my experience at cre burns harbor so far

I came to cre with my cdl already, but no OTR experience. I had been driving dump trucks and garbage trucks with automatic transmissions.

Arrived on a Sunday from greyhound. They took us directly to the school for paperwork, physicals, and drug tests. It felt like the military; hurry up and wait, they give you no information about whats going on. 4 hours later back on the bus and to a pretty bad hotel. The first day there were 230 new students, about 60 with their cdl like me, the rest to get their cdl.

The bus picks you up at 5am everyday, 7days a week, for the two or three weeks you are in school. The first three days were in class training. Very boring, dry stuff, but the teacher was at least partly interesting.

4th-8th day for me was on the range for backing. Those of us with our cdl got one chance per day in the truck for about 5 mins on whatever backing manuever they were trying to teach that day. The rest of the day was spent burning up in the sun. Our backing trainer told us that the people without a cdl actually needed the practice for their test and we would get all the practice we needed once we got in our phase one trainers truck.

9th-11th day was over the road training. our trainer took us to a corner of the lot and told us to stay there and he might have time to take us out later. i ended up getting about 20 mins total in the truck each day. Personally I needed more training, having never been in a semi and never touching a big rig clutch. Oh well, i could at least get the truck moving and stopped when i wanted, but boy did i suck.

The next 8 days were spent at a hotel waiting for a phase one trainer. very boring time with no money. But at least i was getting paid 25 dollars a day to stay at the hotel, wohoo?? I didnt actually see the money till i was on the truck.

My P1 trainer was a good guy. He was all about training me and safety. He taught me everything (well everything he could in 3 weeks) i need to know to run a truck for cre. He didnt like showers though. took three weeks to get 14000 miles. we spent some time at a freightliner shop and other time at various shippers and receivers. Poor guy was not making money. he was in the hole when i got on the truck. His first two checks when i was on the truck was for zero dollars. I beleive he finnally made some money the last week i was on the truck. From talking to other students, what type of trainer you get is a crap shoot. My roommate in my current hotel room never once touched the qualcomm or dealt with any shippers ,receivers or paperwork of any kind.

got back to burns harbor 6 weeks after i started this experience. 2 days of class and i had upgraded to P2. I am now in a hotel in burns harbor waiting on a P2 trainer. I was given the information of 3 trainers so far. the first one isnt training anymore. The second one i didnt get his phone number till after he was through and beyond indiana and heading to georgia. The third one hopefully will pick me up in 2 days. I am not getting paid while waiting so this 8 days of sitting in this hotel room is very trying on my patience.

From talking to about ~100 other p1/p2 students over the last 7 weeks, I would say i have had a good experience comparatively.

To those who want to come to school at cre. Listen, i left out alot of the BS i went through. There will be BS. But the way i kept looking at it, I had BS at all my previous jobs too. has it been a wonderful experience so far? no. but in 6 months, i will have a career that i can find a job anywhere in the US.

well, I will leave it there for now, If you have any questions, go ahead and ask, Ill be in this hotel room for 2 more days. after that it might be a few weeks till i can get on the internet again.