28 M, and have been looking to get my life on track by learning a marketable skill/trade after being laid off nine months ago by my “General labor” $20/hr warehouse job I’ve had for 3 years. After three days, I was fired for an eye problem I didn’t know I had, and one I was not tested for.

After hundreds of apps to entry-level trade/helper/apprenticeship jobs and about 80 interviews (all for $18-$25/hr), I finally found a gold mine when I found a job that offered to pay you to train with them to get your CDL, and start driving with them right then and there (regional). $80,000-$100,000 is the norm for almost every driver’s first year (The only catch is you’d have to stay with them for 2 years to have the schooling fee waived, which I didn’t mind). And you had to have your Class A permit prior to starting.

So I did. I spent three days buried in the manual and practice tests, and aced the written test with flying colors. I was hired immediately.

So come class time. We do some classroom stuff day one: no problem. Day two, we’re out in the yard doing exactly what we would need to do to pass the test. Air brake/pre-trip inspection. It takes me a little long to pick it up and remember it all. But after two days, I had it all memorized front and back. My instructor was impressed. My other fellow trainee coworker was a 21-year old guy who (I don’t mean this in a bad way since he is nice) uses ChatGPT to do research and scrolls through TikTok/Instagram throughout most of the time it’s “my turn” to drive/practice inspections. I only picked up my phone to check the time, and during our lunch break.

Fast forward three days into driving and my coworker has the backing maneuvers almost nailed despite struggling as much as me at first, and being given the same instruction. He wasn’t perfect, but he was 95% to the point where he could go take the test and pass.

I, on the other hand, was exactly where I was after one day: unable to tell whether my tires were on a certain line or not, and not able to tell if my trailer was “hitting a certain mark in my mirror,” because I had to close one eye and squint really hard to see it. Whenever I did hit my mark, it was out of dumb luck, and could not repeat it on command. Half the time I was convinced I hit it, I got out and looked, and I was 3-6 feet off either direction. I was very discouraged, but not ready to give up.

Then my instructor told me I shouldn’t be squinting one eye like that, so he had me open both eyes to look out the passenger-side mirror.

“See that tree back there?” he asked.

“Which one?” I asked.

There was one tree.

For whatever reason, whenever I look out a mirror with both eyes, it’s “double.” It’s slightly better, but still bad enough for me to want to close one eye, on my driver-side mirror.

Then he had me look straight forward at a pole across the street, close one eye, and cover the pole. Then he had me switch eyes to see where my finger “moved.” It moved so far to the right, it was an object that took a whole ten seconds or so for him to even notice it was there. His “movement” in his eyes from doing the same thing was a quarter what mine was. And he’s twice my age.

So now I’m back to… well, nothing. There’s a chance I may owe back $7,000 for the class I didn’t get to complete. I’ve been living out of my car for the past four years, and this was my best shot to finally break out of the ground and make something out of my life. For those more knowledgeable than me, is this something I can come back from with a specific type of eye exam (also frustrating because I had a routine one right before the two dot physicals I needed to land this, and it didn’t test for whatever this “double vision” is), or am I SOL for this career path?