From the schoolbus to the truck

Day 23 and 24,

Monday and Tuesday were basically the same. Road practice and skills practice. Tuesday some got to witness members of the night class do their test. They came back and said that we are overprepared for the Pretrip. On my skills at one point I hit all of them without any pullups. My road performance is decent. I should be ok as long as I don't get nervous.

Everyone in the class tested today. Except me. I had to have this laser gum procedure at the dentist so they moved my test to tomorrow. I will go to the school and drive the truck to the test site. I don't know how the others did. I will find out tomorrow.

Wish me luck

 

Well...... and the results....... I passed!!! Did good on all areas. Strted with pretrip which was done inside a garage which was good because it's rainy here. After that was the skills in which I only had a minus 4 points. I had three pull ups in alley dock and I wasn't close enough to a square on one of the pararrells. Then I started the road test in pouring rain. Right out of the gate I got nervous and forgot what gear I was in. So I was grinding like crazy until I came to almost a stop and slammed third. Whew! She didn't tell me to turn around, so once my nerves were calmed I wasn't grinding anymore. The only thing she mentioned at the end was that I didn't look enough on some interesections and my shifting was rough at first but improved through the whole trip. I made sure and had three SMOOTH downshifts to go back to the test site.

When I got back from school I had a phone message from a company and my orientation is next week. I am now in the big rigs club.

Thanks to all who have been reading this thread, the advice and the positive helpful comments. I will have to get a laptop so I can check up on this board whenever I am sitting.

 

I will I will probably just still post them here. Thanks!

 

Last Friday I went on got finger-printed and did all the online stuff for my Hazmat since my CO says it's mandatory. So I haven't turned in my papers for my official license yet. If the letter for my TSA isn't here yet than I will just bite the bullet and pay the extra to add the endorsement.
I took it easy this weekend and got some house stuff done before I am gone.

Today I upgraded my cell plan so I don't have to worry about roaming charges. And I started getting the things I wil need for my training. I am thinking bare minumum for now and get the luxeries when I get assigned a truck.
Dumb question do the truckstop showers supply a towel or do I need to bring one?
I know I need to bring flip flops for the shower and my own stuff but towels I didn't know.

A good thing about my trucking school is that they taught Lifestyle and finance. I have got a pretty good list of what I need for my training time and what I will need when I get a truck.

 

Started my orientation today. There was three of us. Me and my classmate and a guy coming over from another company. A person from each department came and talked to us. We haven't signed much yet. That will be tomorrow. Watched some videos as well. Then we went to the clinic and did our pee quizzes. That took almost three hours. I guess every trucking school in the area had people in there, on top of the sick people as well. Tomorrow is the paperwork and roadtest.
At this point I am confident that our school did us well because the other student and I seem to have our acts together more than the "experienced" guy.

Dang it I am ready to get back in a truck.

 

Day 2 of Orientation.

Well not much to tell. Paperwork, paperwork, video, paperwork, lunch, paperwork, logs, DMV, paperwork, home. Still haven't seen the inside of a truck. Two guys go out with their trainers tomorrow. I should head out thursday. I will keep everyone posted. On the plus side I got a new hat from my company.

 

Ok everyone who was following this thread I started a new one for my training it's here:
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...om-the-schoolbus-to-transland.html#post411207