CRST Training - Abuse, lies, and a truck with a cat!

My husband and I decided we wanted to drive team together, so I went through trucking school locally (worked my butt off and graduated #1 in my class above 10 men), and we ended up with CRST. I cannot knock the company per se as my personal knowledge of much beyond the training program is limited, but their training program was the worst experience of my whole life.

I asked for a female trainer and was pleased that I only had to wait one day after orientation to get one. I got on her truck and within an hour dark clouds started looming. She announced, out of the blue, for me to not bother calling management with any problems she and I might have because "management never believes anything students say. They know you are all a bunch of whiney babies." She also announced that she used the Qualcom while driving and her cell phone (both of which are against company policy) and for me "not to think you will get me in trouble by reporting it because my fleet manager knows all about it." I never indicated to her that I would tell anythng, her choices were her choices as I saw it, but yet here were all these dire warnings and a hostile atmosphere right from the first hours. I was supposed to get 5 days of being in a "protective bubble" (from the company literature) wherein we would run as a solo, she would sit with me and teach me. Never happened. The second morning she watched me drive for 2 hours and then went to the sleeper, leaving me alone to navigate traffic in Nashville and Memphis by myself, which I did just fine. When I downshifted on an off ramp during her 2 hours of observation she informed me I was to coast on all off ramps and to stop signs rather than downshift. When I told her that went against everything I learned in school, she informed me that "things are done differently in the real world, just do it!" Basically she didn't want to put in time to make sure I was downshifting properly, which I was - I never had a problem with that. By the third day, she started screaming at me when I didn't understand something (never related to driving or safety mind you), and when I finally asked her to PLEASE quit yelling at me, she went off, screaming at me that it was "her “Fn” truck" and I was not going to tell her how to behave in "her truck." I explained I was not "telling" her but rather "asking" her, but my asking for the abuse to stop just made it worse. Her reasoning was her trainer had yelled constantly at her so she was going to do it to me. I could tell of many other incidents of this type and worse, but suffice it to say it was the worst experience of my life. I am a Christian woman who treats everyone with care and respect whether I like them or not, and I did so with this woman, but my kindness just seemed to invite more abuse. When I had to wake her up twice during one night drive to ask questions about a weigh station and a detour, she yelled at me that I was keeping her awake on purpose and I “wasn’t going to get away with it,” that she was going to make sure I got no sleep the next day too. I thought the point of being in training was being able to ask questions when needed on new things, but obviously it was not the case. Never were the screaming/yelling/throwing incidents about issues with safety or my driving (she yelled at me once because the edge of my pants leg touched the sheets on her bed as I was getting my bag). She said I was a good driver and a good student - no complaints about any performance issues, and we drove almost 11,000 miles (for which she got mileage pay and I got set student pay). After 2 weeks of constant hostility, ridicule, and abuse, I finally insisted that I be taken off her truck, and I was.

The company put me up for 3 days in Cedar Rapids, and sent me off again with yet another female trainer. Whereas the first trainer strove only for getting miles and taught me little and didn't care what I learned, this second one was obsessed with my training. When she learned how little my first trainer had taught me (from my telling her) and that we had not driven any secondary roads, she got very upset and slowed us down to a solo truck level. She would not let me drive on secondary roads for fear I would "get us lost," without any evidence to suggest I would other than my lack of experience on them to that point. She did her routing totally different than the first trainer, and I had trouble grasping it, but she would not move the truck until I did the routing, so we would end up behind schedule, and she would sit there and yell at me (which slowed me down even more). She would throw the map in my lap while driving and start barking things for me to look up, and if I had trouble with the multitude of road numbers she would throw at me, she would grab the map out of my hand, throw it and scream "You are no GD help to me!" I was back in hell again. If we hit a major city or a secondary road as it was my time to drive, she would continue driving and change the logs and drive on my time because she was convinced I could not do it (even though I had done just fine with my first trainer and had even driven through Los Angeles just fine on my third day!). Because she would drive on my time she would get overly tired and would shut the truck down and report to dispatch that it was because of me, even though she was the one making all the decisions, and I was more than capable of doing what she was denying me. Even as abusive as my first trainer was, she never had a problem with my performance and was even going to ask that I be released from training early because I was doing so well and was such a safe driver. Even my backing, which I struggled with in school, was acceptable to my first trainer, but the second one insisted that I do it her way, and I struggled again with her. And the second trainer had a cat on her truck, and even though the cat was a good cat (as cats go), it was a constant struggle to step over food and water bowls, deal with the smell from the litter box, and sleep scrunched up because all the bags, etc. were on the bed. Again, another element making another nightmare experience.

