Trainers...

The carrier I worked for gave the student the ability to fire his trainer.
For abuse or incompetency or neglect.
And I totally concurred and it made me a better trainer.
The turnover rate was around 100%, however.
Some people are just not good at it. Or anything else.

 

The truck interiors look like minivans now and the automatics drive like a minivan with a trailer now.

 

Oooh I thought of a fun trainer story, when I was at Titan Transfer, my first trainer actually was the reason I stayed with trucking because had I been with anyone else I would have quit, but he talked me off the ledge and I am still doing what I love today.(the only reason I couldn't stay with him was because he lived in Shelbyville Tennessee, and I live in the Cincinnati area so I would be losing about 500 miles of training and pay, so they found me this clown outta louisville) MY 2nd trainer at Titan oh boy. Pull up a chair boys and girls it's story time. I drive to Louisville terminal and meet my trainer Paul. Paul is 5'8" 350 pounds and about 67 y/o (trust me this is all relevant soon) he has a little runt of a dog named scooby who was always under foot driving and barking ALL THE TIME. We get a trip to Nogales Arizona, so off we go, now the way they do their training you are with a trainer for about 7 weeks, and every week you drive a little further so like the first week you only get to drive 3-4 hours a day to ease you into it, by the end of the 7-8 weeks you should be driving 10-11 hours a day and doing all computer work etc. Any way GO west young man. We get to our fuel stop, and there is a gentleman sweeping his trl on the fuel island ( he was actively FUELING) so while the truck was fueling he hops into the trl to sweep it. NO BIGGIE. Well this pisses Paul off, so he jumps out of his truck and walks up to the trl and started giving the kid the what for calling him a few words white people aren't allowed to use EVER. So this black kid jumps out of the back of the trl and he is every bit of 6'5'' and JACKED, Paul get's up into his face and PUSHES the dude, well I have seen enough, can't have my trainer getting his tail section whipped by this kid I still got somes learning to do (BTW I had my CDL for 2 weeks at this point SOOO) I stepped out of the truck PDQ pushed Paul back, apologized to the other driver and explained to him that my trainer hadn't taken is brain meds recently.
Sadly this was NOT an isolated incident it happened almost Daily he was putting his finger into a chest or in someones face asking for a whooping, so spent all my free time getting him out of situations. When he was driving he would swerve at other drivers, blast the airhorn, flip other driver's off, and was a general menace to other's we had to do a 34 before we did the Nogales trip (had a few small ones in Arizona first) he managed to gamble his entire paycheck away, you could get Cash Advances, $200 at a time, up to the amount of your paycheck. He bragged that he hadn't taken an actual paycheck home in 4 yrs, because he gambles it all away, not on anything that could make him money, scratch offs. So after we got back to the terminal in Louisville after the LONGEST 2 weeks of my life, I called the company and told them I was not riding with him anymore I felt my life was in danger and didn't feel safe, their response we don't believe you he is the safest most loved trainer we have. I said I disagree, turned in my Company ID and quit. Never looked back..

TL/DR fat obnoxious trainer with a gambling problem and a penchant to get into fights

 

Are you fat shaming a veteran driver who proved multiple times to be a real road warrior? /sarcasm.
On a serious note, you probably saved his sorry behind once or twice and he should be grateful to you.
These days people like Paul have a chance or two to be shot to death and left bleeding roadside.

 

Very sad chain of events there buddy my heart goes out to you and that you survived to tell the tale, think after that training experience you were due for a vacation or a trip to the psychiatrist.

 

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Others have had worse. I was expecting worse.

 

Exactly what I told him

 

No bad student. Only bad teacher.