Western Express

5:30? We didn't even get picked up till 6:30! Lock your door at the hotel. It might night look like a rough place but there is some shady things happening there.

 

well, breakfast is at 0530 as per what the email tells me. lock my door mmmm

 

####. You weren't kidding. First day of orientation isn't too exciting

 

do you have to go with a trainer?

 

They haven't told me yet. Most likely yes

 

How was day 2 orientation?

 

Not too eventful. At bethlehem waiting for a trainer. Out 30days

 

Sounds like my trainer. His "teaching philosophy" was show me once, while I am securing or unstrapping the load he is catching z's in the sleeper, come out and yell at me because it's taking longer than 30 minutes to secure a load, yell at me while I am behind the wheel because I swerved to miss an object in the road and making it sound like I murdered his family and committed an act that made the Holocaust look like an ice cream social. His idea of working with me on my backing was yell in my ear and telling me that my backing sucks or not like my setup or how long I was taking, yank me out the seat, finish the backing, and yell at me some more. At the behest of someone in the training dept. I ended up reporting him. There's a laundry list of things about him but I did complete my training and driving solo. That sucks about the crap your trainer did. From what I understand they are making some changes to the trainer program. I hope it is true.

 

Western does pay for IdleAir, if you can find one that has working pods and not full (mostly by drivers who aren't using the service). I try to use that when I can to avoid idling all night. I have a service dog with me and I was a heat casualty in the Army so keeping cool is imperative. BTW the International trucks don't have the idle management feature, at least not the older ones (I'm not sure if the ones 2016 and newer have it). I don't really have too many complaints about Western Express.