Starting the Squire Program 10/10/14

Ya man, see you up there. Dude, it has been a long time since I rode a greyhound bus. I like the fact that they have Wi-Fi and electrical outlets now. I planned my packing around only having this stuff in the terminals. Not too shabby.

 

Well made it to the hotel here just 10 minutes away from the Memphis terminal. the bus ride was okay on the way up. Went from Savannah, GA - Atlanta, GA // Atlanta, GA - Nashville, TN // Nashville, TN - Memphis, TN.

The rides were not that bad. The only full bus was the "Dallas" bus I had to take to get to Memphis from Nashville, besides that there were barely enough to fill up 1 person per set of seats. It was nice.

They ended up booking me at the Fairfield Suites here in Olive Branch rather than the original hotel because it was booked to capacity. Really nice hotel. Although I got in here at 7 and the room is not ready until 3PM, I went in and had a decent normal hotel continental breakfast. Nice staff and really nice looking hotel.

Can't wait to get to the Memphis terminal tomorrow and start!

 

Well today was more like the rest of all of the other orientations that I read about. Started out with the continental breakfast this morning at the hotel than at 7 AM got the van over to the terminal. From there we filled out all of the paperwork that was needed and did the hair and urin test. From there once everyone was done with the drug tests we all piled in the vans to head over for the DOT physicals.

The physical. Knight uses their own physical place and they pay for it. Once you leave Knight, since they paid for it, that doctor pulls your medical card and you have to go and get your own. Since I have type 2 diabetes that is controlled by medicine, my medical card is only good for 1 year. Really don't mind seeing that Knight pays for it as long as I am with them.

After the physicals we all piled back in the van (which all 11 of us passed) and headed back to the terminal. They had lunch for us (Subway) and we all ate. From there we than went over the course information. Our schedule, rules, went over the range and pre trip information.

After the class room stuff we all went out to the range to check it out and start with the entire pre trip. We have a class of 11 and 3 total instructors. We are broken down in to 2 4 person groups and 1 3 person group. They have a total of 5 training trucks. Just found out that the state of GA (my state) does not do parallel parking for the CDL tests, even though I didn't sweat it anyways.

We are going to be going over the pre trip each day we are here and will be out driving by Thursday it looks like. So far seems to be a very thorough training program. They are extending the Squire program to have 2 weeks here on the range in order to give students more time backing for their CDL tests since backing is not too common out on the road (the explanation we were given for the extension today).

Pay - as long as we are hired this week after the drug tests come back, we will get a $100 orientation completion pay and our first $400 training pay next Thursday and than $400 each week after that. Also found out that if there are any wait periods at all that is on Knights behalf, you get paid your $400 per week. Now if you fail the CDL test, than your pay stops until you can pass it (going to be studying my ### off!!).

So far so good. slow start today but seems that it will be a tremendous amount of hands on from here on out. The videos are done over lunch period while we eat and than we take a little quiz on what we seen at the end. Does not seem like its that much death by power point.

Day one complete and seems to be what I have expected from reading previous experiences here.

 

Orientation day 2

Everything went well today. It was our first full day on the range. Went over and practiced straight backing, sight side and blind side parallel parking. Had to fill out a paper for the couple months that I had taken off in the past 3 years to go and take courses for the fire department. They truly want to know everything that you did for the past 3 years with references to confirm that period of time that you were not working.

 

yeah I seen that. I was told since I was here for the Squire program I only had to account for the last 3 years since I was just getting my CDL, even if I did have it before or not.