Is being a Lorry Driver showing a lack of ambition?

[wildgoose]

Before going into this, some of you may observe that some of my recent posts are perhaps not in-keeping with my miserable sod persona of the years since joining the forum. The past six months have seen massive changes for me and i’ve begun to learn how to be happy with life (for the most part) for the first time, so with that that said…

Bit of a long one this, so if you are of the short attention span, you may skip to the arrow.

As i’m single now, i’ve been doing the online dating thing (yes, I know), there isn’t a lot of easy ways to meet new people when you work the nightshift so its been working well for me this way, it’s fun and has been going quite well, but until now i’ve not met anyone who has particularly interested me.

So I met her the beginning of January and all was going fine until after the first few meetings, she went away on holiday for a bit and everything was kind of stand offish when she returned. Talking about it with her yesterday, trying to get an understanding of why, it seems she fell for the idea of what I might be rather than the reality of what I am. Whether this is a common thing for women to do, I don’t know, if there is one aspect of life where I do not pretend to be an expert, it is this.

So we talked it all out, and I generally got the impression that if I was earning 60k a year in some high flying management type job, a lot of these issues would go away. She told me it seems as if I am very self assured and happy just plodding along, which she didn’t understand. Seemed to her, like I had no ambition, which I didn’t think was particularly fair (or true) but it set me to thinking a bit.

It also seems like that when I was mentioned to her Mother (I don’t exactly know what was mentioned, my age and job probably) she also made her disapproval known. Not good enough for my Daughter, etc.

It disappoints me when people judge you on what you do, as if it’s a direct reflection of who you are, what you can provide or what you have to offer, because in my opinion it isn’t and it doesn’t, but it seems as a society we are still stuck in this idea. I’ve never liked the word ‘career’ and it has never meant a lot to me. I’ve always been of the work-to-live persuasion and not the other way around.

I guess the answer here is that we are just not the right people for each other, because I have never put a massive importance on money, as long as there has been enough. To put things in perspective even if I was on say, 80K per year, I would only be offered a mortgage of say, £240k, which still wouldn’t buy me a small terrace house in Oxford, near where I live, so where is the motivation to work a job I may hate, chasing the big money when relatively I would still not be much better off. I don’t put a lot of stock in material things, so most of it would be quite uneccessary.

I know people who work jobs they hate, going after the big cash, and some of them are miserable to the point of not wanting to live any longer, and i’ve felt like that in the past, and don’t wish to go back (albeit, not job related, maybe).

I tend to go for older women, this one is 9 years my senior, so this problem is likely to come up again, as they will be further along their ‘career’ than me. I can’t seem to find anyone my age who seems to have anything about them, or is able to interest/challenge me. I don’t wish to sound like a snob, i’m really not, it’s just the way these things seem to fall. Last long term girlfriend was 15 years older.

So I guess my question is this, if we can assume for a moment that I might just be intelligent enough to do anything I set my mind to (discounting money to do it, and certain qualifications for a moment). Am I not living up to my potential by driving a lorry?

If any of you have ever felt like this? Or thought about it, or maybe even been concerned by it, i’d be interested to hear your thoughts. I know a lot of you have done other things either side of driving a truck.

Also if any of your girlfriends/wives/or partners/friends in general have expressed this feeling about you, i’d also like to hear about it, and what (if anything) you thought about it. Ideally I just want to meet someone who meets my requirements, but who will accept (love, maybe) me for who I am, and whatever it is I choose to do.

I’m not usually in the habit of caring what people think, this is part of my learning to be happy thing, I go my own way, but I can only surmise that I have slightly fallen for this person (though this conversation yesterday, has gone some way to undoing it), which is why it makes me validate what they think.

I like to think I have answers (usually smart arsed ones) for most things in life, but in truth when it comes to relationships i’m starting at zero. I joined the Navy direct from school, and was in a long term thing since leaving that until about 6 months ago, so I missed out a big chunk of the learning stage, and i’m catching up, I guess.

Any thoughts gratefully recieved, thank you.

