Family & hometime, does it get easier after you get some time in

No you are not alone. It's a common human condition very similar to Soldering or Sailors upon the Sea.

It is unfortunate that I am a little idealistic from the 60's and 70's where Trucking was a very real and powerful force of drivers and companies moving very large payrolls. (My uncle used to take in thousand or more weekly which is really a dream in today's money. The best I got close to that in 2001 was the occasional 4000 dollar payroll.) Shrugs.

It is good that you have family and friends to look after you. And gives you something besides just yourself going crazy by degrees alone.

 

You just need to find a better driving job. You can be home daily, and eventually get terribly bored in the same areas or be away from home in varied an interesting/infuriating areas, or OTR, or anything in between. You can find jobs paying little or a lot for any of them.

You don't get a easy or better job just because you hit your head against a brick wall long enough. You need to constantly be looking for the next job. When you have the experience that job requires, you apply, and or move to do it.

Companies are not going to chase you down and force a good job on you.

 

What you are experiencing is normal and natural and probably the biggest reason good drivers stop doing OTR. The bad drivers stop because they get tickets, have wrecks, and fail drug tests.

 

I tell you this.

There are times daddy shows up on TTR with babies or preganant wife, GF etc. wanting to escape and make a pile of money in trucking.

Nothing can be further from the truth. Daddies that new need to stay home with the spouse and new born babies. Raise em a while. Once they are grown you can consider OTR then. Otherwise local work is a possibility after the kids are stable in school.

 

Just remember (This is my last post here tonight) one thing.

You are an American Long Haul Trucker. As such, your family and friends no longer understand you and do not see what you see and feel. While they sit and gulp the junkfood you delivered 2000 miles and never giving thanks to the Trucker who brought it to them and to the Almighty God that kept that Trucker, truck, trailer and the people around him or her safe for the Journey.

 

I don't want to thank all the posts. I found a local job for 21 years I thought I would retire from. But changes in the company forced me to leave.
Now I'm back OTR. My kids are grown, but it's still very difficult to leave my wife. I'm hoping to only do it for a while longer till I can hopefully retire.

 

Congrats on the new job and working towards your retirement. Good luck driver!

 

You're not the one brother. I leave home and my wife and young kids are there too. I miss them like hell too. It's the nature of OTR. It's hard at first, but it becomes easier. Video chat helps.

 

In theory that'd be nice. I was fired from a local job two weeks before the birth of my second son. I was out of work two months before an OTR company hired me. Nobody else gave me a chance. Sometimes you have to do what you gotta do, it's not necessarily about making tons of money so much as it is making sure your family stays off the street. That's what folks have to remember. Even though your away from home, your out here taking care of your family. My wife held down the household for me, and has continued do so ever since then and I love her for it. It shows how strong she truly is. Once you get home, make it count. Quality time.