Crete/ Shaffer Orientation....

I got to the hotel Tuesday night and I have to say that I'm impressed so far at the treatment the company has given.

First they rented me a full sized car to drive down to Carlisle, PA. They had me pick up another new driver trainee who lived 90 minutes away from me, and both of us are "larger" men. There was plenty of room in the car for both of us and our gear. The timing of when we hit Harrisburg, PA was kind of bad, (afternoon rush hour), but the car was a nice ride.

We found the Hotel with zero issue, and were both shocked at the place when we first pulled up. It is more like a fancy place, than what you'd expect for a company based "put them up for a couple days," kind of joint. Then the woman at the desk told us we'd be in the "carriage house". OK, there it is. Put them up in the crappy rooms off site. WRONG!!!!!! It may not be a 5 star room but the beds are clean, and the A/C works. Trust me the beds are clean, i brought my black light to look and zero spots on the sheets or mattress's. Each driver gets a single room which is kind of cool.

There are a couple of restaurants within walking distance, and they don't gouge the drivers as bad as I’ve seen in other places I’ve been to.

That's about all I have for now. I'll keep you all posted tomorrow when i get back from day 1.

 

Day 1:
Arrived at the terminal at just after 7AM. Did a stack of paperwork for the first hour then got sent to the doctor's office for physical and physical testing. Lifting and squatting to make sure i could do the job.

Around lunch, got back to the termial, ate and took the inhouse drug pee test. Then it was back for more paperwork, and a road test. Passed everything so far.

Found out tomorrow is a full day in lecture for "orientation". Can't wait... I just hope they stocked up on Mountain Dew in the fridge. LOL

 

It's not a Ho-Jo's any more. It's just the Hotel Carlisle. And yes, they do have us in the Carriage house, and there is a bar on site. The Middlesex diner is across the street and you'll be hard pressed to find better food. It's like getting a home cooked meal at a VERY reasonable price. If you leave there hungry it's your own dang fault.

On to day 2.....

Video day. We watched a couple on Hazmat, Blood born pathogens, and Hours of Service. Each video has a short quiz after, but if you just pay attention you can't miss the questions. READ THE QUESTIONS CAREFULLY!!!!

They had me speak with the Fleet/Terminal Manager today and she asked me why I chose to go to Crete. There were a couple of reasons but I told her that the biggest reason was my recruiter. She came to my school twice in the 18 weeks I was there and both times I could tell that she believed in the company and wasn't just there to give a "spiel". If anyone from the New Kingstown terminal is reading this, Samantha needs a raise.

They assigned me my trainer today, and after speaking to him, he's either picking me up either tomorrow night or first thing Saturday morning. It'll be 4 weeks of driving and then 3 days home, followed by another 4 weeks of driving. The trainer they put me with has over 10 years of safe driving under his belt between Shaffer and his previous company, where he was also a trainer, so i feel good. I think he'll be the right guy to turn my wet behind butt into a "professional commerce delivery coachman."

The tentative game plan is going to be to meet up with Samantha on my home time to try and time it so I'll be able to go with her to NTTS in Liverpool to be able to answer any questions from a brand new driver/ recent graduate's perspective. I hope it'll work out, and we can do it.

Either way I plan to go to NTTS whenever I get a chance to and do the same thing to the new students that the driver that I got a chance to speak with during my time there did for me and the questions I had. I found out from him and from what I've seen here so far, the recruiter's here don't B.S. So far, everything Samantha said was 100% spot on.

All I can say so far is for those of you in school, thinking about coming here,is don't miss any time at school, and LEARN THE MANEUVERS! Practice, hard and take every piece of advice you can get from your instructors. You will need to know how to safely hook up to a trailer, pull out of a hole, handle traffic, both on surface streets, and highway. Then it'll be back to the yard you'll be expected to put the trailer into a different hole from which you got it. You'll look at the hole from the cab and wonder if you'll fit, but once you GET OUT AND LOOK, you'll quickly realize that it'll go with room to spare. Just go at a pace you're comfortable with, and don't try and be "super trucker".

