My Experience With KLLM

You were in Jackson this week??? Wish I would have known. I was there Wednesday and Thursday. I'd have said HI!!

Truck isn't here yet. Should be here sometime tonight.

In the meantime, guess who I have sitting right next to me?

NascarTruckinGal!!!!

Met her on the van from the hotel to the terminal this morning!! Very nice lady!

RT

 

They have a company that you can get insurance through. They have them come in durinf O/O orientation and basically it is a group of self-employed people who have banded together and that way they can get group rates on insurance instead of the higher individual rates. I'll be signing up for that. It is medical, dental and vision.

RT

 

You were in Jackson this week??? Wish I would have known. I was there Wednesday and Thursday. I'd have said HI!!
RT[/quote]

Yeah, I wasn't online for several days or I would have seen by your posts that you were here. I head out with my trainer Sat. to Pennsylvania for my first trip. Let the adventure begin!!

 

I just got a prehire from KLLM yesterday. I'm in school now and graduate on 3-6. I hope everything works out and i end up at KLLM, they were at the top of my list after doing my homework for about a month before starting truck school. This site really helped me figure out which company would be right for me, thank you all!!

 

RT it was great meeting you, good luck with your new truck, thanks for sharing the pizza. Think i'm really going to learn a lot with my new trainer!!

 

So my time with KLLM is over. I was terminated early last week, after three weeks with my trainer, for "safety issues," specifically that my turns aren't wide enough and I wasn't using my mirrors enough. I did *NOT* have an accident.

I've forwarded a complaint to the HR department about how my situation has been handled from the beginning, and I expect this to go where all HR complaints go -- nowhere. Since the thread's title is "My Experience With KLLM," I'll offer mine.

- At orientation, the fleabag motel had bed bugs, which have now invaded my home, and which will likely cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to get rid of.

- At the end of orientation, not enough trainers were available for all the trainees. Those of us who didn't get trainers were sent home to wait through the Christmas holidays without pay. To me, this speaks of poor planning and a disregard for the needs and expectations of new employees; my going to Jackson and the expectation that I'd have a trainer within a day or two of finishing orientation was not a surprise to anyone. I would have been happy to eat training pay for the interim two weeks; instead I got told, essentially, to get bent.

- Once we were informed that we'd be sent home, nobody actually told us what our travel arrangements would be or how to go about having them made. It wasn't until I rattled the training director the next day that I actually found out how I would be getting home.

- Once I got home, I was left totally in the dark. It turned out that my trainer, before Christmas, had asked the training director if there were any students; if there were, the trainer would stay out, while if not, the trainer would go home for the holiday. While I cooled my heels without pay in Fort Worth, the training director told my trainer in Austin that there were no waiting students. Again, this speaks to a lack of attention to detail and a disregard for the needs and expectations of employees.

- I specifically asked for a trainer with HazMat experience and license. I myself carry a HazMat license, and I wanted to pull a HazMat load or two with the assistance of a trainer first. My trainer does not have HazMat, despite a company policy that requires trainers to have it. In fact, at one point, we had to turn down a HazMat load for this reason. While I could have driven the load, company policy requires that both drivers have HazMat licenses before accepting such a load.

Once I finally got onto the truck, I feel that I was not given sufficient driving time or feedback on my shortcomings.

- During the first three days on the truck, I didn't drive at all.

- During the remaining 18 days on the truck, I accumulated FOUR 34-hour resets.

- I accumulated less than 80 hours driving total, and at no time had less than 44 hours remaining under my 70 hour rule.

- The trainer spent a great deal of his time on the phone hitting on females (including other company employees) or arguing with his wife. He even maintains a separate cell phone that his wife doesn't know about so he can talk to these women. While I make no judgments about his personal behavior, it seemed to me that he could have spent less time on the phone and more time worrying about my instruction.

- Most of my driving time was interstate driving. On a number of occasions, despite my needing to work on turns and backing, my trainer had us pull over on the side of the road (or access road) and change drivers so that he could pull us into stops. It's hard to practice turns shotgun, and we all know that we learn to drive a truck by driving a truck.

- On one occasion, my trainer ran out of hours and drove on my log book, a violation of federal law that could land us both in prison.