When I finally finished my training, she went over my review with me in detail and said the only area she was concerned about was my map reading and routing, but she said she was not going to fail me on it, just for me to continue working on it, which I have during my home time. We filled out my review in great detail, discussing every element and how I felt I had done, and we filled out that I had passed everything and she was releasing me to co-driver status, but I made the mistake of getting off the truck without my signed copy. When hubby and I called in after our 6 days of home time to get our truck assignment and get going, we were informed that my second trainer had failed me and that I would be required to go out for an additional 2 weeks with yet another trainer. She told them that I could not find road signs on secondary roads! I NEVER missed a sign on a secondary road or made a wrong turn, (the few she let me drive on with her sitting with me), but she did twice during deliveries and we had to backtrack. She said several things on her evaluation (the one I obviously did not see when I got off the truck!) that were total falsehoods. I tried to tell management that, but they said they had to go with what she said, and since I didn’t get my copy, I have no proof that I actually passed. The only explanation I can come up with for her lying on this is that she knows my husband and I were very excited about working together, and she and her husband no longer do, so maybe that is it. I just don't understand it.

So at this point, after going through over 4 weeks of total hell with these 2 trainers, I have given up. I told CRST that based on the past 2 trainers, I have no comfort level whatsoever that who they would send me out with on the third time would treat me with any level of dignity whatsoever or not lie as the second one did. I'm not asking to become best buddies with someone and have "Oprah moments," but I simply don't expect to be verbally abused and be forced to deal with extreme hostility in a small cab for 2 weeks and especially not to put in all that work only to be failed because of outright lies. I can learn nothing with someone standing behind me while I'm driving literally screaming and cussing at me and throwing things, especially when it does not relate to my driving or safety whatsoever. I told them I would not go through it again and gave them my resignation, which I know means the end of my driving career and our hopes of driving together, but the experience was so horrible that I would rather give it up then try it again. What is ultimately unfair is that I have talked with other students who passed training and were not even taught routing (her main issue with me). I am required to go back for 2 weeks to relearn routing with someone else (who will inevitably have yet another system for doing it) when other people weren't even taught it the first time and are now out driving.

I apologize this is so long, but believe me, this is the condensed version. I just had to warn other people considering CRST that their training program is a total joke. My husband's experience, though not as severe as mine, is similar. I have yet to hear of one good training experience with them, though there has to be some I would think. I’ve talked to many other people in my circumstance at the Cedar Rapids hotel and at terminals, and of all the people I spoke with I have encountered one person who seemed like a decent trainer for them. I even overheard one trainer tell his student that he HAD TO sleep in the top sleeper bunk when the truck was moving, not the trainer’s bottom bunk! And the biggest lesson I learned is if you get a passing review from your trainer in writing as I did, be sure and get a copy before exiting the truck or you will have no proof if they backstab you as mine did. Had I gotten my copy I would be out co-driving with my husband right now instead of looking for another job.

 

Fireball - My husband drove for several years, but that was several years ago, and he had let his CDL lapse, so he had to start from scratch on all this and go through training himself. When all this came up, he practically begged CRST to just let him take me on out and finish the areas of training that the second trainer said I still needed work on. Nothing she said was an actual driving or safety issue so it seemed just so obvious that my husband could teach me what she says I still need, but they said that while not a safety issue, it is a "training issue" and kept insisting I have to go back out with someone else. It just seems so ridiculous that they have a safe husband and wife team ready to go, begging to get to work, and telling them the stories I have about my training, and yet they won't budge. All I have gotten from CRST when I have talked to them about my experiences with their trainers is "We're sorry to hear that."
What is silly is that people with as little as 6 months of experience (I've heard reports of as little as 2 months) can become trainers for CRST. Even though my husband has over 7 years of expereince (more than both my trainers combined), they won't let him finish these 2 weeks of training with me now, but in a few months if he takes their day and a half trainers class, he could. So he's trying to find someone to team with for awhile, but that in itself has turned out to be tough. Everyone they gave him phone numbers to call either doesn't return his calls, has just a few months of experience (he was okay with me being new but not a stranger), or, like the one he called yesterday, is so disgusted with CRST themselves that they are not going back with them. We've been trying all week to speak with the student program director, have left multiple messages, and he won't seem to return our calls. It just seems as though when my first trainer told me that "management never believes anything students say about their trainers" that for once she was telling me the truth.

 

Tim - Thank you, thank you for your gracious offer. That is so kind of you, but at this point my husband and I have both found local jobs, and we've depleted all our funds trying to make this trucking experience work for us and have to get to work now with what we have in our hands. Hubby got a job with a local trucking company so he'll be home every weekend and often during the week, and I got a decent job at a veterinarian's office. We were blessed to be able to both get decent jobs within a week. It's not what we intended to do, but they always say if you want to make God laugh, just make plans. He obviously has something else in mind for us than team driving, so we're just going to make the best of what has happened and go on. We left CRST on good terms with them saying we were welcome back anytime I want to complete the 2 additional weeks of training, but I just don't see that happening. I'm literally still having nightmares from the first 2 times with trainers. But thank you again for your offer of help.