[kilty]

I`d stay away from the snooty mares mate and find yourself a lass who lives in the real world

[dew]

If driving makes you happy, then who really cares? We’re not all set to be high flyers, and for all these big bosses out there, someone needs to keep the wheels turning!

[dar1976]

I know exactly where you are coming from. Many a person has commented that I was mad to go from (in their perception) a high flying career into lorry driving. I don’t need to tell them what I did or do earn. It is all down to how they perceive the status of lorry driving.

[switchlogic]

I’ve been looked down on in the past because of my job. I always think you know how many people are doing a job that was their childhood dream? I’ve had an amazing time been to amazing places got into all sorts of scrapes and fun and I look back at the fact I’ve been driving for a living for 15 years this year and think Christ it seems like yesterday it all began. Don’t reckon many office bound types of the same age can say that. I’m very ambitious, but not for money or job titles or status but for happiness. Because at the end of the day happiness is all that is worth striving for. If your life does indeed flash before your eyes before you die then I plan to die smiling.

[dinosteveus1]

How old are you?
Is this online dating thing a scam or is it OK? You hear so much bad press about how they keep wanting money from you. Anyway, good luck to you.
What was the question, Oh yes. If you are happy doing what you do, then leave well enough alone. It’s about how YOU feel doing the job,nobody else matters

[switchlogic]

Another thing is online dating is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s 2011, its the way the world works. In my opinion it’s no different to going to a bar to meet people.

[billybigrig]

switchlogic:
Another thing is online dating is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s 2011, its the way the world works. In my opinion it’s no different to going to a bar to meet people.

It’s easier to run if they’re mingers

[coffeeholic]

I’ve done a bit of the online dating thing, It’s fun, jut avoid the women who have posted a 20 year old wedding photo, with the groom cut out, on their profile. The job never seemed to be an issue.

I hope this helps.

[switchlogic]

Get on the location based apps, they are great. Blendr is you straights one!

[billybigrig]

switchlogic:
Get on the location based apps, they are great. Blendr is you straights one!

or Craigslist

[cliffton_27]

i say balls to the people who look down on us im not numb but far from academic i knew when i left school id be working with my hands although i wanted to be a car painter it didnt work out so i did few crappy werehouse jobs untill i got my license i love doing what i do these small minded people forget that the country need lorry drivers to deliver all there prized goods onto the shelves of the overpriced deparment stores they love to shop in
a bloke once told me that everyone in life has a purpose we cant all be high flyers we need people to clean the streets / stack the shelves / and drive trucks etc etc and if there was nobody to do what they do society would break down

[merc0447]

Ditch the old grannys for a start, time you’re 40 they’ll be 50 you see where im coming from you’ll be pumping an old women thinking i could have bagged myself a 21 year old

[leehellcat]

As long as you like enjoy your job and are happy with your life, then what does it matter what your job is ?
I swapped driving artics for driving a desk. The money is the same, but I do about half to three quarters of the hours.
On the hole the job is okay, but I preferred driving and would go back to it if I could find a job I liked the look of and was single.
The bit my wife didnt really like was not knowing if I would be home or not. In her defence I was driving a desk when we first met !

[juddian]

Very interesting post and thread there Wildgoose, its something i suppose we’ve all asked ourselves at some point.

Not everyone is a social or office political or sales or any other sort of animal, and nor should they be, everyone is different.

I’ve had surprising reactions when i asked what i do for a living, people sometimes take me for a teacher, so what?, i do what i do because i want to and i don’t have to play any of the necessary games to ‘get on’ that others have to, it suits me.

Luckily for me my wife loves me for who i am not my social position or status or income, having said that i’ve fortunately been able to specialise in car transporters for many years and now tankers so my earnings have been above average and our life is secure and comfortable, but i’ve done 2 weeks work in most weeks on the transporters as any old timer will tell you is the norm.

I’m not terribly convinced with online dating as such if looking for a soul mate or lifelong partner, online might be OK if you want a ■■■■■■ partner for a temporary fling as its a bit of a meat market anyway, no doubt there are exceptions where people find what they want, i tend to the belief that a lot of gold digging goes on in that world balanced by older or strange men often looking for a younger trade in to show off.

