I Think I'm Perfect For Trucking

I want to do OTR.

I'm 28 with no real career under my belt. I single. No kids. I'm a homebody who doesn't need to be social. I enjoy alone time. I'm a very patient person who won't road rage, or blow up over detention time/missed home time/Other day to day hassles truckers deal with.

I'm currently a plumber. I work hard every day. It's a good career and good paying. But it's not for me. I'm too chill for it. Plumbing is all about pushing yourself physically to pump out the most money. This is great if you have a family to support. I don't, there's no reason i need to push my body to ghost extremes.

I dunno, i just feel I'd be good as a trucker.

Oh man, if you think plumbers have to push themselves you really wouldn't like trucking I don't think. Remember, the Federal Govt says we can legally work 70 hours every 8 days. That's almost two full time jobs. And that's only the legal work, on the books. It's after that you begin your personal life like eating, doing laundry, shopping for groceries, preparing meals, talking with family, exercising, etc.

Trucking is all about pushing yourself. Flatbedders have a good bit of physical work to do, most truckers don't. But you're talking a lot of very long days with tight schedules and strict time management.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever heard someone say being a plumber was too difficult physically. I wouldn't have thought there was much to it in that regard.

I can handle long hours, it's the physical exertion that's killing me now. I don't do service plumbing, i do construction. Loading/unloading the truck at least twice a day (plumbing at least two houses a day), power tools/ladders/power generators/ and all the load of material i need. And it's mostly out in the elements.

The long hours and away from family don't bother me as much. I've heard flatbedders have it rough so I'm looking to avoid that division.

Oh, so the plumbing isn't the problem as much as unloading trucks is the problem. That makes more sense.

I've never met a group of truckers that loves what they do the way flatbedders do. Most of them do quite a bit of hard work out in the elements for sure. They're a unique group within the trucking community. That's one of those jobs that you either love it and wouldn't want to do anything else, or you don't love it and would rather do almost anything else.

From your description of yourself in the first comment I'd say trucking would be well worth a shot. I don't know if you could fall back on that plumbing career or not if it didn't work out. If you could go back to it, then I'd say give trucking a shot. You might love it. If getting out of plumbing would make it difficult to ever get back in then it would be a much more difficult decision. Trucking is the type of career you can leave anytime and return anytime. With most careers it isn't always that simple.