Not impressed w/my school so far, am I justified in being upset?

MAN do I feel this to my core LOL I have a diary on here detailing my experience so far with training school and I am STUCK on parallel. I've been told countless times that the parallel literally is the same as the offset back. I just can't find the pivot point that puts the trailer in the box properly. I know its something simple I'm missing but we WILL figure it out!! Keep positive and learn all you can from anyone you can.

 

Cliff notes version is this:
Offset back: (KEY THING TO REMEMBER; RIGHT LANE, TURN RIGHT, USE RIGHT MIRROR:: LEFT LANE, TURN LEFT, USE LEFT MIRROR) So...Whichever lane you start in, turn the wheel full in that direction (Left lane wheel left, right lane wheel right) hold turn till tractor faces either 11 or 1 depending on which turn you are making. As soon as you hit that "clock position" chase trailer. Use the appropriate mirror as stated above and look for your "buddy cone" The cone in the middle of the 2 lanes they have set up behind you. Then you watch the mirror for your rear trailer wheels to cross over into the other lane you are heading for. Once you hit that lane FULL reverse wheel turn from the original direction. So if you started wheel left, now it's hard right on the wheel. Then chase the trailer and get underneath of it. You can of course make small minor adjustments as needed to get the trailer in the correct position to straight line back through the box and finish your offset backing maneuver.

Parallel backing maneuver: Exactly the same as the start of offset backing. Except once the trailer wheel is close to crossing into the "box" you hard turn the wheel in opposite direction to get that trailer deep into the box and then chase the trailer and bring the tractor around into the box just missing the corner cone. The key to this maneuver is when you are angling the trailer towards the back corner of the parallel box, you should only see the center and outer rear cone in your mirror. If you see all 3 cones that make up the back of the box then your angle is off and your trailer won't get either deep enough or too deep into the box and you'll fail the maneuver.

I'm sorry if none of this makes sense. I'm trying to put into words what I've only mostly been told or seen lol If any of this helps you I'll be shocked LOL

 

I can say that when I first started training with the straight line back, the trailer I was using had these big bulbous red rear marker lights on the bottom corner. I used those to identify which side of my trailer was not "perfectly straight" so I corrected appropriately as I moved through the maneuver. That was the best way for me to keep it straight. Outside of that specific application, I can't understand why they are trying to get you to focus on the trailer during backing maneuvers like parallel and offset. It seems like a failed concept based on what you said. NO one sees the trailer exactly the same. That confuses me....?

 

The pad/range trucks at my school aren't even road-worthy. None of them would pass a pre-trip. I guess that is how they keep costs down?