This is a personal view by the way so no offence intended to anyone, my wife is part Latin and her nature is one of nurture, compassion, passion, protection, care and total loyalty unaffected by wealth or lack of, those attributes i had not found previously or were ‘selectable’ shall i say.

For those good men (and they are rare enough for there are some poor examples about) who have been kicked in the bollox a few times by hard nosed harder hearted females look east i say…

[att]

Wild Goose…
I always wanted to be a lorry driver, as a child, mad keen into trucks etc.

But I went into a career by accident, did all the college thing, became qualified (Chef)
Chased the management and got into it at an early age…I was doing things that everyone else wanted me to do.
I went into food manufacturing, university…Got qualifications for the industry as long as your arm.
It depressed me, so I decided to chase money. I was good at chasing money and ended up with a very well paid job and all the perks, dealing with all the multiples and top class places in London etc.
But I was living a lie, I became angry, stressed and a complete pain in the arse to live with.
Divorce. Loss of friends.

Re-married and was still a pain in the arse to live with, but had started a little internet business as well as the well paid job…Started having problems with new relationship and the job was to blame, so I quit, hardest decision I have ever had to make, walking away from a thousand quid a week+, is very difficult thing to do. I took time out to do my HGV, the thing that I have always wanted to do! I developed my little business at the same time, did some travelling and made a plan that meant that I did not need a lot of money to live.
All through this time, my wife was massively supportive, my family were disappointed that I had thrown my career away(bragging rights is what it really is, for your family) I chased my dreams and succeeded.
I was 43 years of age…That is the age that I started living for myself, doing what I wanted to do

I am the happiest I have ever been, I love being at the wheel of a truck and contributing, my relationship is the best it has ever been and my little business has flourished and replaced the income that I had 4 years ago, so I drive when I want to…But my wife stuck with me when we moved 200 miles North and when times were rough and nothing was certain…She loves me for me, not what I do or how much money I can earn.

I believe that if you are happy, you can do anything you want to, because you have a positive outlook on life. People like positive well balanced individuals and are more likely to be nice to you, give you breaks, work with you etc. And you are doing things for the right reasons, not just for money.
And every place I have walked into, to get part time/casual driving work, has given me work. This is not coincidence, this is because I have the right attitude and positive demeanour.

Chase your dreams, do what you want to do, everything else will follow

[dar1976]

merc0447:
Ditch the old grannys for a start, time you’re 40 they’ll be 50 you see where im coming from you’ll be pumping an old women thinking i could have bagged myself a 21 year old

Or look at it the other way round, they will be looking for a younger man sooner than you think

[nearly_there]

You do what makes you happy work wise, your the one going in everyday. Why not do a online course and study in your free time

[roadrunner]

WildGoose:
Before going into this, some of you may observe that some of my recent posts are perhaps not in-keeping with my miserable sod persona of the years since joining the forum. The past six months have seen massive changes for me and i’ve begun to learn how to be happy with life (for the most part) for the first time, so with that that said…

Bit of a long one this, so if you are of the short attention span, you may skip to the arrow.

As i’m single now, i’ve been doing the online dating thing (yes, I know) there isn’t a lot of easy ways to meet new people when you work the nightshift so its been working well for me this way, it’s fun and has been going quite well, but until now i’ve not met anyone who has particularly interested me.

So I met her the beginning of January and all was going fine until after the first few meetings, she went away on holiday for a bit and everything was kind of stand offish when she returned. Talking about it with her yesterday, trying to get an understanding of why, it seems she fell for the idea of what I might be rather than the reality of what I am. Whether this is a common thing for women to do, I don’t know, if there is one aspect of life where I do not pretend to be an expert, it is this.

So we talked it all out, and I generally got the impression that if I was earning 60k a year in some high flying management type job, a lot of these issues would go away. She told me it seems as if I am very self assured and happy just plodding along, which she didn’t understand. Seemed to her, like I had no ambition, which I didn’t think was particularly fair (or true) but it set me to thinking a bit.

