3RD DAY on the job, My trailer hits the back of a parked pickup

Watching my mirrors and a spotter. I get clear of all their machinery and start swinging around and bam! right into a utility pole that was sitting square behind me the whole time clear as day if I had gotten out and looked but wasn't visible in either mirror. Turns out the spotter was only watching to be sure I cleared his machines and didn't care about the rest of the world. I can second the feeling like ##### and not trusting spotters.

 

I didn't blame it on my company .did you?

 

There was no blaming it on anyone but myself, but boy I felt like crap. Met with the safety guy who wanted to blame the spotter for some of it but I told him it really came down to me not looking. He liked my attitude, gave me a mandatory suspension for a drug test to clear and brought me back to work as soon as he could. Always felt I got a fair deal from them about it.

 

I don't disagree .but did you tell them that , did you just do as told knowing you weren't ready?

 

i think that is how it should have happened for you .

 

I know you are catching flak here but I think you need to be more open to what people are really telling you and accept responsibility. You have a CDL so as far as the company is concerned you have been tested and proven you know how to operate the vehicle. A good company would see you are new and train you but that didn't happen. Who knows, if they had you might still have had this happen. You will have to solo eventually and that means taking responsibility. When you took the keys to the truck you told them you could do the job. Shame on them for not looking at the situation more but ultimately the blame is on you for saying you could do something and when it goes bad you want to say you couldn't do it and never should have had to...it doesn't work like that. This is not a job where that is acceptable. Now if the company had never trained you to throw chains and told you to take the truck down the side of a snowy mountain I might be more sympathetic but I'd still tell you it was your fault for agreeing to do it knowing you didn't know how.

 

And they personal responsibility is dead.

 

Yes the company should have done more. But this wasn't a company policy you weren't taught or running out of fuel because they never told you where you were allowed to get fuel. This was hitting something when your only concern should have been safely operating the truck, not that other stuff. I'm not coming down on you for it, just stating what I think is the fact. And we all make dumb mistakes all the time because we are human. Accept responsibility and learn from it so that hopefully you don't have to go through it again.