That's all I have for now. I'll try and update when i have wi-fi available on the road.

 

My trainer picked me up on Friday the 30[SUP]th[/SUP], and we ended up staying the night at the hotel. He was on his 10 hour break so we just used that to grab some sleep before we hit it, and hit it hard we did. Our first trip wasn’t bad. Pick up at the Hershey distribution center and took that down to just out side St Louis.
I had some road training from school, but I gained a new respect for every driver out there when I found myself tired after only a couple of hours behind the wheel.

When I was in school I had a former student there tell me that the school only showed him how to control the truck. He said he learned to drive once he got with his trainer. Those words never really clicked in my head until I started with my own trainer. Schools can teach just about anyone how to safely control a big truck. But to become a driver is so much more in-depth.

For starters it’s easy to follow the route the company tells you to follow. HOWEVER, what’s not so easy is when you’re cranking down the road, knowing you have to pick up route “x” in 80 miles, and the route you’re on turns left, with very little warning, in some small back woods town , and you just missed the turn. It quickly becomes a game of “this is gonna suck”, to try and get that truck pointed back in the right direction safely and without waking anyone up at 4am.
Then there’s the other trucks out there that know you’re dialed back to a max of 62 MPH. If you’re cranking down the interstate, and come up on a slower truck, it can cause some “pucker” moments when you try and pull off a pass on a truck that’s doing 60, and you watch as a skateboard pulled by a long nose Pete coming up on you VERY quickly. Or the 4 wheelers that figure that you should just get the ((insert expletive here)) out of their way.

For those of you out there who don’t drive for a living, let me help you a bit. The back bumper on a trailer is called an “ICC” bumper. That stands for “interstate commerce commission”, who used to regulate truck traffic. From the looks of things out here though, most of you driving cars think it stands for “in coming car.” HOLY ((insert expletive here)). 3 feet off the ICC bumper of a big truck, at 62 miles per hour on the interstate is NOT a safe following distance. Even MORE dangerous is to have your high beams blaring when you do it. Contrary to popular belief, just because we sit up higher in trucks, doesn’t give you free reign to high beam us. In fact it’s easier to blind a trucker with bright lights than a normal car driver. And on that note, if I ever meet the guy that came up with the idea for those high intensity head lights, I’m going to high five him in the face with a sledge hammer. THOSE THINGS HURT!!!!!
But by far the best ones though, are the “chin lickers” that are crippled, blind and crazy, driving their SUV’s, trying to get on the highway, in heavy traffic, in the rain, at night, and don’t know how to get their car up to speed before trying to merge. Those, however, seem to be the friendliest people of all. They’ve all waved at me as they finally passed me. The strange part is, they have a funny way of waving down in Tennessee. Everyone waved at me with one finger extended. Not sure why, but oh well.

Week 1 is now in the books and I’ve hauled everything from candy to turkeys and been right up near the 80,000 pound max a couple of times. It’s all about the seat time, and I’m slowly getting comfortable behind the wheel, for longer and longer periods of time. It’s all thanks to my trainer. Without him, there’s no way I could be doing this. He for the most part has told me to do things then let me try it. If I didn’t do it right, he hasn’t gotten mad or anything, he’s just tried to suggest a better way, and so far it’s all worked.

The only other thing I can suggest, to anyone looking to go on the road is to BRING MONEY!! The contact person in the recruitment department told me $100 should be enough to last till my first check. WRONG! Truck stops are EXPENSIVE. You’ll need about $100 just to get through the 3 days BEFORE you go out with your trainer. Then you’ll need enough to last the 2 weeks till your first check comes in. Lucky for me, my trainer has been cool about floating me some loans for food till I get paid. Not sure when I’ll get to post this, but I’ll try and keep the updates coming as I can. Right now i'm stuck at the McDonalds in Mt Sterling, Il, waiting to be dispatched to go ANYWHERE else. LOL