Why do you even become a trainer ? WHY

Mostly they do it for increased income. A lot of these guys are what I call 'working homeless'. The truck is their own personal little world and the many hours driving they think about how things are and how they should be and convince themselves this is the way it should be. When reality come into play like Donner being shut down for instance when this in this guy's mind he's convinced it is safe to proceed, his brain cannot compute.

My trainer was running a little late on a load, we were told just get there when we can, he starts thinking out loud of ways to make the load happen on time. Lays out this whole schpiel to me that the company can send one of their daycabs down to get the loaded trailer while we are still en route to the terminal and have it there when we get there and turn and burn and still make ontime. I just agreed with him to shut him up then he calls the terminal with this ####amamy idea and they shoot it down. He got sooo mad.

Several months later freight is slow for both of us so I go team with him because our company has lots of team activity. But that wasn't what he really wanted, he wanted me on his truck so he could 24/7 proposition me to take over the lease on his truck and pay him 10% because he was doing me this huge favor of helping me get into a lease which I could not do on my own. I turned him down and he basically said I was wasting his time. He burned me out of about $2k and dropped me at the home terminal. Hope he's not doing well... but you can see how these guys drive around believing their own BS after a while.

 

If you work for the company, how could this guy screw you out of $2k?

 

I had a prick of a trainer to, knew his crap but was full of himself and thought encouraging yelling was great for everyone!

I would be backing into a truck stop with the windows UP! He would be yelling at me at the end of the trailer it was comical cause i was doing NOTHING wrong! He just didnt like the way "I" was doing it..

 

In my book CRST is the bottom of the barrel. And this so called trainers attitude is why trainer requirements are too lenient. Part of being an experienced driver is learning to cope with the stress and act like a normal mature human being in difficult situations. Sounds like that guy is far from teaching others the right way. He still has learning himself. If I was a student all over again, I would want a trainer with a minimum of 5 years experience.

 

Did this guy pick his nose and eat it? If so, I might have met him.

 

LMAO no i dont think so.

 

Some, not all, become trainers for that second log book. More miles, more money. They are some very good trainers out there actually teaching drivers how to do the job correctly.
My trainer, tho a nice guy and good trainer, wasn't much of a "go getter". Turned down loads, not in any big hurry. It was contrary to my way of thinking. If the wheels aren't turning, I'm not making money. Fortunately, I only had to be with him for 2 weeks and about 3 days in, I figured out that it didn't matter how many miles we turned or loads we did, I was getting paid the same. So I just kicked back and waited out the two weeks until I could get in my own truck. I did learn some things that I didn't know and I did pay attention to the load securement, but in the end, I already had more wheel time than my trainer, he had only been a driver about 2 years at that point.

It is company policy that no matter how much experience you had, if you didn't have flatbed experience you got a trainer, which was very cool for me. Learned alot about securement.

There are good trainers out there, but it is the luck of the draw.