Million Dollar Question.

Youre 33 and trying to help your family. Wife and kids? I'd say no...dont try trucking. Your family will want you home and you will be miserable. If you were trucking when you met your wife, things would be different, but everyone in your family is used to you being there.
If you decide that you still want to try your hand at trucking, there are things that you can do to lessen the pangs of missing the fam. Buy a laptop with a webcam if you dont have one and sign up for SKYPE. It will allow you to see your family and talk to them.
In your situation you will have to deal with the entry level companies since you are just starting out. The thing about Swift and Werner and all those other companies that raid the trucking schools is that they are run by idiots and beancounters. They try to make themselves competitive by cutting costs in the wrong areas.

1.a fleet of rookie drivers and rookie driver trainers(who themselves have less than 6 months driving experience).
2. dispatchers who dont know jack about trucking as they have never driven a truck whose job is to tell you how to do your job
3. the SafetyMan. King Idiot and god of beancounters. His word is law at bottom feeder truckin companies. Makes your dispatcher look brilliant. Want to insult another driver? Call him a safetyman.
4. POS fleet trucks. Usually Freightliners/Volvos with 430/470 Detroits cut back to 350 HP and a 9 speed tranny. Beancounters will tell you that this is a state-of-the-art truck and how lucky you are to be driving such a fine automobile. You get out on the road and you realize that you are a sitting duck to every motorhome, every schoolbus, every drunk, every morning commuter trying to text message and apply makeup while reading the paper. They will match speed with you and you have a rolling roadblock. Of course, the supertrucker (you know, that guy who sits all day at the TA's buffet and the first thing he tells you is how many years he's been driving) rolls up behind you and he's in a hurry starts cussing at you pissed off. He swings his trailer at you and cuts you off when you can finally get past the rolling roadblock.

If you can endure for a year, you can upgrade to a better company. (DO NOT let a bottom feeder company sucker you into a lease purchase of a fleet truck!!!!) The first thing you notice about the better companies is that they run better trucks. They pull better freight and have better clients.

 

What is intolerable to one driver might not be to the next. And the driver who thought conditions were 'intolerable' might have expected to get to idle the truck for 8 straight hours just for the A/C because he didnt want to sleep with the vents open and buy a $60 fan by RoadPro that stops working after 2 weeks. Or the driver expected to be home every weekend, etc.

 

khummel, there are jobs out there, lots and lots of jobs out there, and you ability to claim one of those jobs depends solely on YOU. Read through the hundreds of whiny posts around here. Anybody with half a brain and a year spent in a big truck can decipher exactly why the cry babies cant find a job.

Rule #1: There are actions for our consequences. If you have spent your life getting thrown in and out of jails. If you have DUI's and unpaid child support, you probably need to look elsewhere for a job. If you just don't want to work, look elsewhere. If you get your feelings hurt at the drop of a hat, and you believe the world owes you a living, by all means, look elsewhere the trucking world isn't for you.

On the other hand, if you like to work. If you wouldn't dream of turning down a load, or cursing in front of a customer. If you are willing to stay at least a year or two before storming off in a big huff to find a "better" carrier. There will ALWAYS be a trucking job for you no more than a phone call away.

Hide your tattoos, and hide them well. Having to ask about a tattoo policy "smacks of" poor life choice and decision making abilities. Not sure I would trust somebody like that myself. But, then again I am not a recruiter and I don't make those decisions. For what ever its worth...

 

You've got to be kidding me . I guess you haven't read the dozens of posts by members that have been out of work for months and unable to find a job .

 

I will take a wild guess and submit to you that those folks haven't been able to follow rule #1.