Hello to everyone here

Well, I'll tell ya', son, you won't get any accolades from me on this one. I've decided one of my biggest regrets in life, is not learning to fly. While you lucked out on one of the best jobs in trucking to have, tanker, I think you are foolish to go into trucking, from the air, anyway.. Trucking today, as far as I'm concerned, is one of those jobs you take while on the way up, and while it may be new to you, it gets old ,,FAST. It's why there's such a high turnover in help. You did, however, come to the right place. Those FB trucking sites, are the worst, unsupervised, disobedient malcontents you'll ever come across, and they have 300 followers.. Here, you'll find actual drivers that can help you, not make fun of you.
MY problem with a "suicide jockey", is the lack of respect 4 wheelers give you, and if it wasn't for drivers like you, their fun would come to a screeching halt, and you are helping them and they give you the finger. You won't find near as much respect as a pilot, if that matters to you. Best of luck, the "3 months off" will dog you, for sure. Trucking doesn't work like that.

 

You can take as much time off as you want if you drive for a temp. service that hires cdl drivers.
Work when you want to.
Try the tanker work you've been offered and if that doesn't work or you want to try something different, sign up with a temp service.
Here's one of many temp services; there's several more though.
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1. CDL A & B Drivers | Trillium Staffing
   Trillium Staffing - We Seek The Best
   With over a quarter of a century of experience in , we can find you a qualified CDL A & B Driver with experience specific to your industry and project . Are you looking for a Job? Find out what Trillium Staffing can do for you. Our company database includes hundreds of thousands of screened, qualified candidates nationwide, allowing us to quickly respond with a trusted, experienced CDL A & B Driver
   
   
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Couple years ago a pilot was posting on here and changed careers into trucking because her pay as a pilot was only $17G a year.

 

Cool! I've been back/forth living between Thailand and LA/TX since 2014. I'm usually here (currently Ubon Ratchathani Thailand) for 3-4 months then drive tanker or heavy haul when back in the states. Before was oilfield but it always took too long to line up work before I got back and now I literally pick up the phone when I land and I'm back to work within days. Prob this time back (late Sept) will be back out in TX since things are actually picking up in some oilfield well services sectors. Usually I've flown through either Taipei or Narita/Tokyo and once had day and half layover few years ago and did the rail trip to Sun Moon lake. When all this bs is over want to go back and goto Chiufen and the coast on a layover trip. Anyways, look forward to hearing how it all works out for you and yours.

 

Yep, family. Originally lived all Thailand until settle in Issan where more laid back and barely see ANY falang (foreigner) weeks at a time. Typically if I found local/regional work with a Mega in the past I made sure before I left that I had a rehire confirmation before leaving to make it easier to contact them upon returning OR it helped with moving to a different company to confirm my status with a the most previous employer. The heavy haul work is local to me in my hometown and I follow it more seasonally with my trips to Thailand aligning well between monsoon seasons here and their construction schedules. I'm kinda lucky too in that I also have family that run a fairly large construction (dirt movers mostly) that require heavy haul and occasional loading/unloading of limestone from river barges which I also do if the MS river isn't flooding the yard too bad. Actually already talking with some oilfield companies 3 weeks out from getting back and possibly going to Texas depending on offer and rotation. I was oilfield for a long time before getting into trucking so I naturally fall into this work if it comes up. My initial goal before was just to use trucking as a supplement to my off rotations whilst working oilfield and it's just naturally progressed this way over time while I was trying to gain my 2 years behind the wheel. It's been my experience that as long as your MVR, drug testing background is clean for a long period of time and you've got at least 2 years under your belt in a heavy haul/haz mat tanker type-ish kind of job you've ticked off most of the boxes for a lot of companies that want someone who can operate safely in a very unsafe environments. As far as the break off from work, I generally don't (or didn't) go into detail about it until I started learning about the slow down periods in the companies I worked for and as that evolved it wasn't a big deal given the fact I made sure I was an asset to them during my time there. If you're wanting a 3 month-ish break you'll have to watch how the slow downs start/stop and take advantage of it ahead of time with bookings, visas....
Covid definitely did not make it easy for me this time around with travel bans in place and dealing with the airlines and the 20 hoops I had to jump through just to get in country months ago. I've have had some companies just offer me a leave of absence too because I had attained so many certifications between their clients. Feel free to hit me up via PM if you want maybe I answered everything but all in all it's gonna take a few trips to get it down right. From the way it sounds you're at least ahead of the curve in that your wife can travel freely with you or possibly ahead of you if need be. That's the next plan in our future to get my ol lady here and then let her head over before me to make the transition back easier especially if we're working on building a house, selling our place, building onto her families restaurant, etc.....