- KLLM has a training manual with evaluation criteria and sheets that are supposed to be completed by both the trainer and trainee weekly. My trainer said that he never had time; he wouldn't bother filling the thing out until we got back to Jackson for my upgrade. In fact, although I was terminated for deficencies in skill, my training log is completely empty, except where I've pre-filled my name.

- The feedback I got from my trainer was that the skill areas I've identified above needed practice, but that I wouldn't have a problem long term, and certainly I had no idea that my employment was in jeapoardy. His comment was that I "need to work on" it.

- On several occasions when driving into unfamiliar situations, the trainer was too busy on the phone to offer guidance. For example, when driving south on I-35 through Kansas, we came into a toll booth, followed immediately by a right exit toward OKC. I took the toll booth on the left (I should have taken it on the right and his experience should have led him to inform me of this) and then had to make an unsafe lane change to accomodate the exit. In addition, I was unfamiliar with the system this toll road uses, where you get a ticket when you get on and pay cash at the end. Toll roads where I live operate with the driver tossing money into a hopper at every toll plaza, so this system was new, and between that and operating the truck, I had questions on how it worked. The trainer couldn't be bothered to get off the phone for the situation. Instead, he shook his head at the unsafe lange change.

This sort of too-busy-to-guide situation happened over and over. While it's true a solo driver needs to be able to navigate unfamiliar situations unaided, it's also true that a smart solo driver will turn off his radio or iPod and get off the phone to minimize distraction while he works, which I did. However, I couldn't shut off my trainer's incessant (and repetative, as he told the story for the 25th time to yet another person on his contact list) chattering, and found myself distracted in ways that made the situation very dangerous. And it's also true that part of a trainer's job is (should be) to point out to the trainee what to look for and offer specific tips in situations that turn up repeatedly, such as common travel corridors like I-35, or specific large customers' docks and yards. I know there will always be unfamiliar situations; that doesn't mean that the trainer can't offer the benefit of his experience where he has it. Isn't that the point?

- Given that I was having trouble with turns, it seemed to me reasonable to expect that a trainer would say something like, "Okay, you're going to turn left up here, and the way you want to set it up is this way," or, "On this right turn up ahead you want to do it this other way." On the ONE occasion when my trainer offered pre-turn guidance, he offered it too late to be of any use and consequently, I screwed up the turn.

- I asked at one point for assistance in pre-trip trip planning. Everyone says it's important, and I agree, but in driving school we never actually received any serious instruction in it. I wanted a thumbnail sketch of the differences between a motor carrier atlas and a regular atlas, a rough idea of what pitfalls to look for and how to use the tools available to me to minimize them, and what to do if I saw a problem. I was told that we "wouldn't have time." In fact, the reason we didn't have time was because it would have interfered with the trainer's chatter time.

- I felt like I didn't have enough room on the truck for my personal effects. While it's true that space is tight, and I didn't bring much in the way of space-consuming objects (no coolers, televisions, etc), it's also true that I had to cram all of my gear onto my bunk or behind the shotgun seat for the first week and a half I was on the truck. When I replaced my suitcase with pillow cases, I still had to sleep with all my clothes on the bunk. For someone who is 6'4" and sleeps on his stomach, this isn't easy.

- While it's true that I used to work in the adult entertainment industry and have no objection to people who consume pornography as part of their entertainment interests, I thought it was inappropriate at best that my trainer stopped the truck at the porn store in Sanger, Texas, so he could look for his favorite actress (away from the prying eyes of his wife) without even the courtesy of asking my consent. I discussed this with one person who said, well, when else would he go? My response is that his inability to stop at a porn store privately isn't my problem; his next trainee might be someone who feels very differently about adult entertainment than I do. There is, to me, a very clear line between what I do on my truck when I am solo and what I do on my truck when there is another employee there who can't easily separate himself from the situation.

In truth, all of these situations are something that can be lived with for six weeks; I was bothered a great deal but willing to gut it out because the longer-term payoff would have been worth it, and of course I'd have been considerably more comfortable running my own truck in my own way. But given that I was getting inadequate training to begin with and was THEN fired over it, I feel it more appropriate that I both complain through proper company channels and discuss my experience in a more public forum.

