My PTL Log (New to the industry)

PTL will be the very first company that I will have worked for, I'll share a log of my experiences here.

Right off the bat there has been one small error in the hiring process, however I'm not going to blame it on PTL explicitly. I was hired last week and given the information to get my ticket printed once I arrived at the Greyhound bus station, I was told by my recruiter that my bus would leave tonight (11/172014) at 10:10PM I even sent them back the same exact information when they asked me to confirm that I received the info. I arrive to the Greyhound Terminal at 9:15PM I get to the ticket desk and give them my confirmation number and I am told that my bus was scheduled to leave at 8:10. I am slightly irritable, but I can't place the blame on PTL or even the recruiter at this moment, I don't know if the bus schedule was changed. I have not been able to get into contact with the recruiter as it is 10:00PM and I don't expect nor wish that they make their job their life. I will update tomorrow as soon as I speak with them about this issue.

 

I woke up today and I called my PTL recruiter, I another recruiter picks up and she tells me that my recruiters shift hasn't started yet. However the recruiter than answered straight up fixed the issue for me like clockwork, she re-arranged my ticket and told me to be to the station by 12:05PM today. It appears to me that my recruiter made a typo when she sent my travel information. In no way do I expect her to be perfect and never make a mistake. I'm not going to let a mistake that anyone could make effect my outlook on the company thus far. Either way, the only thing I'm not looking forward to is the bus ride. I haven't road a greyhound bus since I was 17 and that's nearly 9 years ago, but beggars cant be choosers, I'm grateful that they're providing me transportation. stay tuned for the next post.

 

Well stay tuned to find out!

 

Today I finally arrived in Paducah KY at 8:30 or so in the morning. The bus ride wasn't as terrible as I expected, but it was brutal in it's own right being as it was 22 hours and that the bus terminal that I had to wait 3 hours for a transfer was only 19 degrees inside, but I made it in one piece and that's all I really ask for. When I arrived in Paducah there were 8 other gentlemen ready to hop into the van to the Magnolia inn, the driver then told us that we had another bus to wait for and that took an additional 45 minutes. In all the van was packed like sardines on our way to Murray which took an additional 40 minutes. When we finally arrive to the hotel, we ended up waiting 10 minutes for the lady at the front desk. When she was in the process of getting us sorted out there were some hiccups, some of the recruiters had not faxed the hotel room vouchers for some of the new drivers. However the recruiters response time in fixing the error was phenomenal. We finally are told that we have to wait another 30 minutes for our rooms to be ready, and that ended up being a 60 minute wait. We were paired two to a room. The beds are a decent size and they're comfortable, and that's all I ask for, the fact that the wifi works is nice. But in all honesty the place is a trash heap with a lot of missing or broken amenities and you get about 5 minutes of hot water in the shower before you get jolted with ice cold water, and the showerhead is gonna spray water into your chest if you're over 6' like me. But beggars cant be choosers and if you cant sack up and deal with it, you should find another company.

 

Woke up today for orientation at 5:30 per the alarm of my hotel mate, I'm kinda glad he set his alarm earlier since it took me a bit to get ready for breakfast. The hotels continental breakfast is simple and filling. They have cereal/milk, plain/blueberry bagels, plain/blueberry waffle mix w/ an iron to make it with, as well as apple juice, orange juice, and coffee to drink. We had 30 minutes to eat before the company sent the vans and we went on our way to orientation. We started orientation and about 2 hours in we went to pee in the cup. The orientation did become very monotonous after a while, but we took breaks from the paperwork to take our driving tests and for a paid company Thanksgiving lunch. The company has excellent benefits, and is 100% employee owned. So far the treatment I have received from the PTL directors has been superb, they treat you like a person and not a cow in a herd. After the end of the first day of orientation we were given meal vouchers for a great buffet within walking distance of the hotel, after we loaded up on food we went back to our hotel rooms. I discovered that my fellow trainees had far nicer amenities in their rooms than me and my motel mate did, but as I said before it's a place to lay your head for free.

 

Yesterday (Friday 11-21-2014) I had finished the second half of orientation, they went over some safety policies and protocols and then went more in depth on the company benefits. This company has some incredible benefits. It's 100% employee owned, so as you continue working for the company you are given shares of the companies stock which is pretty cool to me for the fact that it works in tandem with your 401k and likely will pay more if you stick to them. The medical and dental coverage is quite affordable for a single individual. The company pays for a life insurance policy that you choose the beneficiaries for out of their own pocket. The company also has a program that you can enroll in that takes less than 2$ a week, and essentially puts a lawyer on retainer for you, and for a little extra your spouse in the event that you get into any traffic related incident whether it be a collision or infraction. When orientation ended we were supposed to start talking with trainers and working out who we were going with, this company doesn't just assign you any available trainer. You have to talk with them and they have to talk with you to see if the two of you will get along. Unfortunately for us trainees, most of the trainers are not available because this company allows employees the option of taking Thanksgiving day off without it counting towards hometime earned. Today, (Saturday 11-22-2014) us trainees who are new to driving still have not been assigned trainers since they are short on them due to them taking some earned hometime to couple with their Thanksgiving day off. Saturday started with me waking up, not at 5:30AM to catch breakfast before rushing of to orientation for once but to the hotel owner telling us at 9:45 that we needed to pack our stuff and throw it into a room that they use to stow our stuff to pick up later. We waited around the drivers lounge, shot pool, talked to 1st seat drivers, and talked with one another while the OTR drivers who needed no road trainers were assigned trucks. All of us asked every swinging dick that entered that lounge if they were trainers, and 95% of the people we asked were regular OTR drivers who would politely say yes or no while others would puff their chest out, act like they were hot ####, and make some dickish remark when all that was needed was a yes or no. I ignored the unwarranted egos and turned my back on the drivers who decided to be rude in the middle of them trying to finish their dickish remarks, and decided to make conversation with the ones who were polite. I noticed one trend, and that being the dickish drivers complaining and ######## about every single issue that I have heard every experienced trucker tell me is a just part of the industry, where as the polite drivers who had been with the company for a few years had nothing bad to say. Unfortunately we did not get to talk with any trainers or get put with any, we got sent back to the magnolia inn with a room voucher good until Monday and four meal vouchers for that awesome buffet. The word going around was that if we were not sent out with a trainer by Monday that we would be going home for Thanksgiving with our families until the Monday after Thanksgiving when they knew for sure that they would not have a shortage of trainers.

 

The word going around that we would be going home if we did not get trainers today was bull, as I most hearsay is. Only one of the knuckle heads I was in orientation with was paired with a trainer. The rest of us just sat around waiting for the guy running the show to tell us to get ready to do the same thing again which consisted of waking up, packing all of our ####, checking out of the motel, leaving our luggage back in a motel room dedicated to PTL drivers, loading into a company van, and waiting to find a trainer. Yeah, instead of sitting us and introducing us to trainers, we have to go hunt them down.

I understand that they're having a shortage due to the fact that they are good enough to their employees that they give them the option to be home with their families. However this incident could have been averted by getting a list of trainers willing to work on Thanksgiving and not shuttling more prospective drivers to orientation than they can accommodate.