CRST Orientation Carlisle PA April 21

Bring about a weeks worth of clothes, A pillow. Sheets that fit a twin bed and blanket. Personal care (just enough to get by). Pen. Just the basics.

Noobs make the mistake of bringing the entire household the first time out. Remember you will have the chance to go home to get the rest of you gear and make your truck your new home.

 

Bring plenty or money, because you aren't going to see any for a while. Also, make sure you bring Febreze and Toothpaste for your trainer....

 

Bluoval..................
Good luck to you, you will need it.
I don't know what the recruiters told you or who else you have talked to, because this exerience can be either great or a nightmare for you.

Be very careful of the money you spend living on the road is not cheap.
Use walmart as much as possible do not buy food in the truckstops if at all possible you will find prices excessive and you will eat through your money fast.
Just a couple examples: ;
If you like sodas buy a case of cans from walmart 12pk $4.00 or less
-----tkstp cans $.89 cents do the math
I eat at subway when I am home and the subways have daily specials for $3.99
-----The tkstp that have subways in them do not honor the specials pricescost me $6.89 for same meal Do the math.

I don't want to scare you or bore you so just remember it will take time to find a co-driver that will be able to fit. Do not think that you have to ride with someone you can't get along with or is an unsafe driver. Contact your fleet mgr. and communicate.............

Again good luck and their are always people here on this site that can help guide you thru................................J

 

Dude, I live off of cold Ravioli and spaghetti from the Great Chef Boyardee! You can get good specials on it at WalMart. If you wanna heat it up, set it on the defroster on the dash and turn it on high for a few minutes...seriously, it works. You also cut down on your stopping time too because you have food on the truck and plenty of time to eat it, so no need to rush into Loves for a Deathburger from McDonalds at 3AM. I'm learning more about being frugal and only advancing what money I need. I think I advanced about $320.00 this last time out and $100 is for my Haz Mat so it's reimbursed and about $170.00 was for tolls and scales for our loads we had (we were in the northeast and ran from Mass to Chicago on I80 and then from Chicago to Delaware Via Baltimore) and they are all reimbursed. So I ended up with only about $50.00 I have to pay back, and it's still on my comdata. So when I go back, if our first load has tolls, I wont have to advance as much.

One piece of advice I can give is that no matter how enticing personal cash advances can be, be careful with them. If you need lunch or dinner or something, try to get as little as possible or get one big one occasionally and try to make it last. CRST is NOT a bad company, they just do not pay drivers what they are worth and the training program has alot of holes....and if you can get past that and last the 8 months, alot of doors will open. Just make sure you stay in contact with your travel agent, ooops, fleet manager, and if you have any issues, bring them to his or her attention. They work for YOU and you CAN fire them!

Good luck, if you are around Carlisle and see Truck 5693, thats me.

 

Well, they tell you that once you are off training you can do it, however what they do not tell you is that you cannot solo that truck at anytime until you reach 6 months. Sooo, unless you live with your co-driver, don't plan on it. I had this happen to me on thursday....I ended up just dropping my partner off in Hershey Pa. and just chancing it by solo driving the truck back to Carlisle. It was either that or take the truck back and use my gas and my vehicle to take him to Hazelton Pa, which is about 100 miles in the opposite direction....he is a good guy and I was't going to leave him stranded so I did what was best for both of us. If I get busted, oh well.

I now have no co-driver and I am sitting on my Tuchus at home because my partners both quit on our three man team.

Toll Reimbursements come on the check immediately following the load you paid tolls on. My advice, don't drop your trip pack off until you are sure you have paid all the tolls you need to pay. Remember, when you pay a toll going in, you normally pay one coming out. If you drop off the trip pak for the load before you leave the area and you have tolls coming out, they may not reimburse you for them.

Another piece of advice, get an advance from them for tolls. Don't put any out of pocket money out for the company, even if they reimburse you. Since they are too cheap to get EZPass, make the Dispatcher do some work by giving you an advance. You can usually find out how much the tolls are in advance by calling the state DOT info numbers in your MC Atlas. Don't go by the figure in the Qualcomm for tolls, they usually are just a random number put in because they have to put a figure in the macro when they send it to you.