Hello new friends! How's this for the "you've gotta be kidding" category...

Hi! So after attending 160 hours and graduating with a 3.85 gpa from trucking school, I land a job with Company X for a minimum of 3 months of training. My trainer was wonderful, and I was given a 2015 FL Casacadia with 3200 miles on the odometer. Within the first 5 weeks of being solo, I got a passenger vehicle's little trailer caught under my empty trailer. The accident pulled off my trailer's California side flap, caused about $680 to the private trailer (an old, rickety wooden thing about 30 years old), and cost me my job. Fortunately, the accident occurred on private property so I was not cited. Two things in the aftermath worth noting:

1. My final paycheck was short $500. The Company deducted that amount to pay for their own insurance deductible as the accident was my fault. Company is headquartered in Illinois. I contacted the Illinois Dept of Labor and found the statute that clearly prohibits companies from deducting this kind of thing from an employee's wages! I fought the Company on this illegal deduction, and they sent me a copy of an "agreement" I and everyone else at Orientation signed, along with the usual myriad of paperwork passed out to all new hires. However, the statute was clear: any deduction from an employee's wages, other than taxes and other legally authorized things such as health benefits, are prohibited unless the employee agrees to the deduction "AT THE TIME THE DEDUCTION IS MADE," and must be in writing. I want everyone out there to know this and spread the word. I of course did not agree to give Company $500 either on the day of the accident, or right before my final paycheck. The form Company had all of us sign at Orientation isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

I have huge problems when it comes to the attempted--and much too often accomplished--exploitation of hard-working Joes and Janes by mega-rich companies who demand their employee's best, but have no qualms in screwing their workforce out of every nickle they can get away with. After quoting the I-DOL statute and threatening to report Company X to Dept of Labor, they paid me the $500 they had unlawfully withheld. Please help me get this story out as I'm positive I am not the only driver that's run into (haha) this despicable issue.

2. And kind of a lighter note: I have been submitting my application to various companies, much more diligently as of the first of the year (I was fired mid-December). My choices are limited due to little experience and my termination. Three weeks ago, I took my dog up to our favorite trail run. It was a warm day and I figured it would be a slushy, muddy run, nothing we haven't played in a hundred times before. I was wrong. Way wrong. I was not slushy, it was pure ice. About 3/4 of a mile up the trail, I failed to make it up a steep incline and fell, slamming my entire left side onto what might as well been solid rock. So I am sitting here writing this with one hand because of the nice clean break of my upper left arm. It's the humerus bone, right at the point it joins with the clavicle and shoulder. I don't think it's humorous at all! So I am now looking at at least another 6 weeks before I'll be able to drive a tractor again! It just figures is my point. Had I been working, I wouldn't have attempted that ill-fated ice run!

Well, what are ya going to do? As my Dad often said, this too shall pass! On the bright side, at least I'm out of commission during a very frigid winter! So I got that going for me. Which is nice. lol I think the painkillers are doing some of my talking, so I'll sign off for now.

Please be safe out there, and do spread the word about that illegal stunt Company tried to pull on me. Don't let them do it to you!!

Ms Kitty