Waiting for training is more challenging as a woman.

I can understand you’re frustration but I hope you can accept it as a better alternative to other possible outcomes in other scenarios.

Women drivers are still relatively low as the percentage of drivers. Drivers who are good and have good training and people skills are EXTREMELY rare. Put those two realities together and it is what it is.

It may get better in the future but it will be a slow improvement. I’d love to see more women drivers out here and it will be better for the industry if there could be a closer to 50/50 mix of male and female drivers at some point.

 

One of the ways my spouse escaped the Federal Employment into trucking if one would call it that considering where it was going for her at the near term pay scales she was fixing to get into... it would probably have been better for her to stay in it. She was pending anything from 65K to 110K until a computer system replaced her job itself a few years ago. So even if she stayed, she would have been out a few years ago.

I was already with FFE and as soon they found out spouse was going to trucking school it was pretty much instant for her to go there be paid the tuition (We checked and followed up to be sure it's paid after 6 months, ended up paying off the 1800 remaining at that time after her employ) and for me to bring her to orientation with the big truck instead of bus as a passenger. A half week later barring a medical emergency on my part we were out with me as a trainer for her. And essentially a full reefer team in week two. Her pay? Probably stood at about .25 a mile. Which was pay for top hands 40 years ago. My salary as a trainer covered both of us for a while. When that was over and she tested adequately the company switched to about .75 or so to the truck to split between us two. She was running Cabbage, Nevada, Donner etc in the dead of winter her first year out, not even many weeks into the rest of the USA. much more faster than it took me as a Solo to cover the USA over a period of a lifetime.

We got into Medicine Pharmacy with Memphis via a third party lease fleet and that was what we did best. It disposed of many problems that we saw for her and I on the road with the live loading, live unloading and wasted time waiting. When you consider that a reefer husband and wife team sitting for around 55 hours waiting at Americold in Salinas CA at a moments notice to load it was a extreme waste of resources because FFE had a ternimal in LA a few hours away with plenty of solos who can do that. Not a punishment or anything but a extreme loss nevertheless because we could and usually did two trips from LA to NJ a week. With 5000 paid miles etc.

Ultimately the spouse had to stop trucking on doctors orders due to pending weight gain due to poor physical activity in trucking believe it or not. The situation between sitting on the wheel and sleeping in the bunk and eating as well as we did with no way of getting out to be physical very often such as yardwork at home for example made for a bad situation medically. So that was the end of it for her in that line of work. We were glad we did it but there were by then too many issues within the industry with the then cultural changes taking place and a noticable decline in skills and so on among other truckers coming out of schools less inclined to teach people. One might argue what did that make me as a trainer? Well two things. First as a married spouse, sometimes there were issues and there is no way a angry wife will listen to a husband at all. Anyone who has been married would know that from time to time and the other is that you learn her limitations and step up to work around them for the good of the company even if it means getting out of that sleeper time and doing the work a while.

The industry did not treat her very well as a woman believe it or not. However she was a former Marine sgt from the 80's and that's even worse if at all possible from that part of life. We actually engaged in a form of home defense at Jackson TN in the TA there after a sexual predator invaded our cab after her with me in the sleeper. The predator was attacked by me and he saved his own life by fleeing. Otherwise he would have died then and there between the seats and made a mess of everything. That was still one of the risks that she experienced on the road. She did good though with what she had. Learned alot from me when I used a bag of tricks accumulated from experience now and then to solve problems.

Husband and wife reefer teams are among the most valued and coveted anywhere it was in our time no problem for a company to pay 10,000 dollars bonus on hire to the two of us and give us the best of everything the first week out. The expectation then was to get going and deliver half a million or two times that in revenue to the truck the first year. That's a tall order in this industry where it costs a dollar to make a dime doing anything.

The problem of newbies of any kind coming out of schools and then finding that it's impossible to hire on for weeks or months is the fault of the entire Industry. It has choked on insurance and other excessively tough requirements. And also frankly if you put 50 people into orientation, it's easier to skim the kitten litter of the top 15 and send the rest of the crappier ones HOME. You will have 50 more next week. Add the changes of the drug culture, primarily pot which is still banned under schedule one against any one in public safety positions like trucking, it's even easier to discard those applicants.

Schools teach just enough for you to get a CDL. Your real education has already started int he first year after school with how hard it is to hire on anywhere. Once you hire on, you have to be at your best when you don't know what that means, essentially zero dollars in loss and damage. Three dollars rubbing paint on a pole is enough to get you fired in month two and replaced by someone else.

It is not all you that is having trouble. I theory that the industry has been having trouble and cry that it's &^%$ when it's raining for the last 20 years about the soc called driver shortage. It's not the issue. The issue is hiring barriers, retention and most important, payroll. And on the other side of the coin the people in trucking school don't know enough to recognize that some of the schools training is mediocre at best and should get out before they are damaged and prone to creating loss and damage after hire.

Ultimately this industry, any trucking company pretty much have gotten out of the training losses if at all possible. They cannot hardly make a dime after spending a dollar and be ###### if they spend that dime training you or me or anyone. They want veterans and want them now. There are too many dimes to make this week.

 

@The cookie
Where are you located? Could you deal with having a male trainer 5-7 days?

 

The #metoo movement has consequences.

Start with a mega and do your time. At some point finacfina struggles have to out weigh the desire to wait for something better.

 

Where is your location?
You have your profile blocked, so we don't know your location. Can't recommend companies if we don't know the state or nearest city to you.

 

You speak the truth.

It is more difficult for a woman to get in a trainer's truck. That's because most trainers are men and because trainers are given the option whether they will train someone of the opposite sex or with a smoker.

During my stint as a trainer I didn't care whether I trained a man or a woman. I had one woman get in my truck during my year and she was one of the best.

My advice is to do what YOU need to do to get to YOUR goal. If that means you go with a mega carrier to get your CDL and training, then do it.

Do let us know your location. @Chinatown is our resident guru for advice about great companies.

 

Are you requesting a female trainer? If not, make sure folks understand that you'd be willing to train with either a male or female.

 

I’m not sure the OP is comfortable with that idea either. And for some, this is a very reasonable concern.

 

i dont want to be a positive Paul here but my gf got her female trainer first and finshed first. i was picked up almost 2 weeks later. i guess it is all about timing. generalize anything by just personal experience is a little bit negative Nancy