My Prime Experience Diary

milskired, congrats on your pre hire, i have been with prime since late may and so far have 41000 miles completed in my training(just 19000 more to go.) luckily my trainer and I get along great and i have learned a lot about the life of trucking hope you can sleep in a moving truck that is the toughest thing I have to deal with other than being away from the fam. cant wait to finish and get assigned my own truck.lots of luck in your career with prime

 

Good luck Milskired! Prime sometimes takes a beating here on the forum (though not as severe as the beating Swift gets) but there are some really good members of this board that drive for Prime. My money's on the odds that Prime is about to get another good driver!

 

Welcome aboard!!! Best advice I can give you is just to keep a good attitude, I'd be lying if I said I liked Prime 100% of the time, but honestly, the good outweighs the bad, so focus on the good, keep a good attitude, and you'll do great!

 

What he said.

 

Your not being trained. Your being used as a pack mule to line your trainer's pocket with cash.

If your trainer was serious about training you, or cared about training you... He would be sitting in that passenger seat instructing you about hazards, conditions, pointing things out that you need to be observant of, & so one. He will do that day in & day out until you were properly trained. All the driving would be on you!

Now that is what is wrong with the industry today... To many trainee's training trainee's. Perhaps if these people begin to be trained properly, then possibly we will see a change in the industry..... But that change will never come as long as you coward down & accept becoming a pack mule.

 

This shows how little you know about our training.(and I am not talking about CDL instruction as the Instructor IS sitting next to the student at all times). We are talking about 50-60k miles for just the training phase.

If I pick up a Prime graduate for training, the guy has already had 4 to 5 weeks with a Prime instructor doing exactly what you described... Seeing and participating in the truck's activities and following Primes procedures.

However I don't immediately trust the guy... There is a breaking in period. My Fleet Manager doesn't run us full boar until I say that I am comfortable to do so... Where my trainee requires less supervision and I can get more rest.

I am up with my trainees quite a bit... Especially at shippers, receivers and new road terrain that he hasn't experienced. But it becomes less and less as we get thru the required miles.

Do I need to sit up with him running across Nebraska? No. But the first time he heads up I76 West of Denver, or down Cabbage Hill Im right there.

I'm almost 40k in with my current guy and he is now doing pickups and deliveries on his own when it falls on his shift. I still check his work and he knows he can wake me with ANY question at any time.

So I awake this morning to the truck sitting in the dock waiting to be unloaded. My trainee has already filled out and organized the paperwork we will scan for this trip. He's already found and planned routing to two trailer washout facilities (depending on which direction we are dispatched) and decided on which truck stop we will park at if we have to wait for our next dispatch.

60k is a lot of miles... I did it and it still doesn't prepare you for absolutely every situation. However, you do see a quite a bit... Enough to give you a set of skills and a mental tool box to better cope with that unfamiliar situation and even better, know who to call within the company to get help or advice.

 

I only take one or two trainees a year

Yes, I do make more money. There are a couple more advantages. The millage counts towards the various pay raise and vacation markers... so it speeds up the process a bit.

It breaks up the ho hum of being solo. More trips out West. Different freight parameters etc.

My current trainee has never strayed far from Baltimore/DC area in his life... so its been kinda of fun riding with a fresh pair of eyes fascinated with things I see on a regular basis.

He gets his paycheck, however its not uncommon for me to pick up his check at a restaurant or at the counter when he is buying snacks or sodas.

He has noted that I eat my way across America. In n Out in CA, The Big Texan in Amarillo, Sonny's in the South, Lambert's near the Springfield terminal, Five Guys next to Sadler's in VA and so on.

He has a vested intrest in seeing the truck run well. He's got his 600 a week, butin addition makes .12 per mile for every mile over 5k that week, a quarter share of the fuel bonus, and we split the stop pay.

We had a 24 hour wait on a meat load... I got a nice deal on a Holiday Inn room and got double beds... I covered the cost myself.

So, while training is pretty lucrative pay wise... I do have a reponsibility to train the guy right... I have to sleep at some point, that means I have to trust the guy can drive without killing one or both of us.