C-1 Fort Wayne. Survivors of unimaginable horror.

It's taken me a bit to decide to do this.. quite a bit of waffling over the past week or so.

Heck with it, I'll get it started.

I started class with C-1 Fort Wayne, IN this past Monday.(November 05 2012 ).. but the story begins nine months ago when I decided thatTV was sufficiently crap to stir me from my unemployed status.

I spent a week wandering around to the various truck havensin the area accosting helpless truckers, asking for opinions on truck training.One thing became clear almost immediately: Go to an independent school - there are far fewer problems associated with it.
But which school (in the area) is best? That's harder toanswer - pretty much everybody casts a vote for the school he went through.Eventually, I went at it from the other direction. Knowing that - even at myage - I'm going to be at the bottom of the heap of drivers working for anycompany, I thought it would be a good thing to select the best heap to be at the bottom of.

Best for me means most suited to my needs and desires.Stated policies I can live with without feeling too cramped. The amount of pay,or most miles would be almost last on the list. As I will have to work there,and not want to hate the company I work for.

Having found a couple of those companies, I looked to see if THEY had a school preference. By jingo, they don’t. Just so long as you have aclass A-C.D.L. license. With all endorsements, including Hazmat and “TWIC”. Ergo, I contacted C-1.
I contacted a work-one office after being told that theywould pay for it. And was directed toward Indianapolis. They told me that theywould, after the file was transferred to them from Fort Wayne. After looking atit, work-one determined that since I had taken a job application test already.I was considered a resident of Fort Wayne since I still had a driver’s licenseshowing that address. After obtaining an Indy address on my drivers license. Iwas then told to wait another two months before I could transfer it to Indy.

Nine months later they where still running me around. Aftertaking two sets of tests, also two drug tests. And passing all if it they toldme that if I weren’t an Indy resident it would be considered a federal offence.Did the state save any money? In order to keep eligible, I was paidunemployment for nine months. And have been told the state looks at you’re workhistory, and education. If it’s good they will not pay for anything.
Finally I paid for it with a credit card. With 0% interestfirst year, the school gave a cash discount.

"Oh boy," I thought, "The wheels are rollingnow!"
The school did what schools are supposed to do - entrance paperwork, etc. Gave me the forms and such for my physical and drug screen, and sent me over to their in house clinic.
The physical was abreeze, even for somebody of my stature (6'0" and 180 pounds). BP 122/80.
We where told that the DOT physicals where being performedby a Doctor from the parkview hospital. I found out later looking at the paperwork, that a medical Doctor didn’t perform this. Only a physician’sassistant (a six year degree). The woman did know how to perform her job though.

Class started that Monday morning, and I was in it.

I was worried at first, that I might be just another face inthe crowd. After all, so many stories on here mention class sizes of 30-60-120students. Not to worry. There were only 19 students on the rolls for this session. Two failed the physical and one of them opted to not take a drug test.

The Sixteen of us constitute a pretty wide demographicspread - from <ahem> middle aged white guy to young Americans to a middleaged African who speaks and understands English, but has a problem reading the language. Only one women, though. She let it be known that she had already passed all written endorsements and has her “TWIC” card. Her CDL driving parents advised her to do this. After she retook her airbrakes test we didn’thear much about it. Oh well.

The instructors are ex drivers, of course. They did (Ithink) an outstanding job of getting us ready for our CDL permit test. We all passed on Wednesday except six, but they took it again on Thursday there was only one who had to take it again on Friday? If need be (I drought it) on Saturday. Even getting extra tutoring over the weekend at the student housing. And will be taking it again Monday. We have high hopes for him.

The shock here was our current E-Gears videos only six yearsold? In a lot of the “lesser” schools there's the usual assortment ofmind-numbing videos, though some are better than others. Others are.. well, forsomebody who's sat through innumerable *military* and government videos, If youthink you’ve seen bad. The videos make "Plan 9 from Space" look like"Gone with the Wind".
We only had one dropout. And one show up an hour late, on Thursday he retook his permits tests. Andcould not wake up on Friday. He struggled through the rest of the day. We whereimpressed.
Thus ends the first week of class. Most of us have ourpermits; we've finished logs and trip planning, with all other classroom workdone. (One of my classmates has never used an atlas before. That was a shock.)

All in all, to this point, the school has been very professional. I've learned a lot - even though I've picked up a ton from this trucker site.

