And so the adventure gets into second gear....

Hell I know where Newberry is and I am from IL. I spent more time there when I was a solo with a reefer carrier than I care to remember. Why pulling out of the Kraft Turkey Plant there in town for who knows where I was going. Normally it was combo bins full of turkey parts for Columbia MO or Davenport IA for use in lunchmeat or hotdogs for Oscar Meyer. Every now and then would get one going TX out of there for a plant in the Dallas area.

 

Update.

Been in orientation all this week. Only 3 of us new hires there and I think it's been a good month since they conducted an orientation. There's a script to it, but from what I read about orientation at the megas, this isn't anywhere near as structured. The first day alone was one of the owners sitting at a table with us for 5 plus hours recounting the stories of every truck that ever rolled and why each accident happened. He is obviously a big stickler for abstaining from distracted driving and following too closely. If you have an accident for either of those reasons they'll be no saying you weren't warned.

Got some securement training today when we hauled a couple of empties to a local shipper for live loads. Actually I got to drive one of them and that was fun. I had minimal hours behind the wheel at school ( probably less than 10 ) and it'd been 4 weeks since I drove if you don't count my actual CDL road test. This truck was so much nicer than the ragged out trucks they had at school. Best of all I was told to just use which ever gear felt comfortable.

In my travels, I crossed another Senn driver returning to the terminal with a large load of insulation and his rear tarp flapping pretty bad. When we returned from the shipper we helped him re-tarp his load. He was pretty new himself and had made a couple of critical errors tarping that load. But that was good training for me seeing what he did wrong and re-tarping the whole thing for him.

Met my trainer today as well when he popped into the classroom briefly this morning to steal a cup of coffee. He's an older guy who's been with them a very long time. That's great for me. There's a lot you can learn from an old guy. And obviously he likes coffee, so we'll get along fine.