Getting off of disability and K restriction

Yes, it is part of their "job" to train bus drivers for all the likely scenarios. It is also part of their "job" to screen applicants for red flags.

• Autistic individuals tend to have problems with social interactions - particularly reading contextual clues, effective communication, and appropriately dealing with perceived aggression. They also tend to have sensory issues and can easily be overwhelmed in environments that require multitasking (safely driving, following the route, ensuring the correct students get off at each stop). That gets multiplied when having to deal with confounding stimuli - ie maintaining a safe environment inside the bus.
• People with anxiety issues tend to 'fall apart' in stressful situations - like driving a bus during inclement weather. This will be compounded by the kids reacting to your driving.
• People with depression often just don't show up.

I cannot begin to explain how little passing CDL school means. More than 50% of trainees who show up at Schneider orientation never haul a single load on their own. They all talk the talk, but when it's time to take a walk they turn out to be all hat, no cowboy.

Right now, any way you look at it you're risk. You need to prove that you're not which means getting and holding a job.

 

It is not the school's or transport companies job to train you to deal with the students.

Out here they are actually hiring a second person to ride along in the bus to manage the students.

I am a grumpy old bastage that never raised kids and have no interest in managing other peoples spawn. I would never make a good bus driver. Turned down a job offered to run one of the casino shuttles cause I do not do well with that crowd either.

 

OK taking 2 steps back here and digging into my past.

Couple of decades ago I used to own and run a coffee house. Had a bunch of people in the trades coming in as customers and a wide network of other business owner coming in for a cup of coffee.

We chatted among ourselves and came up with the saying: "need somebody that can show up on time and sober enough to work".

That standard was challenging weather they were looking for a High school kid to pick up scrap bits at a job site or somebody that needed help in a retail store. If a person could not get a responsible third party to confirm there was a high probability that the potential new employee would show up on time and sober enough to work (including not too hung over) none of us had much of an interest in hiring them.



What I am hearing is you are facing the same things as new workers (as you have said) and also facing the same walls as the stereo typical mom returning to work after taking a break to raise kids.

It sounds like you have been working with fed, state, and/or county offices to get to where you are. Perhaps one of them would be able to assist making the transition to the employed.

p.s. may want to look at charity type places. Thinking local food bank that needs truck loads picked up. Salvation army that needs people bused around. that kinda stuff.

 

Just because you want to work in trucking doesn't mean any trucking company has an obligation to provide you with trucking experience. The fact you will appreciate a company taking a risk on you doesn't mean the company is obligated to give you that opportunity. 80-90% of those students leaving CDL schools fail and quit trucking LONG before thy work 12 months in the business. The vast majority of students in CDL schools have ZERO idea of what a normal work days looks like in trucking. They all think it will be like some long car trip they took once to some place they enjoyed. Driving isn't the main job in truck driving and more than your main job is remembering to make your heart beat. It's the background assumption that is necessary to do the 809 other things necessary for the job to be completed each day.

I could decide to go to acting class and then move to Hollywood. My spending $10k on acting class doesn't mean I will ever get a job as an actor. My dream was to fly airplanes. I borrowed money and got college degrees and was good at it. But I failed because I was ready for that job in the deepest aviation recession in history. I could either work low-paying aviation and non-aviation jobs enough to live indoors and eat or I could wait for the money fairy to drop $10-15k in my bank account before my plan fell apart. Having a dream isn't enough. People frequently prepare for one thing and then have to do another. Look up "sunk cost fallacy." Maybe you can find a way into the industry and maybe you can't. It's not the only work you can do. Trucking is just a job, not the only job. The media creates fake stories about one thing or another and they don't bother to notice they are just all retelling the same fake story from the same dishonest sources in 300 different ways. That is what happened with ALL of the "truck driver shortage" stories the lying media published. The trucking trade association published press-releases saying the US is short of 9 trillion truck drivers needed so everyone can buy everything from Amazon while in NY and L.A. and the ATA and the media move on to other fake stories. There is no fact-checking authority that keeps any false story from becoming the next media lie.

 

I don't think you are getting what we are saying.

Now do you want us to lie to you?

Seriously, there are a lot of things against you in this industry, but it isn't YOU, but new drivers.

No matter how you want to cut it, you, as a new driver, need to understand one thing that you can not ignore - THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOU GETTING A JOB, BUT ABOUT SOMEONE WHO MAY NOT BE ABLE TO DRIVE A TRUCK/BUS/GARBAGE TRUCK SAFELY.

Again, this isn't about YOU personally; it is all about every new driver.

The CDL process is a joke. It doesn't teach anyone or prepare anyone to actually know how to drive a truck - hell, we have people asking questions that they should know, like how to check oil or air in their tires ... I am not kidding.

 

Have you looked into county/city road crew jobs?

Around here they are consistently looking for people to do roadside maintenance with one of the desirable things being a CDL. These would also be the people that run the snow plows in the winter are scrape the mud off the road when stuff floods.

Oh and where abouts are you? General area would help us.

Me... I am about half way between Portland, OR and Seattle, WA.

@Chinatown may have a driver employment/temp agency to refer you to if he knew what city you were near.

 

I've tried and given it my best.

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