Advice FROM a new driver TO other new drivers...re: Tweaker Mentor

Second update:

Training is going phenomenally well. I just closed my 100th hour BTW. I am handling drops at shippers/receivers and the DC on my own. I have had to ask for help on a couple of seriously challenging backs into a seriously challenging offset-parallel alley entry, which I finally got into after looking like Austin Powers doing a 100-pt GOAL-PULL UP-GOAL-PULL UP attempt.

My trainer said that it was not a dock for anyone with less than 3 years experience bumping docks (The target in Santa Fe)...but I got it and kept all the paint where it needed to be and I was inside the lines and square on the dock.

I ran the 40 from Alb to Flag and down the 17 to PHX at night, 2x down all those hills and through those curves WITHOUT touching my brakes, only using the gears and the engine retarder just like he taught me to hold a hill going into El Paso on the bypass loop.

It's funny how a competent, mature, professional trainer with his #### together can make a difference.

I told him..."Run the wheels off me, and teach me everything". Neither of us has had to raise our voice, raise our hackles, or get frustrated with one another. He teaches, I listen and ask questions, and he rarely ever has to tell me anything twice. I know how much I don't know, and as some have wrongly suggested, I don't think I know it all, or know better...so I ask "how, why, what, and in your experience..." questions.

So, thanks for all the intelligent responses. I appreciate all of them. When training is over and my upgrade is signed, sealed, and delivered...I am taking him out to a steak dinner.

 

Before my move into this second career, I attended two and taught at three law enforcement academies. One thing I learned in ALL of those settings is that the administration who don't have their boots on the ground, or their rubber on the road are as far out of touch as it is possible to be. As an example, my first chief carried an OLD Smith & Wesson Model 10 pencil barrel 38 Special with 148gr round nose lead ammo.

We were the first generation of officers who were dealing with gang bangers toting hi-cap 9mm pistols in their waistbands with Tec 9s and AKs in their trunks. He thought that our desire to transition from the Smith Model 19 revolver to a Glock 17 or a Smith Model 5906 was "whining" because he was no longer a cop, but an administrator. It's the same in any corporation as far as I can see...the further toward the top you get, the more out of touch you become with the realities of the business.

 

If the first guy would have put a hand on me, it would have cost him a meat sack full of broken bones and he would have been ####ting into a bag for several months while his internal organs healed.

 

Final update: 206 hours BTW in the bag with over 60 backs. I passed my written and road tests. I finished the mentorship with all 4's on my score sheet.

I drove through, day, night, rain, sleet, snow, iced roads, 50-60mph wind gusts on the 40, and lots and lots of hills.

When I got off the truck on Friday morning and unloaded my stuff at the terminal I thought to myself..."That is how is should have been from the get-go".

Sunday morning, I got a text from my mentor asking me if I wanted to make a 2-day run with him up to Utah and he would pay me (not the company) to team with him for that run. I thought that was a pretty good compliment. I couldn't go because of family commitments.

My buddy and team driver already has our new truck...a 2019 International...and he is on his way back from the Bay Area, and we will roll out on Saturday.

According to the company, we are trained professional truck drivers. According to me...we are going to spend the next X-Number of months learning before we can say that, but let's hope it is a fun ride.