Is this business really that bad??

Hi OP you seem to be a hard worker with skill so you should like the industry just fine. I am an army brat and I know how disciplined soldiers are as I grew up on army bases for the first half of my life. Send me a message in a year if you decide to go to trucking school and I can refer you to a good company with friendly, professional dispatchers. I have friends from my class who went to other trucking companies who get screwed over but my company always has me running and responds to messages or phone calls within five minutes. I love this job but I may consider going local in the future as I am beginning to miss sitting in my quiet home with the beautiful lawn and watching TV while enjoying a delicious home cooked meal.

Even though you get 2 - 3 days off per month for hometime, you may arrive on your first day of hometime at 5PM, by the time you settle in, do laundry, shower, sleep, you are in day 2 already, then that day FLIES by, then the third day you have to get ready to leave as the appointment is at noon, so you really only have a day and a half of home time. Plus being OTR I realized you cannot have a hobby on the side. Before I would get off work and attend a class or work on my house, go to the gym, hang out with friends, etc. but now when you are off the clock you can only go to your sleeper or hang around the truck stop.