Mentorship

What you are experiencing is not very unusual. You should just keep going. I did 8 weeks of training at my first company. It is hard. Expectations are able to cause problems when you are starting something new and it doesn't go as you were planning or were told. Trucking is not an assembly line where things run smoothly. Trucking is the interface between spreadsheet wishes and traffic jam realities. If you go to another company will you will get no credit for your training time and start over and repeat all of it. The goal is a good job, not the shortest training period. You are not doing the company a favor by finishing the training. You are doing yourself a favor by completing the training, getting a solo truck, and making money. DO NOT be tempted to give the company an ultimatum, you have no leverage, they've heard every speech before.

"When you are going through He11, keep going." - Winston Churchill

 

If you don't do THOROUGH research and talk to current working drivers at a trucking company you will not know what you are walking into. MOST newbies do nothing but briefly look at a company web site before making a choice. The goal is a good stable job, not easy path to the solo truck. It's like focusing on a perfect wedding ceremony, but spending 1 minute deciding about the spouse. Focus on the end goal, not the present situation.

 

Oh trust me, I'm doing my research as best I can. I'm calling recruiters but I'm also finding drivers for those companies and talking to them. I'm on here looking and watching threads. I've been lurking in the bad companies channel and just reading threads that catch my eye.ive been looking up videos with the companies names im looking into
I'm also not afraid to ask.in here if things don't sound right.

 

Mt employer is ending me through CDL school right now. We have a local driver that is a real good judge of character. He takes out most of the ride-a-longs, plus they have him give orientation on drivers we hire from the outside. We had a new hire come in, and within a day he knew it won't work. He had words with the manager, made comments on paperwork, etc. Guy turned out to be a total buffoon.

 

It sounds like you are doing good research. IMO, you are wasting time with recruiters, they are used car salesmen. There may be some good ones, but they are paid to get you behind the wheel and most of their answers are "I don't know, I'll have to find out", and they forget to find out or "forget" to report the answer they know because you won't like the answer. I always think of a scene from an old movie Private Benjamin. A ditzy, pampered woman talks to an Army recruiter about joining the Army and the recruiter tells her she can sleep late and have weekends off. Somehow her drill instructor doesn't have the same idea about her soft schedule as her recruiter. The recruiter's job is get her to sign the paperwork and get on the bus. The D.I.'s job is to make her army strong. You will get what the company gives, whether the recruiter was honest or complete in the answers or not. That's why I value the descriptions of the current working drivers on the type of account for which you will be working. Yes, if you rely on the drivers the company sends your way you will hear the company side of the situation. So it pays to find those drivers through other means. Online info is easier than driving to a company yard or trucks top, but online info can be outdated, only some people can detect the signals that the info is inflated or deflated because the source hasn't had one happy day in his life or his unreal expectations were not met.

I was so lucky. My dad got back into trucking after being a corporate supervisor for years. He is a people person and judge of character, that was his corporate job. For a 5 year stretch, he was reentering trucking and getting fresh experience, then a family member followed dad's path, exactly, and I later followed the family member's path exactly. Then dad would find a sweet gig at another company and the pattern repeated. I was getting the view of a veteran, and almost a carbon copy of me before I "took a step into the unknown." Before I even wanted to think about trucking I was learning what to look for, what to ignore, and then how that info from the vet was working in real life and only then risking my neck. That's what motivates me to provide that same reliability and insight, like an experienced hunting guide, for the newbies that naturally focus on the shiny gimmick and that know trucking from movies and TV cartoons with no relation to real life. Even if you do everything exactly right you will probably be shocked about how little info you are given, that you need but have to ask for, so you can do this job. I describe it, as you get an appointment time and address (sometimes those are wrong) for both ends of the trip, a trailer number, and are told to hurry up. It seems like they forgot to tell you the 20 other details that "everybody knows" for this trip so your first few trips and your first trip to new customers is "sporty". Don't assume anything you were told is accurate and reliable until you've seen if it is. Online map and address searches are a huge improvement, but each is also only correct SOMETIMES. Same for GPS. It's awesome, SOMETIMES, and seems to be working against you on occasion.

Be nice to everyone, get phone numbers of your company trainer and use him as a resource when you are solo. Use phone numbers of other company drivers to ask questions about customers and things you may not know it is safe to ask the company about. One driver I know newish to HazMat asked other company drivers if customer A required unloading drivers to wear all of the HazMat gear during unloading or not. Other drivers will give you info if the company shop is useful, way behind, or just putting duct tape over issues to preserve schedules.

Being new you likely will be eager and earnest and just trained on the regs and being legal. Use that to your advantage to develop habits that could be in a safety film. The longer you can delay being cool and comfortable with safety shortcuts the better for everyone. Better for everyone to think you are happy and naïve or not smart enough to cheat and get away with things, so you aren't asked to cheat, than to have a fiery Norma Rae speech every time someone hints at something minor near the borderline of legal. I would tell company and people in advance "it sure is nice to work for a company trying to do everything legal. My buddy works at another place and all they do is ask him to cheat this way and that. It means a lot I won't be asked to work like that." You say that a few times BEFORE anyone asks you to cheat and you'll avoid some of the bad situations and quickly learn what kind of company you work for. Use being new, how important it is that trucking help you turn your life around, you are eager but maybe not smart enough to cheat successfully but plenty smart enough to deliver freight legally (most people look at truck drivers, because of movies and TV, as low IQ). You will probably get low paying, high hassle loads, you are eager nice and not super smart in their mind, so don't grumble too much. Talk to other company drivers about how do you deal with this load. Their tips and tricks may ease the problems with those loads. Once the company sees you pull your weight and aren't a prima donna expecting the best all day every day you will get regular loads. Your reliability and not complaining excessively gets you better trips more often and soon you become the problem solver and can get good runs until you solve more problems. NEVER EVER rat out another driver, report what he said or treat his word as gospel truth. Everybody has a bad day and their life is their life. Don't get involved in anyone's problems and don't bring problems to people just to vent. It's an adventure, doing a good job is very satisfying. Ask questions.

 

There’s 2 forms of training. One would be the way of having the student ride along with a strong veteran, like @gentleroger . The other is the Dumb and Dumber program, where the student gets out of a trainer truck, runs solo for 3-6 months, qualifies as a new trainer, and suddenly has students on the truck.

The company may adjust the training schedule according to the experience of the trainer. I may be wrong, but since this is your trainer’s first attempt at training, you may be in a Dumb and Dumber program.

DONT LEAVE. Leaving now would have you starting the exact same process all over again at another training company. If you stay and complete your current program, you’ll never have to do it again, unless you quit driving for 3+years.

EDIT: Regardless of what any recruiter at any other company tells you, the people who make these decisions are the insurance people, even if the company is self insured. So you can get a sunshine in the arse injection from a recruiter, jump ship to another company, and suddenly find yourself in another training truck. That’s why I advise you finish your training time, get issued a truck, run solo and never have to do the whole trainer truck circus again.

 

It sounds like the company you are currently with calls their trainers "mentors". I would consider THIS to be a "red flag"; being a "mentor" is NOT a business proposition. Also, it sounds like they are "jerking your chain" so that your TRAINER gets to make more money while using you as a cut-rate co-driver. You never got a contract explicitly telling you how long your TRAINING would be? Sounds like they are using you.....

 

Sometimes your only option is to plan your time to go through it.

 

There is NO escape........