It also seems like that when I was mentioned to her Mother (I don’t exactly know what was mentioned, my age and job probably) she also made her disapproval known. Not good enough for my Daughter, etc.

It disappoints me when people judge you on what you do, as if it’s a direct reflection of who you are, what you can provide or what you have to offer, because in my opinion it isn’t and it doesn’t, but it seems as a society we are still stuck in this idea. I’ve never liked the word ‘career’ and it has never meant a lot to me. I’ve always been of the work-to-live persuasion and not the other way around.

I guess the answer here is that we are just not the right people for each other, because I have never put a massive importance on money, as long as there has been enough. To put things in perspective even if I was on say, 80K per year, I would only be offered a mortgage of say, £240k, which still wouldn’t buy me a small terrace house in Oxford, near where I live, so where is the motivation to work a job I may hate, chasing the big money when relatively I would still not be much better off. I don’t put a lot of stock in material things, so most of it would be quite uneccessary.

I know people who work jobs they hate, going after the big cash, and some of them are miserable to the point of not wanting to live any longer, and i’ve felt like that in the past, and don’t wish to go back (albeit, not job related, maybe).

I tend to go for older women, this one is 9 years my senior, so this problem is likely to come up again, as they will be further along their ‘career’ than me. I can’t seem to find anyone my age who seems to have anything about them, or is able to interest/challenge me. I don’t wish to sound like a snob, i’m really not, it’s just the way these things seem to fall. Last long term girlfriend was 15 years older.

So I guess my question is this, if we can assume for a moment that I might just be intelligent enough to do anything I set my mind to (discounting money to do it, and certain qualifications for a moment). Am I not living up to my potential by driving a lorry?

If any of you have ever felt like this? Or thought about it, or maybe even been concerned by it, i’d be interested to hear your thoughts. I know a lot of you have done other things either side of driving a truck.

Also if any of your girlfriends/wives/or partners/friends in general have expressed this feeling about you, i’d also like to hear about it, and what (if anything) you thought about it. Ideally I just want to meet someone who meets my requirements, but who will accept (love, maybe) me for who I am, and whatever it is I choose to do.

I’m not usually in the habit of caring what people think, this is part of my learning to be happy thing, I go my own way, but I can only surmise that I have slightly fallen for this person (though this conversation yesterday, has gone some way to undoing it), which is why it makes me validate what they think.

I like to think I have answers (usually smart arsed ones) for most things in life, but in truth when it comes to relationships i’m starting at zero. I joined the Navy direct from school, and was in a long term thing since leaving that until about 6 months ago, so I missed out a big chunk of the learning stage, and i’m catching up, I guess.

Any thoughts gratefully recieved, thank you.

It sounds as though you have met someone that judges herself against her peers(which most females tend to do but not all ), be it friends or family and if you cannot provide the job status which encompasses the salary/money element, that is in keeping with her circle of friends then you are in for a miserable and resentful time, my advice would be to look elsewhere and find someone rather more caring and attentive to you and not try to fit into her idea of a man that earns a millionaire salary and plays premiership football to show off to her friends at parties, been there got the t shirt mate.

I left school with naff all qualifications and no ambition at all, the only thing i enjoyed was driving and travelling to different destinations so truck driving really is the only job for me regardless of wage, i’ ve done the horrible factory job, 17 years industrial spray painting never again !, i now tell people i have “four wall phobia” . All of my family are academics my dad a retired maths lecturer ,uncle a retired computer programmer, cousin teaches blind people maths and taught himself to read braille !!, my brother a computer software tester on a wage more per week than i earned in a month, so that makes me the family disappointment but do i care, no !! because i am doing something that makes me happy and sod what anyone else thinks, i have no interest working in a back biting /office politics environment or climbing the company ladder, i intend to enjoy my life as much as possible whilst keeping stress to a minimum, as you climb the ladder the salary may increase but so does the stress level and your quality of life goes down .

