If you can stand it then do it! We need good trainers out there on the roads. And you sound perfect. Patience can carry you very far.

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No Carb Diet! No Cheney. No Ashcroft. No Rumsfeld. No Bush.
January 20, 2009 End of an Error!!
I think...therefore I'm a...Libertarian!

Dear Chrome Dome,

I posted my weird experiences as a rookie with Werner on this board. Frankly, I don't like going over and over this bad stuff, but maybe it helps someone down the line. I want to contact you because I have longed to really learn how to drive right since my last time on a truck at the end of May 2007. Yes, it's been a while. I had no accidents, no fender benders, and Werner gave me a 'leave of absence'. But I can't see myself going back to another big company. Even if I do get through the months with a trainer, how do I find a decent trainer -- or, how do I prevent their passing me along to 3 or 4 of them?

I think your idea of taking on a student is great. Would your employer go with that and would the student be covered insurance-wise? I don't need to be paid beyond looking after my food/shower/laundry - and, unfortunately, I would have no place to live except for the truck.

The economy is in recession, so hopefully your dedicated run will be safe?

As a healthy, not overweight gal of 57, with common sense I hope, I have great respect for trucking as a trade, and my love for driving is real.

I am not 'into' soap-opera style living or entertainment. That means I don't get along with some types.

I am on gmail.

Just call me tentmakertrucker.

Shookup I'm not laughin at you but rather with ya. It shouldn't be funny but well...it is. I feel bad for you and never would treat any of my students like that. The cat part killed me. You are a better person than I for dealin' with that.

By the time I got to the second trainer, the one with the cat, I was just desperate to get with a human being and get my training finished. She could have had a snake as a pet on that truck, and I would have just tried to deal with it and get through the training. I did have to fight the overwhelming urge to throw the cat out of the window a few times though because I had to "ask" the cat to move out of my seat constantly, I laid down on the bunk to find wet hairballs on my pillow several times, the curtain always had to be left open a bit so the cat could come and go from the front to the back, and she woke me up several times by jumping on me while I was asleep. The trainer constantly talked to the cat so I never knew if she was speaking to me or the cat. Every day, twice a day, the woman would start freaking out and get all upset because "my baby is hungry, my baby is hungry." I almost laughed out loud at her one time because we were running long, and she was so upset and kept saying "oh my baby is starving. I know you're starving baby. Please forgive Mommy. I'll stop soon. I know you are so mad at me," and the cat was lying on the bunk totally alseep and oblivious to her.

I dealt with it, but the only time I almost lost it over the cat was when we were trying to get out of Chicago. There was flooding, we were detoured. We had been sitting in traffic for 5 hours before we finally found a safe alternate route to take. All the other truckers were taking it too, and we all ended up at yet another detour sign, but the detour they were sending us all on was not truck safe. So we ended up at an intersection with a JB Hunt truck, a US Express truck, a Schneider truck and us. There was a cop putting up the new detour sign, but none of us had anywhere we could go, so all these trucks came to a dead stop at the intersection. She told me to roll down the window to talk to the US Express driver next to us to see if he knew where we should all go, but when I did all the drivers were starting to yell out of their windows at the cop, asking him where the F we were supposed to go from there. All of the trucks had the intersection completely blocked, all the truckers were blowing their horns and yelling, cars were going around and almost hitting each other, people were screaming at the trucks to move, and she absolutely freaked because all the horn blowing and yelling was upsetting the cat. She had a major meltdown over the stupid cat being upset. That was not a fun night to be sure!

I'm not really a better person than you for dealing with it, I was just desperate. You know how they always say "someday this will be funny"? Someday that whole month will be I'm sure, but not yet. Its been 4 months since my "trucking escapade" (as my family calls it), and I still occasionally have nightmares about it. In the grand scheme of things, to say that it was the worst experience of my life still shows I've had a pretty good life. Alls well that ends well though, and I ended up with a job I love, right here at home, so someday soon maybe I'll be laughing at all this right along with you....maybe.

that is a horrible experience. i dont understand how someone with only 6 months experience could become a trainer... i know someone that is going though the lead driver program there... that person says that the 2 day program is a big joke... they dont really tell you anything about your duties, etc. you would think they would look at your record and see if you have the knowledge and patience to train others.

Trainers with 6 months of experience are common with CRST. I may have already told this but in training I went out for my driving test with 2 guys, one of which was a former Swift driver for 6 months. His driving scared me to death!!! He actually ran a stop sign. Yet at the end of the week he left out with another new student, and he was that student's trainer!!! I was brand new and could drive better than he could. He never got one gear during his whole drive test. Scary, very scary.

CRST is a nightmare....I am sorry but how can anyone respect companies with this type of crap going on? Its too bad that a student doesn't know about the company or the supposedly trainers...until its too late....

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Change is good....

Hmm, I had a terrible time with my trainer as well, but I made the best of it by basically making him look like a Numbskull as much as I could. I drove Fire Apparatus for 6 years prior to driving Tractor Trailers. He thought I was some buck rookie that had never drivien a heavy truck before. I let him have his glory for a few days and then I started floating gears without grinding, backing on my blindside and routing my own trips without his bigmouth input and he shut up. Only thing was he was a smoker, as am I, but when we were parked in a truckstop and I was on top bunk sleeping, he would chain smoke in the front seat with the window closed and I would literally gag, during the last week, I almost threw him out of the truck in El Paso because when I complained about it, he told me I should have requested a non-smoking trainer....Well, I smoke too, I just had enough decency to either open the window or step outside the already filthy truck to smoke when he was sleeping. He also peed in bottles and smoked in bed too.....It was an adventure, but he was also new to the Company and the only reason he was made a trainer is because CRST is DESPARATE for trainers and he had some experience with US Express beforehand. Personally, I have a background in training and once my time comes, I may train too. Now, my reasoning for wanting to train is completely selfish, as I want the option of not taking a student and running solo. I like training, but I hate teams and unless I wanna do dedicated with Premeire and stay east, I gotta train to do all 48 solo.

lolololololol hehehe sorry guys bored lol

yet another post that means im gonna call crst recruiter and thank him for the opportunity but decline the offer