BTC

Yeah, hopefully I won't be doing too much of that but I hear it's not too uncommon at some of these steel mills. And some of them make you take a test every time you come in? Weird

On another note, finished up with the first day of orientation today. Drug test first thing in the morning, then paperwork till about 11. They served us pizza for lunch then it was back at it. Got the lowdown on CSA2010 for awhile and took a little test on that. We went over load securement for a few hours and then it was the smith system, bbq sandwiches and more smith system. Probably would have got out sooner but it seems we have a supertrucker in out midst who insisted on arguing every point of the smith system.

Tomorrow we'll be out in the yard for some hands on load securement in the morning, then the smith system road test and getting our Alabama Coil Carriers card. Twic card is Thursday. Turns out I don't need this hazmat I spend $90 on. Ha oh well. I'm going to smoke a few cigs and get some rest. I'll keep ya'll posted

 

Thanks bamanation, I certainly plan on it. BTC hauls very few hazmat loads but I'd rather be prepared just in case I need it here or later on down the road than have to turn down a load or go through the whole process later on

Mr D, I think it was just an issue of trucking not being for him. I think 4 weeks is a very reasonable amount of time, especially coming straight out of school and with all there is to learn about flatbedding.

Well, a little update is in order. We officially finished up our orientation Wednesday with a logbook class and everyone going to register for our TWIC cards. Thursday, a few guys trainers were in so they headed out and the first seaters got their trucks. The rest of us hung around the yard and practiced some load securement. Out of the 14 that came into orientation, 10 made it out. Technically it was 12 but 2 guys had been out of school too long and have to take a 1 week refresher course before they can head out. 1 of the first seaters couldn't pass the physical to renew his medical card and only 1 guy was actually kicked out. It was the supertrucker I mentioned earlier. He never shut up and always wanted to debate with the instuctors and they finally had enough of it. One of the good points about BTC is they don't bring too many people to orientation with the intent of weeding the class down. They do their research beforehand and if you make to memphis, you have a job. If not, it's something you did like falsifying your application or just being an azzhat while here.

My trainer came in Thursday night to drop off his student so we hooked up Friday and talked for a little while and he went over some ground rules for the truck, game me an idea of what he expected and what the next 4 weeks would hold. BTC does the best to match up students and trainers based on personality instead of distance from home. They only have about 20 trainers so it's not always an exact match but everyone I've talked to seem pretty happy. We finally headed out at noon and went to Nucor in memphis to get a load of 10' billet. After waiting an hour and a half, we got loaded, strapped down and were almost out the gate when they realized our paperwork was wrong so back around, another hour wait and they ended up changing our load out. So finally around 5, we had everything right, secured, weighed out at 76k and hit the road. We drove over to Selmen, Tn and that's where I'm staying in a motel for the weekend. We leaving out at noon Sunday for Lorain, Oh with me behind the wheel. Hoorah