[winseer]

In the early 80’s, I was leaving school (just as the main employer in town went ■■■■ up!) and after spending some time getting turned down for various jobs, ended up on the chat for a bit, before going back to college. Doing higher education was considered “ambitious” back then, since you were expected to make all these sacrifices by not taking an early 80’s job (not that there were many around - the recession then was on a par with this one right now!)
Education was respected. Not being able to spell was a markdown. Learning to type at speed was something I learned at IT college. Never actually made me any money though, and the girlfriend I had in the early 80’s dumped me for a murderer who’d just come out having served his time (twice her age!) who’d now got a job running a nightclub (I’d always hated nightclubs, she loved them)
In the late 80’s, having the biggest wad showed you had “ambition”. I was an IT student at this time, moved in with a bird twice my age and she eventually dumped me because I had “no ambition” (hence why I’m replying on this thread!) I always seemed to be a hard-up student, and never got that job where I got paid the same as the guys who’d been there for a while

Fast forward to the 90’s, and now I have a HGV licence, have given up on the idea of ever making a career in IT (all jobs I’d done were poorly paid), and met a girl 5 years younger who worked in retail. She told me that a HGV licence meant being in control of your own life like no other job can - stockbrokers, civil servants, & other pen pushers all come and go, but there will always be a need for transport. We’ll forget the fact I signed on this month for the first time since the 80’s, but my point here is that the girl I met in 1991 is still married to me for about the same time the hgv licence has!

Find someone who works in the distribution industry. They’ll probably still have a job. I think we’ve reached the time of the business cycle when people only respect the size of your wad again, so if you ain’t loaded, you’ll never be “good enough” for a bird outside the industry young or old. This is the wrong type of woman to chase anyway I think. People equate “divorced” with “available”. I equate “divorce” with “too bone idle and UNAMBITIOUS to make their marriage work” which is usually the fault of the non-working wife rather than the ever-working husband!

This area (north kent) sees a lot of recently-divorced middle aged women who split up from husbands who were no longer the guy they married (loaded) but still think they are entitled to the same lavish lifestyle that came when they were still married. Avoid women like this: They have an inflated opinion of themselves, and spend what cash they have on “waste” rather than getting to grips with the fact that they ditched the plum lifestyle with the out-of-work former high-earning husband, and are now actually quite hard up. In other words, you could say they’re up and about to get a meal ticket that they’ll be keen to get hitched to at the earliest opportunity. Love has nothing to do with it.
At the other end of the scale, a wonderful woman who supports the rhythms that go with working funny shifts, taking holidays on the spur of the moment (but at bargain prices!) and a thrifty lifestyle that sees more bang for the buck (I’m a value freak anyway!) is the one to grab with both hands. That girl might have been recently laid off from the high street as mine was… Start looking there for your next long-term relationship I say!
Giving up a high street job to become a full time mum and housewife didn’t even involve a drop in lifestyle, not in these days of tax credits that almost replace pound for pound the lost wages. I reckon a lot of marriages could be saved if people didn’t keep chasing careers that hate them! I accepted redundancy from my old firm, because the pay & conditions had dropped to such an extent that the future paying of my mortgage was in more doubt staying full time than taking charge of my own life, and working outside. Since leaving, I’m about £43 a week worse off - but 4 days a week better off! (I’m taking home £43 a week less for working 2x15hour shifts than I used to get working 5x10 hours full time. The drop in my base income in the past year has been so stark that HMRC are throwing money at me left,right, & centre - long may it continue.
If Clegg gets his own way and ups the personal tax allowance to 10k THIS year then that’ll give me an effective pay rise of £12 a week which is better than most other workers can hope to get nowdays isn’t it?

How’s getting an extra 4 days a week back of your life for almost the same takehome pay?
This is where I’ll define my own ambitions - you can’t buy more life when it starts getting on the short side - better to grab some now while you’re still young enough to enjoy it eh?

“Ambition” is making what you do work no matter how unconventional it is!
People say I married in haste. I say I got the best of what was on my plate, which is better than most people who’ve gone through divorces - an upheaval worse than bankruptcy in my book. The only person entitled to critisise my choice of career or wife is the person actually offering better. The critique only comes because of resentment that I still seem to be getting by, and am still on my first marriage in an area where the opposite is usually the case.