Released on my own after 3 days with a trainer... I'm having one problem

Not at all employers. With some jobs, time is a virtue you cannot waste doing 5+ pull-ups.

 

If you don't have time to do the job safely, then you need to find a different employer. Sure, 9 times out of 10 you can do a dock bump without any pull ups. But, if you are having a bad day, or the place is one of those docks from hell to get into, you just might need to take a little extra time to keep from hitting something. Do you really believe your employer would rather you waste the time on an accident report, rather than do a pull up or two?

 

Try using the tires as a guideline. If you're using the trailer the tires give you a little better reference. But of course you'll want to use all you can so you're safe.

 

maybe its because in (crazy spots) if you #### up and hit something your ###### 110% but in wide open docks you know you're not going to hit anything so you don't utilize as much caution when backing up

 

I get your point, but welcome to every local driving job out there. Also, welcome to the reason why most local jobs won't hire student drivers. I seriously doubt anyone can match what I'm making now for the amount of hours I work.

 

Uh right. Only did it for about four years. Guess I don't know anything about it.
Of course, in all honesty, I had a couple of things going for me. First off, I worked for a first class company, and second off, I was NOT in a major metro area.

 

I am in a major metro area though. Just to give you an idea:

8 hr shift per day, 5 days a week
12ish stops per day
+/- 5 minute window to arrive at each stop. Arriving outside the window when you left the DC on time will net you a verbal or written warning. Too many of those warnings will get you fired
15 minutes per stop is all you get. This time starts from the moment you pull into a customers lot, so that's 15 minutes to get your dock assignment, bump the dock, load/unload the trailer and leave. Not a lot of time for 5 million pull-ups.

local =/= line haul =/= LTL

If you weren't in a major metro area, chances are you didn't have a 'local' job where you never leave a particular city.

 

interesting....spot on, kudos!

 

OK, Ghost. Better you than me. I flatly would not have worked that way. And our "local" meant out of one terminal, or possibly a satellite dock, but in any case you returned to the same dock you started your shift on. Never got far enough away from our home terminal to have to mess with logs. Job was extremely diverse, so you didn't get bored.

Work for an 8 hour shift? Not hardly. Started your day at the assigned time, and worked until you were done. Covered six counties in SW Utah, plus a bit in Arizona and Nevada out of our home terminal. Occasional pull sets to one of the more remote areas, then deliver and pick up from there.

In one shift, you could be in a straight truck, tractor with 28' pup, tractor with 45' trailer, tractor with 53' trailer, and a combination of sets. Like I said, we didn't get bored. Worked our butts off, but we did not have to put up with arbitrary time constraints like you are talking about.

We had one kid that came to us from Philly, and he would talk about how they worked him back there, the way you are talking about. Unfortunately, he had some personal problems that affected his job, to the point they had to let him go. Too bad, because he had some very good qualities.