My 2 & 1/2 Years with McElroy Truck Lines, Inc.

Well I can only speak for myself when I say that learning how to tarp "efficiently" took me quite a long time. I think the main reason was due to the fact that the whole time I was with my trainer, he HELPED ME. Now that might sound like a good thing, but it really isn't, because when you have a guy telling you what to do AND doing half of the work for you, you tend to not truly absorb the "why's and when's".

Case in point - my trainer would tell me EVERY TIME "Remember, put the back tarp on first". But he never explained why I didn't have a clue what the big deal was LOL! Then about a month after driving solo I picked up a load of lumber and without even thinking, proceeded to tarp the load "front first". It wasn' t until I got a few blocks down the road that I realized that no amount of bungies was going to prevent the wind from peeling that back tarp clean off LOL! Trust me, after having to re-tarp that whole load, I never made that mistake again.

 

Yeah man, I wish I could remember all of the stuff I used to tell my wife when I went solo. I would say "Man, if I EVER become a Trainer, I will be sure and tell the new guy _________". Mostly it's just stupid common sense stuff that with experience you wouldn't even think is important enough to share with someone, but if you are NEW, then you obviously wouldn't already know right?

Like I remember the first time my Trainer said "I'm going into the Truck Stop, YOU fuel the truck and park it". So I pull up to the fuel island and after filling the driver's side tank, I decide to "top it off" like he always said to do. But what I DIDN'T do is look to see the fuel level before I clamped down on the handle, and proceeded to back-wash half a gallon of diesel all over my clothes LOL!

There are litterally a MILLION little stupid pieces of advice that would be easier learned some other way than experience

 

I for one was never a "fan" of the CB myself. It's pretty crucial to have one if you sign on with McElroy, because many shippers and receivers ask you to put it on to a certain channel for instructions, but I carried a hand-held and cut it off most of the time. Too much B.S. from people I didn't care to hear from and HUGE DISTRACTION while trying to park at a Truck Stop for sure!