Direction

Think about it this way. You trained on automatics. You sign on with a company who only has automatics. You quit, get fired, (whatever). Now you have to find another company that only has automatics.
--or--
You apply to a company that has manual. You explain to your trainer you've only trained on automatics and will need help learning to shift. Trainer teaches you how to properly upshift and downshift. You quit, get fired, (whatever). Now since you know how to shift a manual transmission you can look at any of the other companies. If the next company has automatics, great! If they only have manual transmissions..great! You know how to shift now so that won't be a problem.

If you only stick with companies that have automatics, you're not making yourself very marketable and only narrowing the list of companies you can work for. Not every company has (or wants to have) automatics.

 

Yeah , what he said!!

Apply to everyone, then mention it on the phone inerview and in orintation

 

Yea, what he said!

 

you have a coupla-three options....

1) go BACK to your school and GET training on a stick shift.

2) go to a REAL School that has stick shifts and pay for a little time learning.

3) try applying everywhere and when you get hired BE UP FRONT about your lack of shifting skills....

US Express by the way is actually getting rid of thier automatics....

so what will you do then...??? maybe they will teach you to drive a stick, maybe not.......

 

Or,go to a small company,tell em about it,and they will probably say you will figure it out as you go.......Hey,happened to me with an 18-speed....6 yrs ago only as a matter of fact...Go figure Footnote:I still do not care for 18-speeds..

 

Just a little FYI! US Express has already started switching their fleet to standard. A friend of mine drives for them and he said all of their new trucks are standards and that's what they are going to use from here on out.

I would go back to the trucking school you went to and tell them they haven't finished teaching you how to drive a truck! What kind of bulls##t is that?

It's not hard to learn to shift but it is going to be tough to be thrown with a trainer and take off down the road without having done any practicing before hand.

 

Just fake it. You are fresh out of school, so unless you know someone, you will most likely end up working for a bottom feeder like crengland, swift, crst ets... Most of there "experienced" drivers dont know how to shift aether, so they will never know, and you will fit right in.