Think about becoming a trucker

Keep going up on the electrician level, forget about trucking

 

You have to go through a truck driving school or a company that offers school and training... but once you get on your own a typical work week is drive 70 hours, maybe get home on weekends...

Really depends on who you go with... Everybody has different rules... Companies now have trucks with some type of braking system that brakes the truck when it gets too close... They also have cameras in the trucks facing you... Starting out as a rookie you will be faced with that...

Just stay as an Electrician

 

Stick with skilled trades. Better money, better work/life balance, etc. My old man gave me the same advice. He sold his iron and got out. Makes better money packing a lunch box and operating equipment for 6 months a year vs O/O.

 

You will be WAY BETTER OFF economically over your lifetime as a Master Electrician.

You are so young right now it's impossible to have you understand two different paths at 50 years old and beyond. If you were say a Master Electrician and all is well and routine in your work you will have literally anything you please in this world. Land, house, family etc. ANY thing.

If you chose trucking after your Pa says no don't do it... you are essentially a replacement for someone else who burned out, quit, killed, hurt, fired, run into the ground and so on. Your future is not set. If you have one at all.

Take that kid in Colorado. A period of 15 minutes on a runaway downgrade determines he has no future once the courts finish his 36 felony counts of killing, battery (Injury) and 4 of misdemeanors etc 15 minutes. They will bury him under the jail. He's only around 23 and not even a Citizen. 15 little minutes.

Or what I like to say around 8 seconds which is about what you all have if that truck you are driving is about to hit someone for whatever reasons.

As a Master Electrician you would be careful, routine and successful. Once you do a certain number of jobs running wire and building out anything from 200 amp houses up to 440 volt phased supporting a university building etc is no trouble at all.

Trucking IS a form of problems. Most of which are caused by others who you will never see in your lifetime. People who decide for you what time and date that load will be there REGARDLESS of your actual legal situation versus a HOS problem.

I'll die a trucker. I found deep satisfaction hauling medicine in high dollar loads which on delivery goes to the hospital that day and into someone who has a real need for it. I should have been involved in that from the beginning. But no. My life is what it is and there isnt much left to worry about because I managed to get away with it. More or less. With the first rule in trucking school. Don't kill anyone with that truck.

The laws from Federal on down to local is pretty stiff now compared to say 40 years ago. Back then I did what I pleased and sometimes DOT stands on my fuel tank writing a ticket, which I pay promptly. More times than not that load got there. In spite of the HOS. Years later I got really strict about HOS and now to see the ELD computers deciding that you cannot move a truck a inch without the engine graph tattling to that DOT man to the MINUTE of whatever day you were not supposed to move it.

Some companies do not accomodate PC, several other freedoms are not accomodated etc and so on. Your Pa has done well to tell you to find something else besides trucking.

I dont know anything about electricity. I just played with it pretending to fix problems as necessary, however professionals have been called in to do some real big work on my house twice. They have earned my respect for the quality of work they did.

IF you reach that level someday as a Master Electrician you can have the world at your service.

There will always be a trucker. Or at least a warm body who can do it for a little while until they screw it up because they don't pay attention or wear flip flops into places that require steel toes and so on. Its on them. Steering wheel holding does not a trucker make.

If they were fired or quit or whatever, they can always hire onto a fast food and do dishes in the back. No shame in that work. Just not much of a life. Because they did not try a Skilled Trade or some other skills. Trucking is not dependable at all. Very few get to where i am in age without being damaged in some way. You do NOT want to be damaged.

You are probably going to be a Electrician and so on. One day when you are into your 30's or 40's you will buy a big plush RV and roam the USA or wherever you please because no one can tell you that you cannot take time off. That would be enough to fill in that need to see the country.

And when you do discover the Nation, the good, bad and the ugly you will see why it's good to be where you are rather than just another trucker.

It sounds like I am condemning drivers. I am not. Where we are now essentially is not what we were 30 years ago or more. We have steadily have had our freedoms, our culture and other things chopped off by companies determined to nickel and dime on your freezing back in 40 degree rain with a non idling truck tonight.

THAT is not a life you want. Stay where you are in life just like your Pa told you.

 

Not much more to say. If you really feel the urge, you could get your cdl, and work part time on the weekend doing local work. The otr life is not what it use to be.

Stay with the electrician path. Seriously.

 

What all ^^^ said.

 

Sad commentary on our industry, really.

 

I sleep in my bed at home one night a week. I have no social life in the real world, just online. Forget about starting romantic relationships. My marriage of four years is on life support and I think we’re going to pull the plug (and it wouldn’t have even happened if I had been a truck driver then).

I’m not complaining (much), I like the work, but if I could afford to come off the road and do something else, I’d probably do it.

 

Take your spouse somewhere nice for a night, with a luxury room nearby. Neutral ground so that whatever you two can say to each other stays there. And not be angry after the sun goes down.

Im not going to preach, but the Book says remember the ravishing love of thy youth, somewhere in the song of Solomon or something like it. That goes for both of you.

Im divorced. But, my ex is my teammate for certain things and I am hers as well. I see many females that are really good, but my heart is not with them. Just my ex. We have been through all the knifing and causcic problems and worse. Thats all over with. Nothing but love and solving problems where our strengths lie. You might even say that due to PTSD etc we are functioning really well now seperately than we ever did married. We aint sorry we married, it was a good run. But my physical degeneration and eventual resolving of her PTSD etc from the Marines among other things were a source of pain.

GO talk to your spouse. Do not throw away what you two have built.