legit beef or am i whining?

well,im home from dmv, Long day and sad to report i failed..miserably actually. ultimately alley dock got me..not surprising. the dmv testing area is laid out way different than our school is. i scored 100% on pre-trips..inside and out. tester said she hadnt seen a perfect score in years so i was feeling good. air brakes was an adventure. tester wanted us to do things differently then how we are trained. the L.I.T.A.S test..#4..was an adventure..my 1 minute hold turned into 3 1/2 minutes while she drilled me about not hearing an air leak that..honestly..i never did hear..and was never taught to listen for anyway..always told to watch the gauges for drops in air pressure. despite the air leak that she insisted was there..i didnt drop any air during my 3.5 minutes. either way, she passed me on air brakes..didn't even bother with test 7 which was nice i guess. then came skills..and my implosion nailed my straight back with no issue..0 points. but then she curve balled me on offset. at school, we have two lanes next to each other start in one,move to the other. here, the offset is conducted going the other direction, diagonal from the straight back. but they don't move cones around here. all the cones for all the test are all over the place. i literally got lost in the parking lot. in my mirrors, i saw about 40 cones so i couldn't figure out where my lane was or how to get there. at school, i hadnt missed an offset in weeks. today, i used 4 points on it..simply because..in my opinion..theirs too much going on with the cones so i used pull ups and g.o.a.ls to get it done. so at that point, ive still got 8 points and figured i was probably ok. then of course, i got my dreaded alley dock which, i have to own, as ive said before,,i dont alley dock well. the problem for me is the area we use at school is well defined. we have the limit line...so to speak for where we start..so i have a consistent starting point that i practiced from and most of the time got it in. at dmv. the limit line was way further up and the outter limits was alot wider then school so i had TONS more room to work with which sounds good but it totally threw off my marks in my head for starting points and i straight up botched it..maxed out my points..and then some i think she wanted to pass me but it was so bad, it was like a mercy killing when she finally told me to stop.also have to mention, on the start, while the limit line is alot further up, i was told i could start anywhere so without having a defined starting spot, i was lost on where to start and how much angle to give it etc..again, have to own it, i was horrible!!
the good from all of it was i got the experience of testing so i can be better prepared next time. i also will get more practice which is essential as in the real world, im also not gonna have defined start and stopping marks and limits so i understand that and im good with it.
the one really cool thing that happened was the other two people that tested today both passed but what was cool for me was both of them had really struggled with there outside pre trips..to the point we didnt really expect either to pass it. as stated, i was money on it, both knew it and both asked me to help them with it because they felt my way was better than the instructors way of explaining it(if he bothered at all) so i spent time with both of them yesterday and even did a pre trip with one of them after my failed attempt and before his (was lunch break). when both passed, both gave me full credit for nailing the pre trip which made me feel good so who knows, maybe ive got a future as an instructor...if i can learn to alley dock...dont think i can teach that.
anyway, all in all, not too bad a day. many have failed on the first try...the other two had both made more than one attempt and many more will fail the first time. i'll go back to school, work my ### off and hopefully get it next time

 

2ND TIME WAS THE CHARM!!!..passed my dmv on friday the 3rd, two weeks after failing the first time. what made it kinda cool...in hindsight..was that i was again givin the alley dock. so in order to pass, i had to face my demon. used one extra pull-up on it so it wasnt perfect but pretty close. road test was a breeze..5 total error points..all for shifting which i chuckled at because our dmv truck grinds going into 5th gear..up or down so as far as im concerned, hadda perfect road test. Thanks to everyone for there encouragement..now, find a job and maybe get to shake some of you's hands someday..THANKS!!!

 

thanks for the support..plans now are to find a job asap..would probably take the first thing offered..just want to get to work

 

BRIAR- interesting you mention the parallels. while obviously every truckers career will be different, one of my instrctors told me he had only blind side parallelled ONCE and had NEVER had to sight side in his driving career...might be a fun question to ask: how many of you experienced guys have ever had to parallel Park? sight side or blind, how often?