Question for trainers and or people who have completed tnt training

Its easy from the outside to say stay on as long as you can. When you are the person doing it, it's a different story.

To give you example, during my PSD training my trainer wanted to keep me out the entire 4 weeks he was aloud to do so. It wasn't 4 weeks because I needed to have 4 weeks before I was ready to take my CDL but rather 4 weeks because thats how many weeks they can keep you and get paid.

I could do 90% of my pre-trip before I stepped foot on the truck as example. Its not like I needed 4 weeks to be ready to take my cdl test.

After 2.5 weeks I had to push the issue to take me back and explain to him, that I wasn't being paid for my PSD training and each week I stayed out there with my permit I was going in the hole.. 4 weeks equals $800 that I'd have to pay back to Prime..

When I came back I had 5 times in a truck on the pad to learn my backing and learn the shifting (I trained in a auto) before taking my test. (So yeah I've been in TNT just 3 weeks now but I also previously did 3 weeks as PSD) Mid Oct will equal 3 months on the truck and he's trying to keep me till at least Nov.. Sorry but thats too #### long..

I trifected with 1 point on pretrip, 1 point on backing and 14 on the road test. All the 14 were shifting issues which I didn't feel bad about because I had literally 3hrs of road time in a manual truck to sort out shifting coming out of a auto.

So we aren't talking that I'm being held longer because I'm a slow learner or something. I mean hell my 3rd day PSD I did 600 miles while being told I couldnt go over 55mph. That is very hard to do..lol

As far as my TNT.. I'm for the most part running the truck 12hrs a day. If we go to a shipper/receiver during my 12hrs shift, then I'm dealing with them. I'm dealing with my logs, making sure I get my proper on duty time, my breaks, I'm doing my reports on the Qualcomm for my stops ect..ect..I'm backing into docks, finding my own places to park for my 30 min break ect..ect..

No I don't think I'm perfect nor do I want to jump into my own truck right at this moment, but I also know there is a difference in holding someone longer because they are having problems vs holding them to max out training pay.

When someone is telling you they want to keep you x amount of time not really based on your performance but rather because they can.. Well that an issue to me..

If it was just for training with no other issues I would grin and bear it. However I don't have access to the front passenger seat, because there too much stuff on the truck. This means during my off time, I'm stuck in the sleeper 12hrs every day..

I don't have access to the fridge or any real ability to store food. This means I have to eat at truck stops which is not very cheap. We are talking easily $150/week I'm paying right now just to eat...

I'm driving pretty much exclusively at night, every day.. This compounds the eating issue even more, because truck stops are always full, trying to find a place to park at 2am is pretty hard and then there isn't crap to eat because most of the restaurants are closed even the crappy fast food..

Meaning if I want to eat something half way decent I have to get up during my sleep shift whenever he stops during the day and I'm paying $15 to $20 for the meal because it's a truck stop...

If it was just about training time that would be a easy thing to deal with. There are other issues than just training time that we as students have to deal with.

Overall training is not a great experience as you are under a lot of stress just learning a new job but also the living conditions of team driving are not very good much less healthy..

As I said 1st off we get along good but there are more issues than just how well you get along with someone. It's all the other aspects coming into play which is the main reasons I want to be done as soon as I can.

 

Exactly, and also I come from the other side of trucking.. I have a ton of warehouse and shipping/receiving experience. I used to work in distribution centers, I've loaded trucks, I've made the BOL's and set up shipments.

I've driven every possible type of forklift and quite a bit of heavy equipment. I've pulled enclosed trailers before.

No I've not driven a tractor trailer before this but I've been around them a lot prior to this. It's not like I'm some 22 year old kid who's only worked retail at the mall..

I'm 44 years old, not a kid that needs his hand held. Again no I don't know everything and yes I have a lot to learn, but I'm also quite capable of using my own brain to figure things out.

 

I won't say that Prime's training is bad, I'd still choose to come again if I had to do it again.

I knew going in, that the TNT part of training would be the hardest part for me. I'm a very independent person and then putting two adult males in a tiny truck 24hrs a day and there is only so long you can do that...

My biggest complaints for their training program aside from my current TNT is:

1) Some not all but some of the people you deal with during the campus phase could be a bit more "people friendly".

I get that they deal with the same issues week after week and answer the same questions, but as new students we can't be expected to know all the things they feel is repetitive to them to answer.

A few of the people seemed you were greatly inconveniencing them if you asked them a question. Again not all but there were a definite few.

2) The Sims were very cool, obviously not a real truck but still fun to play with. My class was big and I didn't get a lot of sim time. It was like we had to rush through the sim labs just to get our required tests done.

3 ) after psd and b4 taking my cdl test, the pad time and truck time was hard to come by..

You get 2hr spots on the pad. Every single time we were scheduled to have pad time there was some issue. Every time I lost 30 mins of my pad time because thing like other people being on our scheduled pad and claiming they scheduled it, people having trailers hooked to their truck and not even having pad time yet so now we don't have a trailer while it's our pad time.. and so on.. but they sure expect that pad and trailer the moment your time is up..

For the most part the training was good and probably better than going to a cdl school as you do get much more 1 on 1 time.

I will say I'm not sure how the PSD training is really legal labor wise.. You are doing work and are not getting paid. You get a $200 advance each week that you then have to pay back ..

I don't get how that's legal.. Also even the $100/day TNT is not that great when you figure you are on the truck 24/7 wit next to no free time nor really any days off to do with as you please.

I mean yeah you might be in the sleeper or off duty but you arent free to do what you want, meaning legally you are still on duty just not paid..

 

I did explain why. He said they might be good at training but are doing it in a way to maximize cheap labor.

That is 100% correct statement by him that I'm in agreement with, he also said it's easy for others not in this position to criticize which I also agree with.

As I said it's easy for others to say stay in training as long as they want me too.. Yet would you if it was you working 70hr weeks for less than $10/hr while being away from home 100% of the time?

Again I'm ok with a reasonable amount of training time but I'm here to make money, not get used as cheap labor for 3 or 4 months..

Don't take it as me bashing Prime, I like the company so far. I just think the training process leaves a lot of room for students to get taken advantage of and used for cheap labor.

The point of this topic, wasn't really to ##### or complain about Prime, my trainer or the training process but rather to protect myself from getting used as that cheap labor.

I completely understand there is always going to be a certain amount if grin and bear it with this kind of thing. I 100% fine with that.

The purpose of this topic was to find out what others experience has been with the time they spent in TNT training because my trainer wants to keep me much longer than I feel is needed. I'm after information from others experience so I can judge if the amount of time he wants to keep me is too long or if I should start asking questions as to why..

Right now I'm half way through the required miles. At this pace I will be done with 30k miles before the end of this month..

By mid Oct at my current pace I'd be looking at roughly 50k miles.. That's already 20k Over What Is Required Why On Earth Would I not question that when the end of Oct I'd be at 60k.....of course I'm going to question why I'm doing 2 times the amount of training that Prime says is required.

Now if they want to bump me up to full team training pay after 30k well then we can talk about me staying on longer.. but no I'm not staying 50k miles at training pay...

 

It's my top

Its my topic, how can I be off topic? You started right in acting as if I'm out of line asking questions about my training time...

You didn't even stick to the topic to answer my questions as to how long you might have stayed in training. You just made it seem like I'm out of line to even question why he might want to keep me longer.

Again I'm not trying to ##### about Prime or my trainer. I like my trainer and we get along great and he happens to be a good trainer on top of that.

There however is a lot of other things to training which affects my want to complete it in a reasonable amount of time.