Werner & Me

give it time that was my mind set going to werner I stayed on my frist trainers truck about 3 weeks to long.

The very frist thing he said when i got in the truck was "you are going to HAVE to drive your 11 hr today or we will get you off my truck" and thus i drove untill midnite every day. One day about ten I was getting a bad headack and need to eat and sleep my trainer was in the in bed so i pull into the planed fuel stop, got fuel, and parked the truck as he did not have his hours yet. he got up and told me get a sawich take a pain pill and GET BACK ON the road i was not to pull off the road untill 11:45 as i would be out of hours at 12:00.

he also show me how not to fix or cheak ones truck untill it had to be done. his truck needed a tire, the clucth needed adjustment, tiwce we had to be told we had no trailer ligths,(as "they work you dont need to check"), the cruies didnt work and the abs ligth came on and off a will, and the best part is that his truck was new it only had 80k miles.

But when he got out of truck to beat on the door of a truck that had pulled out in front of us; I finlly called my SDM.

but My second trainer is great. and i am once agin enjoying the drive.

Form everyone I have talk to it seems you will get a really GOOD trainer or a REALLY BAD one.

 

My career might begin with werner, I saw there flyers everywhere at break room last week.. :\

Really hope theres some more positive werner guys out there, I tried to talk to a few at a TA but was arguing, will try again if I see any blue trucks.. (How I'm doing my research of companies while at cdl school)

 

IROCUBABE, sounds like my first trainer, I was picked up at the Atlanta terminal, in November 1998, that night I drove from Atlanta to Indianapolis, as we were going through the mountains of Tennessee, he wanted me to stop at Exit such & such so we could refuel. Well, never being in Tennessee before even driving my own vehicle & being used to exit numbers being in order & not based on the mile marker in Tenn, I missed the exit because I was counting the exits not the mile marker. Man, he got so mad when I missed it & I really felt bad, but he was in the back resting, mind you this is day 1 about <4 hrs of driving time ever. I asked him, "Can we get off the next exit & I will turn around?" He said no & still berated me for another 15 min or so, felt longer. So I turned to him and said in so many words, "I missed it, I know, what else do you want me to say??!!" We eventually go to Indianapolis the next morning on the same tank to a station and filled up. Guess in the end, he did not know his own truck would have made it on the tank. I did not either, but from that point on, I was soured on Werner & especially him, I stayed with him for less than 2 weeks. I tried another trainer who must have weighed 400-450lbs, it did bother me in a way for his health only, he was in his late 20's and so heavy is not healthy. Could only shower every other day & he stopped to eat 1 time a day, I weight about 160 going in and after 3 weeks, I weight less than 150, I went home tired, starving & upset that my dream to become a trucker started like this. I went back into the Navy, which is where I am today, almost ready to retire. I do miss driving, but no one needs a trainer that does not care, does not train, yells, smells does not care about anyone but themselves & the $$. Trainers are teachers, they must have the patience, tolerance & general care or they suck. That is how I feel & this was my experience with Werner.

 

Trainers are suppose to ease you into driving for 11 hours a day not expect you to do it the first day on the truck.

My trainer not at werner did that for me I would drive 4-6 hours a day for the first week then when he was out of hours but we had a load that needed to be there I would drive 11 hours per day so we could 1 get the load there and 2 he would still get a decent check for the week.

My trainer was one that did not want me to drive all the time unless his 11 was out then he would have me jump over and push on a little more for him untill I told him I was tired.

I would most of the time be up before him and I would be up the whole time while he was driving.


Sounds like you were only there so that trainer would to make a bigger check.

 

Iroc you don't drive for Werner anymore, what happen if you don't mine me asking?

 

How's the job search comming along???

 

With any large Co. you'll run in to all sorts of people with all sorts of attitudes towards the company, trucking, and life in general. I enjoyed the experiance I had at Werner for the most part. I was in the flatbed div.and I don't know about other companies but you received a level of respect not shown to the van drivers for the most part, probably because while I was there the flatbed div was only around 250 or so, out of aprox 7000.