 

Wow dude. Sorry to hear about your trainer dropped you after three weeks? There are alot of companies out there.

 

Wow I got my pre-hire last week. I'm still in school and was looking at them very seriously. I know there are always a few bad apples out there but I don't want my job to be on the line for some-one that doesn't do there job. Rnbwpnt I hope things work out for ya.

 

just remember rnbwpnt wotever your doin your one step ahead of me, after gettin my "pre hire" from KLLM which has taken for ever due to my not havin any employment history in the USA, letters from previous employers in europe, letters of reference from friends i have made here and taking the CDL school here (i already had the british version on the CDL licence) and passin top of class, i took the simple test for my AP licence three months ago, passed the eye test the physical and the three basic tests on the computer, got my date to start with KLLM and my date for my CDL, turn up on the day hand over my AP lady asks me to take the eye test again but this time they test each eye individually, well i have amblonia which is more commonly refered to as "lazy eye" in my right eye, so no dice, they didnt let me take the test,

so i came home and jumped on the DDS website and found a clause for people with my problem, i went and took a special test at the optometrists and came out above the required minumum, got the letter from the eye doc as asked letting the DDS know im good to go and my lazy eye (which is basically a tiny dead spot on the eye ball) wont be a problem and my color and depth perception are 100% thats all the section asks for,

so i get a re test and i arrive bright and early and at that point im told "if" i pass i will only be issued a k restricted CDL licence which means i will only be able to drive a commercial vehicle in the state of GA (not alot of good for an OTR driver) which made no sense to since i have visited other states and the roads and signs all seem to look the same and be of similar size and shape LOL ok i take the test and pass and go inside to collect my restricted CDL licence at which time im informed i wont be gettin my CDL licence today!

now i get another load of forms (not relevant to my eye problem and tests that have been supassed by the new equipment i had my eyes tested on three days previously) and the tell me to get them sorted them come back to the test center (50 miles away) when they are filled in and they wil give me my restricted licence, so off i go to have more eye tests (and spend more money) which i dont need anyway when i should be gettin ready to head out to KLLM but with the K restriction they wont be wanting me anyway and i whole heartedly understand that decision should it come to that!

so take new tests and eye doc (same eye doc ive used since i arrived here in 05) writes me up and looks at the levels and informs me im above the minumum required with these tests too so i should in fact get a full CDL licence once we fax this stuff and the new forms he has to fill in on my behalf, we fax the forms and im happy in the knowledge im probly goin to get a proper CDL licence since im above the minimum required by federal law, i admit in my right eye not by alot but my left eye is 20/20 and my sight taken as a whole is generally ok, its just testin individually the amblonia shows up.

so i ride down to the test center today in a torrential rain (i dont own a car, never really had a use for one myself) wich normaly wouldnt be a problem but like a complete idiot i left my proper rain suit in the wifes car and she's at work so i have to go with my "short journey" rain gear which isnt to great over long consistently wet distances! to say i woz wet is an understatment! anyway i arrive hoping the probelm is sorted hoping the top dog who we faxed my forms to has taken care of things and hoping i get my proper full CDL but willin to accept the k restriction coz at this point im about to give up anyway when they inform me they wil not be issuing me a licence at all, my paperwork has ben sent off to the GA DDS so they can take a closer look at it and decide wether or not to issue me anything! please note i passed my car and motorcycle tests recently too with no problems!

so almost three grand in fee's and six weeks for nothing, my advice is i did alot of homework about KLLM (and others) before i came here and they have consistently come out top of my choices, in fact they were the only company i wanted to work for and after alot of hard work and hoops to jump thru i got in with them, dont blame the whole company for one bad apple, there wil always be a couple (i probly woulda been the newest one there LOL) its just a shame the bad apple you had to deal with had the chance to make or break your term with that company!

so i've been tryin to eat healthy for about six weeks cut out bread and salt, most white things nothing fried very little red meat and no beer, tonite i had a 2lb rib eye with baked potatoes, stir fried veggies and a few bottles of the amber nectar, tommorro i might even start smoking again!

 

Wow Bloke, what a sad story. I really hope that you get things worked out. You are right, KLLM is a good company to work for, better than most. Don't start smoking again! Things can still work out.