New guy trying to get experience question

WTF is a swamp donkey??

Thanks BTW. Pretty happy about it myself.

 

Ahh

For my license

New employer is going to have me drive with a mentor for a couple of weeks.

 

Update:

Made it out to the job. Have had two days in so far. Everything is much different than driving school. No clutch, hauling out of the bush, tri drive, trailer and pup.

The guy mentoring me is good. Good trainer, focused on safety issues first like radio in the bush, safe operating procedures for traffic in the bush, CTI use, and navilog. Some driving but not too much yet. My first drive was loaded and on flat, wide dirt. Second was highway empty. Tomorrow will be probably lots more as he wants to ramp me up to a full trip on my own on Sunday but with him in the truck.

Kinda wondering wadda#### I got into here, but I'm up to the challenge.

Main reason they say that they are trying a new guy is that someone here figures that it'd be easier to train a brand new guy to work in the bush than train an old OTR guy. I'm the guinea pig. Program is a go or not depending on how I do...no pressure. Hand picked from the driving school based on demonstrated abilities there.

 

Athabasca area.

 

Some pretty interesting driving today. Big steep hill out of the loader area with a full load....My mentor showed me what not to do and tomorrow I get to do the same hill the way he told me, not the way he showed me.....

Got some more miles on dirt, soft dirt, a little wet dirt, all loaded with about 48 tons of logs. I'll probably like this type of driving cause it's not boring. I think I'd fall asleep on the highway. We'll see, I still have to pass the road test at the end of next week. Pretty stressed. Lots of new stuff, don't know this area, where I'm going, nothing... I know nothing.

Mentor says I'm doing great cause just about all the driving he's let me do so far has been difficult conditions and I've done well. We'll see how the hill goes tomorrow. I know I'll be happy to take it with a slow walk up in 1st. There's a cat up top to pull out guys that don't make it, so either way I'll be at the top. But I'll be driving, not being towed by the cat. The trick will be to get my tri drives locked in after the corner, before the climb, and in the right gear.

Can't wait to get this sort of figured out so I can start making some money at it. Even at the training wage that I'm getting, I still think it's a great deal to get a guy started. It'll pay off for everyone.

Cheers

 

Well...pulled it up the hill today in 1st, all locked up and didn't spin or power out. Powered out later on a tiny "hump" that caught me off guard and I blew my shift.

Mentor says I did well. I didn't need the cat to rescue me.