Need advice on how to re-enter the work field in trucking

He's 72 so probably has the W-2 forms to prove he's retired & drawing a pension and at least social security.
You're right though; sometimes we do what we have to do for a job. Nothing wrong with that; it's cut throat just to survive sometimes.

 

Sometimes I think the old way of getting hired around Chicago my grandfather told me years ago is just as fair as anything else. You give the person in charge $500 bucks (years and years ago) and bingo you get hired and get a union job and pension to boot.

 

And therein lies the problem. Why does society think that a person has to be in their late 60's/early 70's to retire? What if a 25 year old person decides he is burned out and wants to retire? Whether he/she get's their income from social security, a pension, or lives out of a van and panhandles makes zero difference. Unemployment and retirement are the same exact thing, the person isn't in the workforce. Post number eight said it very well. These backwards companies think that if your work history isn't continuous with long tenures at given companies then you are not hireable material.

 

It's NOT A PROBLEM, you can leave the workforce and do that, then go to school to be a chef, a nurse, a welder, a HVAC mechanic, a CNA, a medical assistant, you name it - and you can get a job when you pass the test to be qualified, no problem, and you are on your way. But NOT IN TRUCKING, you have to have a perfect 10 year employment history to even be considered to have the privilege of sitting in a tin box on a highway 24 hours a day for weeks at a time, how special.

So if you are out of work and looking to change careers to be a truck driver, the first thing you have to do is go get a job at McDonalds or Walmart, work there for 10 years, and then maybe we will consider you to lead the glamorous life of being a truck driver and sleeping in a urine stained parking lot in a tin box, the good life lol.

 

I was a stay at home Dad and homemaker for 10 years. I got letters from two people attesting to this fact and didn't have a problem. (I'm 51).
The big deal is VERIFIABLE 10 years of history. Get some friends to write letters for you and you should be GTG.