Can't take it anymore....new drivers you are not slaves

The thing is, those companies don't have to care. It makes no difference to them if new drivers leave. In fact, they welcome it. They don't have to pay new drivers hardly any money, so they treat the veterans like crap until they leave to be replaced by new guys who don't know the industry yet. I think they know exactly what they're doing.

I'm glad you're training well on backing. I've had more than one trainer, and one of them just kept saying "yeah, well you have to figure that out for yourself. I can't teach you that, you have to just do it" every time I had a question. My other trainer was really nice and really did try to teach me backing techniques, but I think his whole process was just intuitive so he just couldn't explain things very well. I was always told trainers aren't teachers, they're drivers who want to teach (except the vast majority who just want to get paid more).

 

I kind of disagree with all companies not caring if drivers quit or not. Central has a department dedicated to keeping drivers from quitting. Called, drivers services. Ive heard so many stories of people and trainers, not getting miles or other problems like hometime and such, or trainers not getting enough miles to get the student trained. So they call drivers services, complain a little, if need be, ask for a load back to the terminal to turn the truck in, then presto, like magic, problems are fixed, and usually dont come back.

 

I'm starting driving as a new career after 28 years doing something else, which included training in both hands-on and classroom environments. Great post! What you say about clearly defining expectations, using a "tell them, show them, let them do" approach to task performance, and debriefing each day in a lower stress environment are critical to helping an adult learn new tasks. Kudos to you, Ladr, for your approach. My current trainer is a man of infinite patience, and uses this approach, so hopefully I'll get the hang of it before he loses his sanity completely...

 

I was lucky, my trainer was awesome! The good ones have my respect. I had thought about training one day down the road, but I couldve named 4 or 5 people from my orientation class that would drive me absolutely bannanas after maybe 20 minutes in a truck together. Plus I like my own space and my solitude. Now if I would only get great students, you know like I was, it wouldnt be so bad.

 

The longer I worked for Werner, the better I got treated... and we have about a thousand drivers who have over a decade with the company...

These companies lose a TON of money on new drivers... and they actually are not allowed to take the best loads unless the driver has experience, its an insurance requirement. Once you get experience, the kind of loads you get starts to change quite a bit...

And for a company to take a new contract, they must prove they have drivers, and drivers with experience. Like, I was the least experienced on my account... they were required to have a certain number of drivers with over a year experience... and we had a bunch of guys with years and year... one with 20 years with Werner...

The companies really DO want to keep drivers, the problem is that corporate people, they are kind of inexperienced and ignorant about how to treat people. They literally dont understand how poorly they are treating drivers.... because they think somehow we arent like them. They dont put themselves in our shoes....

I was surprised to see how few companies hire drivers for corporate jobs... Werner hired a lot of trainers for the corporate jobs, I hardly saw any at other companies...

 

Well I mostly only know what other drivers tell me, and I haven't heard that from anyone. Then again, most of the drivers I talk to are Swift drivers, so there you go.

 

Three years experience is not enough time to train a rock.

 

I like ladr's point here best. A whole section here at TTR could be devoted to when, how and why to stand up for yourself and not be overkill. New drivers typically want to just keep their head's down, go with the flow, not cause trouble. But there is a time and place and a skill. Personally, I tend to put up with things until I hit the Popeye point, 'That's all I can stand and I can't stand no more...'

Then, watch out. All bets off. Something's gonna hit the fan.

 

So how much trouble do you get in if you deck your trainer?