It sounds like your friend is a local driver, who possibly makes many stops in a day, and possibly does his own loading/unloading. I'm a long distance trucker,

It sounds like your friend is a local driver, who possibly makes many stops in a day, and possibly does his own loading/unloading. I'm a long distance trucker, driving a "dry van" (the typical 53 foot box trailer). It's very rare that I touch my freight, it's either preloaded and I bring an empty trailer to swap, or I sit there while the shipper/receiver loads/unloads. Since a trip is typically 500 to 1500 miles, all I do is sit and drive for a day or three at a time. I sleep in a pretty comfortable bunk in the truck. I take my federally mandated and electronically logged breaks. It's mostly not physically demanding. Once in awhile appointments will be at odd hours, and your sleep shifts because of that. But in my experience, mostly not. Once in awhile you have to struggle with some aspect of securing your load (but they're usually sealed when you get them) or wrestling with a stubborn trailer, mostly not. It's an easy job. I mostly get paid to look out the window.