We'll see what the next two weeks brings us

 

Will post in another couple of days. The teachers are really humping our #####'s off though.
We are given a roll call in the morning, at EXACTLY 7:00 AM sharp, if your not there, you will be marked late. Lunch the same thing. Starts(at least at this location) 11:00 usually a roll call at 12:00 PM sharp!

If you are late they will mark you as absent, then if you show up late a few minutes. You will be put on the bottom of the list for all range times. Forget about driving time.

There was a couple of nice things about the school though. But to write it would take to much time, along with re-writting, before posting.

Class slogan: Keep the big doors pointed backward.

 

Last week was our hell week.

We got hit with the bad weather from hurricane Sandy. Since we where on the outside of the storm area, the area was snowed and rained on. What a great way to start our range time. The entire first day was spent outside on pre-tripping (checking) a truck.
A lot of the out of state students weren’t prepared for this. And froze going back and fourth from the trailer to the truck.
The rest of the week was only cold, the lucky ones get to drive, and ride in a truck for four hours. Break for lunch. Then spend the next four hours on maneuvering a truck on the range.

If you are reading this thread, you'll remember that acouple of my classmates where having difficulties passing the tests to get thepermit. The classmates worked with the last one of them, and Tuesday he passed.(The DMV was closed on Monday).
After sorting out some other issues, he dropped his $14 onthe counter and walked out with his CDL.
I think part of hisproblem may have been stress - test anxiety. In the daily quizzes, he's doingquite well, now.

... And then went outto the truck-range to do what all students dream of: break things.

Well... that wasn't the plan so far as the school wasconcerned, but what do you expect?

ha! got ya! nah, nobody broke anything. It was just ourfirst taste of a pre-trip inspection. It was kinda fun ( N O T ) having tocrawl all over/under/around a tractor-trailer rig without that feeling of"man, if that driver comes back I'm gonna get my butt kicked". Evenhaving to crawl under the trailer to check the coupling and suspension.
Two things are ( N O T ) required for class, if you haven'talready figured this out: Coveralls - crawling around under a trailer is dirty.And you never know who spit there last week utility gloves - I'm not fastidiousby any means (ask any of my friends). But why spend 10 minutes washing greaseand whatnot off your hands just so you can get a good grip on the steeringwheel?. Having to do your pre-trip with gloves on – in order to save time andfingerprints.

There is one thing that I like about the program.

Not having recruiters invade. A large company (Names arewithheld to protect me in case I apply to them for a job). The recruiter will give a short presentation, then take us all over to a local terminal for a tour. The facility would be clean, relatively modern, and well maintained.Oddly, I viewed that as.. not what I was wanting.

This reminds me of what the local blood banks will do. Showup to the local colleagues. Then offer you a “free half-day off”? If all you do is donate. Is it really free? You paid to go there, and then give them your blood.

New class motto:
Keep the big doors pointed backward.

 

Well Surprise, Surprise, Surprise.

The class Sharpe showed up on the second day of the third week with his little C-1 hat. That meant he had passed his state BMV test. And had received the coveted CDL Class A license.
He was the kind of guy who, after passing his written tests at the BMV. Decided all on his own, to go in and upload a movie from Netflicks. Then ran a comedy special on the overhead projector (as a way to reward the students in our class). For the ones who had finished their tests in record time.
The next day two more in our class received their hats!
By the end of our third week, over half the class had finished. About seven where left.
It was a bearcat trying to come in andfinish, when all the other new students are staring at you. Something like,what are you still doing here?

I can feel magnanimous, though. I won the weapon argument.It was against a former policeman in the class after ours. There was nothing in the FMCSR or the US Code (title 18 or 49) that restricts truck drivers from possessing firearms in the cab.
If you have a CCW, you are fine, so long as the state inwhich are running in recognizes and honors CCW permits from the issuing state In other words, if I have an Indiana CCW, It's perfectly legal in, say Southern Indiana. Not legal in Illinois. (There are other restrictions, state-by-state -read up on the states in which you travel)
Fortunately, most states offer a non-resident CCW. If you are going to be spending a lot of time(or any time at all, as far as I am concerned) in states that don't honor yourhome CCW, see what you can do about getting one issued by that state.
Of course, all thisis moot if your employer has a "No Guns" policy. (This policy Iconsider to be short sighted, at best)

The class motto:
Keep the big doors pointed backward.