Follow me through Central Refrigerated training

Word to the wise. Continue with their company truck. Do not get into a thought pattern about their lease dept. Relax. Remember, its not a job, its a lifestyle

 

Big Rigg want to thank you so much for your posts, they have caused me to change my mind on schools. Was going to attend Sage tech. in Kingman they have very high ratings, but exspensive (4900.00 dlls). Rich the recruiter is great and got me a 2k fed. grant from DOT, that none of the other schools even new about. After reading your exp. with central refer I am going to give them a call, as it is closer for me and I can be getting paid in a shorter time with less outlay. Like your truck tour.

 

Well I made it to WVC for the trainers class. I will post here. I figure it will be good to see what all the training is like, not just the CDL and OTR training, but trainer training as well. What fun!!!!

 

So the class was 2days but could have been covered in about 6hrs. Some good stuff about the mentality of students and how to get through them and teaching styles. Yard work to show we can put on chains and do a preteip. Other than that it was all fluf, breaks, and waiting for people to show up. The instructor even said the only reason it was 2 days was to see if we wohld come back on time. There were a few guys I'm not sure I would want as a trainer, hopefully they're not as crazy on their truck as they were in class.
I had a student waiting on me and he has been doing well. I wont get into too much detail as he uses this site.

 

its not a job, its a lifestyle sorry but a Lifestyle is jetting off to ASPEN for a weekend of skiing or to the Islands to scuba dive. Trucking is a JOB

 

Don't you get paid for your TIME at a job? I spend a lot of time at shippers and recivers that I do not get paid for.

 

Wow kind of slow here. I am on my 2nd student I'll refir to him as newbie 2.0. Anyway my time with Newbie 1 was very sporatic and seemed like they could not remember if I had a student or not. We would bet 5000mi one week then 2800 the next. They even tried to give me a team load home after he upgraded. They seem to be getting a better feel for me as a trainer with this new student. We are in the 3rd week and we ran 3200 in week 1, 3900 week 2 and we are on track to get 4500 this week. It is amazing how diffrent people can be. Newbie 1 was a great backer, but I was afraid to even sit in the sleeper when he was driving, let alone sleep, and newbie 2.0 drives shifts and qualcomms like a pro, but still is having trouble doing the simplist backing. I am enjoying it a lot, I was afraid about people tearing up my truck, and while newbie 1 did leave his mark, the truck still runs fine and thats the important part.

 

Which brings me to a question regarding training with your company (and others can chime in as well). Does your company treat you guys typically as a team or still as a solo operator? One of comments I'm seeing is that some trainers simply give the keys to the student and then goes in the sleeper, expecting the student to "train" himself without having the trainer riding 2nd seat and observing. Is the choice to be a team (vs. solo with trainer in 2nd seat) with the student one that the trainer makes or is it your dispatcher? Maybe it starts like a solo operation and based on how the student is doing determines whether the truck is then called a team. Any thoughts from trainers or students?

 

Great question Rick. Central asks that the students do 75% of the driving. This is so you get a lot of practice and the trainer is not too tired from driving to help you. From my experience and what I have heard from other trainers is that miles increase every week along with how many miles the student is expected to drive. The first week I onlu allow my student to drive 4-5 hrs a day and I sit in the 2nd seat every hr. In weeks 2-3 I drive less than the student, but we will both be driving more miles than a solo driver could, but not quite team, during these weeks I will be up in the 2nd seat for city driving or going through a city, but if all the student has to do in stay on I80 for 300mi you bet I'll take a nap orsit in the sleeper. In weeks 4+ we drive as a team. Now that is ideal. There are times that we need to repower a load because a truck broke down or something like that and a new student may be asked to drive more than expected, but it is not too common. Also there are some trainers who are on a deticated fleet that requires full teams, this means the student will be expected to drive more earlier. These trainers are given the "better" students who do not need as much training. Persionaly I do not feel Central should allow this as it is unfare to the students and to tje other trainers who have to do more training but get paid less, but that is how it is. Did I answer your questions?

 

Very good explanation, thank you.

One company website specifically stated that their students aren't run as a team, which is encouraging; I don't want to be handed the keys and told," ... you're driving now, wake me up in 11 hours." No I don't think trainers do that from the get-go but anything is possible.

I like your concept of being in 2nd seat when going through a city, even if a newbie has 2000+ miles of highway under his/her belt. I guess a lot of this would have to do with how comfortable the trainer is with the student's driving and whether the trainer can actually get some sleep while the rookie is driving.

Thanks again for your excellent answer.