In search of quality team companies

I know you said no megas but I should give Prime a mention. Trucks are limited to 65 yes but no cameras, apus/inverters in every truck, and newer equipment (rotates equipment out after 3 years). You will get tons of miles in the reeder division and the training is team based.

 

You two are going to have quite a journey. I am not certain if it is wise to be so new and lacking experience together.

When I had my spouse with me to be trained, there is a huge bag filled with experience and stories from many drivers that I would open now and then when a problem needs solving without property damage, loss of freight, being late etc. My spouse would put the truck into places a truck should not go and it would fall onto me to profusely apologize to the manager and get the rig out of there without breaking anything. Which I guess was a exercise in and of itself.

If you can stand each other, then go for it. But you will both be learning many lessons together. I think that would be ok. Just never argue when one of you usually the driver has made a decision to do something without bring in evidence (Law, DOT etc) as to why driver should not do it.

Also you two will have a lot of fun, if you can learn to actually park the truck and relax away from it during time off. We had once a week what we called date night. park that thing and walk to a nice eating place which normally is a higher quality of food and experience than just any truckstop. Although there are a few exceptions, Space USA in Ohio near PA border comes to mind. The Dutch Country near Lancaster is another. It's powerful in food and culture. If you go for that sort of thing lol.

 

My problem is that most people don't understand teaching a spouse anything is fraught with risk. If Spouse did not care for what you have to say (Teach...) and wont take instruction like a stubborn Mule digging in and laying ears back, you might as well park it because no one is going to do anything good today. I told her that if she wanted me as a trainer she has to listen to what I say when I say it. Because I would try to do it better than some of the other trainers who may do better or worse. Whatever happens inside that truck has to stay in that truck when we go home for time off or whatever. And you can imagine that conflict is a possiblity if carried over to the extreme and you wonder why marriages break up sometime. Maybe.

When one of us go Loco I usually let the dispatchers know not to load us until we clear this out first because we simply aint gonna do it well while loco'ing. (Is that even a word?)

 

My wife has her CDLP ... she's ridden with me, she's driven with me, but..... I can't formulate the specifics on how to train her. She's book-smart, and I'm truck-smart. We clash a lot.... in training mode.
Ergo, she's going elsewhere this summer. She's well prepared, no doubt, I'm just not the guy. Have my own ways ingrained. Maybe since he's not been driving as long as I have, it'll be different.
West Side Transport does a minimal amount of teams, with him being allowed to train you. Wife's friends with a lady over there that went that route.
Best wishes~!