This position advertises "home once a week", so whether you are on the clock waiting or not, you probably aren't doing exactly what you want much of the time.

https://careers.walmart.com/us/jobs/1456060BR-truck-driver-8...

The $87,500 they post probably requires having the 30 months of recent driving experience, plenty of miles and safety bonuses.

The main catch with Walmart is that you need a pristine driving record and can fire you for any small mistake.

Seems to be the case for any credentialed job. The thought of being a lawyer or a doctor whose entire livelihood can be removed with the stroke of a pen scares the shit out of me.

This almost ever happens to doctors or lawyers in practice

* never

I once had a friend who was facing a serious trial. But we had to wait for his lawyer to get out of prison to represent him. I don't think they are held to the same standard.

If doctors or lawyers lost their livelihood for one mistake, we wouldn't have any doctors or lawyers.

You dont know how many doctors feel trapped by their profession. My ex didnt get mental help because it would stop her getting residencies.

Doctors, like DoD/contractors, Bankers, anything hi paying really; give their lives to their job. That includes limiting what they do at home, where they travel, who they speak too, how they act "out of the office".

Getting a career or sticking to a career are not indicative of happiness, security, or comfort.

The hardest part of that for most people is reducing their lifestyle to something more sustainable. Many have gotten pretty comfortable with all the creature comforts with little to no thought about how to maintain that.

Last Week Tonight was the eighteen wheeled equivalent of projecting a crappy rookie game-dev job onto all of tech. Nobody who doesn't want to is putting up with that after they've been in the industry for any appreciable amount of time. It's the kind of thing you do for a few years to put experience on your resume.

The asterisks are you have to live in a truck, work crappy hours and be jerked around by dispatch, just like every other steering wheel holding dry van job. It's also not salaried so that "starting at 95k" is based on some number of miles. Walmart historically pays well in order to have their pick of top drivers. While they are a primarily dry van fleet, they're no Swift of Schneider so they expect high quality work to go with that pay. Driving over someone's planters will not sit well with them.

I wonder if that includes commercial insurance? A quick google search says it's around 16k/year for a new driver [1]. I guess it makes sense, but wow!

1. https://www.forerunnerinsurance.com/what-does-average-semi-t...

That is for owner operators (people that own their own truck and pick up loads by contract). Walmart you are working for and insured by them. That is why they pay well and demand experience and a clean record. Lawsuits due to driver error cost a lot.

Tracy Morgan was seriously injured in an accident with a Walmart truck and got 10 million dollar settlement from Walmart

My understanding is that there is a huge difference in pay, respect, and corporate chicanery between short and long haul.

Essentially: no DUI (ever!), no texting while driving (ever!), no tickets in the last 3 years.

Surprisingly low percent of truck drivers can pass this.

Plus, many trucks have a driver-facing camera, no privacy.

> no DUI (ever!)

Why the "ever!" addendum? Are you suggesting it is unreasonable to not have DUIs "ever!"?

It's just to emphasize that they may be lenient about some other tickets as long as they are way in the past, but they are not lenient about these ones.

These are reasonable conditions, but apparently they are not easy to pass.

I think the texting while driving is the more interesting one: a bunch of states don't care too much (Arizona, Montana, etc.), some others only impose a small $25 fine, so young people may not think about it as a huge obstacle to a high-paying job much later.

While I am an annoying stickler for safe driving (I gave advanced driving school gift certs for Xmas), one of the thoughts is - if you made an whopsie when you were 16 years old, how much should that cost you when you are e.g. 27 or for rest of your life?

I am cognizant that not everybody makes brilliant decisions when they are young, and not all of them remain awful incorrigible human beings forever.