Cartersville 6/9 class

Thanks, Steven! You'd be surprised (or perhaps you wouldn't) how many of our class was inspired to start here thanks to your forum threads and videos. I had already applied for Millis but reading your training thread gave me a good idea of what I'd be heading into. I'm hoping to do that with this thread too.

 

Day 4

Today was more presentations and videos on topics such as "control systems," "communication," and "backing." I'm still not entirely sure I know what a steering wheel does - it is apparently part of the control system. Millis doesn't have them, but apparently Swift's and CR England's trucks are equipped with "steering wheel holders" which I guess megas use as a cost-cutting measure...

Most of what the presentations covered were stuff that were also in our training notebooks and the CDL manuals. The videos were your typical "employee training videos" that had a guy use occasional forced humor to try to get the message across. Greg tried to show us on the marker board with markers and a toy truck the basics of backing. I can get them in my head, but - like shifting - there's a difference between understanding what you hear and putting it to practice.

During lunch, since I had brought my food, I decided to make use of a running app that I've had on my phone for ages and took a one-mile walk around the terminal yard. I was done eating after ten minutes and watching TV in the break room until the hour was up wasn't accomplishing anything (well, I say that... Yesterday, thanks to "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" I discovered that the WineRack was a thing - it is a bra support that holds alcohol and increases your bust size to approximately Double-D). I still feel pretty good from that run now that I'm back to my friend's house, but I do feel the burn a bit. I need to be healthier and I think that'll be a good step if I continue doing it in the future.

We ended the day watching a video about pretrip inspections. By the time the video was over, I was about ready for a nap.

Tomorrow, however... I won't be wanting to nap at all since I'll be terrified into alertness. We'll be split up into two groups again; half of us (plus or minus one, since there are 9 of us) will be practicing backing and the other half will be practicing driving on the actual road. Both prospects make me nervous. I still haven't got the shifting down and trying to go out in actual traffic... Aww hell. We'll see, though. We'll see.

 

I haven't asked to be in either group specifically, so it is luck of the draw for me. Either one is experience I need so I'm fine for whichever one I start with.

I definitely agree with you on the "learning every day" thing. Hell, in some of the threads I've read on here, the point is usually made that you never stop learning this business until you get OUT of the business.

I also agree that our instructors are great. I think if we had drill sergeants, more of us would be stressing out (poor Rick who is next to me in class, though, I think he over thinks things and it's putting undue stress on him).

 

Day 5

The day of this week I have been dreading has come and passed.

This morning Greg took a fine-toothed comb to all of our logbooks and showed us what we were doing wrong. Fortunately for me, mine only errors were simply forgetting to put "N/A" in the trailer number and codriver spots. Other people weren't as lucky, but he explained to them their mistakes and how to correct them.

After this, he gave all of us pre-trip inspection "cheat sheets" and then asked who wanted to start backing today, and who wanted to start driving. Four of the guys chose backing and I chose driving. With these selections, we headed out to do the pre-trip.

Greg brought us out to the T2000 and went over in detail the steps we would have to do for the pre-trip inspection. I believe the only part he didn't do in detail was the light check.

By the way, the guy I called Alex in that other post? His name is Thomas.

Thomas already has a class B CDL and when Greg was going to do the braking section of the in-cab part of the inspection, Thomas said "I got this" and proceeded right into the drivers seat... ...and he forgot to so several parts. I can't really judge the man, though, since all I've got is a permit.

After all the pre-trip stuff was done, the five of us in Greg's group headed on inside to get our logbooks, and got back in the T2000 for our first jaunt on down the road.

The first driver drove from the middle of Cartersville to Rome, where we stopped at a Kangaroo truck stop for a break. The next guy drove from there to a little place on the side of the road in Fairmont. After a swap to the third driver, we headed up and around to a Stuckey's truck stop in Resaca. The fourth guy headed out from there back to Rome, where we stopped on the side of the road and I got in the driver's seat.

I was, without a doubt, the worst of the group. Poor Greg was just as patient as he could be with me. I am still having tons of problems with my shifting. I did okay with the actual driving part, but my left foot just kept popping the clutch when I was shifting. Even though mentally I wasn't stressed, my body was so ridiculously tense that I kept making mistakes. I had two different stops at the end of hills, and I managed to stall the old girl out three times total. I did manage to get a bit of interstate time heading back to the terminal, so that was nice.

Once we were back to the yard, he had me pull around to just past a trailer and got out, walked beside the truck, and had me back into a spot to drop the trailer. I managed to do that pretty well, up until we released the trailer and I went forward with him standing on the driver's door step (he was, of course, maintaining three points of contact.) The truck lurched forward due to my ham-fisted clutch release and he managed to hit his hand on something, causing it to bleed.

I don't know why I'm so tense. I need to take some time this weekend and figure out how to loosen up. Am I over thinking it? Is there just some exercises I can do? I didn't have the steering wheel in a death grip. I kept releasing the clutch too fast and I skipped from sixth to ninth more times than I can count. Grumble.

Hopefully I'll get some clarity this weekend before we do our trip to Albany, GA on Monday.