 17 mins away, well I realize I am 20 mins away, the kids are starving and need drinks / snacks and I'm parched bit we don't have time to stop because we will get there at 8 pm and financing always takes a couple hours and I don't want the kids to be whiny. Before I get off the phone with her, I remind her stop to get snacks. A few minutes later, I get a txt she is already at the gas station, then another txt, never mind the line is too long. So I send her 3 txt's to stop she has time, we are still 10 mins away. Well she calls me and says she is at the dealership, where am I? I said I'm not there, did you get snacks, no, I tell her to go. She refuses, she's too tired.

I explain to her it's going to take over an hour and she can't do her part until the very end. So she worked a 14 hour day and we don't get home till 11. She mentions her sister in law again. Realizing she likes to learn the hard way, I say why fight if, let her go ahead and hire her.

So Saturday she gets up at 430 and goes to work. I found a babysitter to come to our house for 630 am to watch the kids. She mentions her sister in law again and I tell her, I said go ahead with it last night. So she tells her sister in law yes and she tells daycare lady about it. Daycare lady is upset and thought she did something wrong.

So I get off at 2 and relieve the babysitter. Well at 4 she txt's me and said she felt bad and told her sister in law she can do it just for this week and next week she will go back to daycare lady.

I'm like wtf? Why do you make it so hard on yourself. Why did you make a decision without talking to me? You did the exact thing I warned you about, you just took away $250 worth of work for daycare lady and treating her unreliablely.

I forgot on Friday she explained to me that her ac wasn't working properly and that she is hot and that the laborer can't come in and cool off after standing on top of the truck and spraying. I tell her to tell her boss about it. Well Saturday at noon she calls me and complains how hot she is and that she is taking lunch in our van cuz it has ac. I ask, did you tell your boss? No. I'm like wtf?

It's like she refuses to listen and does the exact opposite of what I say and makes it hard on herself. Then she complains that I pester her too much and that I'm on her too much.

Well if you did it the easy way the first time, your life would be so much easier?

Wtf do I do, it's worse than talking to a wall.