Are You Ready to Be A Mentor?

I just became one a month ago and just got my first student through his test and into his own truck. My thoughts on what it takes to be a good mentor. 1. Patience. Your student will make mistakes. You need to be calm and work them through the mistakes. No getting worked up. 2. Don't just do it for the money. If you like to teach others and you're a good people person, then you can do this. If you're just doing it to try and team and supplement your income, then it's the wrong reason. 3. You will be sharing your truck, and your student may not be as clean as you like. Again, you have to have patience and work through this with your student. 4. I would never not be in the jump seat when my student is driving. If your student makes a mistake and you're in the sleeper, then you have no defense. If they make a mistake and you're right there coaching, you can survive it.

Bottom line is mentoring is challenging, but also very rewarding. Nothing feels better than that phone call from a happy student telling you they smoked the test because of what you taught them and how they're ready to go out on their own. It's almost like raising a kid and watching them grow up and leave the house to venture out to the real world, only you're doing it in a couple weeks.

 

I think the mentoring program for Swift is based on the Bible. Matthew 15:14 And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

 

Another swift hater i don't work for them and i know their drivers are bad but i have seen some good ones too, not all swift drivers are stupid not to offense just my opinion.

 

Hmm I wonder where all the swiftees went?

No, Training isn't all about the money, it is about training, you'll know or should know when a trainee is ready to get in some team training, first things first tho, Know your company's policy, HOS and how to, safety safely, what have you got to offer?

I don't hate on any company... yet

 

I am not a Swift hater, but I do like to razz them. I have actually seen and improvement in their product over the past 9 years. But..... My first night driving we were stuck in a long, long, line of traffic on I-35. This was in Oklahoma coming up Paul's Valley headed south. When we finally made it to the head of the line, it was a Swift Truck. The thing was only going about 20 miles per hour and the driver had a manual out and was reading from it.

So, until I am paid back for the 2 hours in traffic, I can make fun of all Swift drivers.

 

Not to long ago I was on ice with 100's of other truck's in texas. the pace would pick up for roughly 10 minutes and low and behold a few trucks at a time with random names slid off into the median in random locations, over and over...Traffic was stopped until the clean up crews finished,

I want my whole shift back

 

Excellent thread, daddy husky. I think Scott72 pretty well nailed it.

One thing that I'd like to add is to emphasize how important your background in teaching will be to mentoring. Knowing HOW to teach is in many instances more important than knowing WHAT to teach. It would fall back on the old saying, "Have a PLAN, WORK the plan".

From my own experience with informal mentoring from my brother and from going through the Swift program, and from having a background in teaching myself, I can see that not everyone is cut out to be a good teacher. Having a clear idea of what you are attempting to teach is an excellent starting point, but you also need to be aware that each student may have a different path to understanding the concept.

One example from my own teaching experience might emphasize this point. In college I was taking a year long course in statistics. Understanding variance was a key concept early in the course and several fellow students were worried they didn't understand it and asked to create a study group. In this small group I laid out how I understood variance, but only one other student understood it "my way". This caused me to think of another way to demonstrate the principles of the concept, and I hit upon another way to explain it. Then the light bulb went off in a couple more students, but still there were others that didn't get it. I then noodled out yet another way to explain it, and more light bulbs went off. By going through this process of trying to explain variance in a number of different ways it helped me understand it better.

Applying this experience to trucking, let's look at backing and docking strategies. There is more than one way to accomplish this. Some like to square up the trailer outside the hole, then swing the tractor around in a series of small moves. Others like to "slide" the trailer in at a slight angle. Both are valid methods, but if you only teach one method to a student they might be lost in a situation that requires a little of both to be efficient. When I was taught by my brother, he preferred sliding into a spot, while my Swift mentor was "by the book" with the square up method. It finally got to the point with the Swift mentor trying to micromanage my backing I finally told him to be quiet during the backing and critique afterwards, nothing worse than someone telling you to turn this way or that if they aren't also explaining their strategy from the get go.

Personally I think I'd enjoy mentoring and I'm giving it serious consideration once I've got the time in to qualify.

Let me know where to send the $3.12 check....

 

That's no mentoring, you are just teaming with a guy with zero experience who's making less than minimum wage. Which if you think about it, sounds like a terrible idea, not to mention EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. If you really want to train go to one of the companies that sit the trainer in the passenger seat the whole time unless he/she decides to take the wheel.

One of the guys that got his CDL with me became a trainer at Conway, they give an extra 10cpm if you become one. So he was making 49 cpm on the miles his trainee does, he sits on the passenger seat the whole time. As much as I hate Conway that's a way better deal than the rest of the circus.

 

No, that's Dumb and Dumber teams at Stevens.