newbie needs help finding worthwhile company in PA

ok last year i went to a CDL school payed by U.S.A.. gradjuated,, got on a U.S.A traner truck and the trainer tryed to rush me through couse he was going on vacation in 1 week and i was suposed to be with him 2 weeks.. no prob got to a terminal and waited a week for another traner.. got 1 finaly a good 1.. got to next step "team driving trainer" 1 week in to that he had to drop me at a terminal and return home for a week to deal with death in the family.. picked me back up when he was done... a day or 2 before i was suposed to go to a terminal to "test out" to get my own truck i developed a bad absessed tooth... pain was so bad i couldent sleep so i had to go home to go to the dentist... and while i was wating for my dentist apointment i find out U.S.A decided to fire me cous i was in traning too long... 2 extra weeks because of things i had no controol over.... at this point its geting real close to winter so i figure i'll wait out the bad weather before i go back on the road... after all i got 1 month experiance and dont want to risk my live nor everyone around me being a inexperianced driver in bad winter weather...

so i spend 2 months trying to find some BS minnimum wage job to get the bills payed to no avail.. finaly i get a job delivering pizzas.. at this point my credit cards are all 4 months behind and proly gona go to collections..

now its about mid way through febuary and it looks like the rest of the winter is going to be uneventfull and the wether is becoming plesant..

so i get the itch.. i realy cant stand any job that doesnt involve driving now that ive had the experiance and i need the money in a bad way.. so i decide to check some prospects earlyier than i planned... the USXpress website paints a verry prety picture of the company but i think to my self U.S.A promised new trucks to tranees and all the tranees i knew ended up in 400k mile P.O.S beater rigs so i wonder what USXpress is lying about...
so i find this website and promptly find a thread that brutaly thrashes USXpress.. now im left wondering should i try for them even tho there forcing solo's to team (i realy cant stand team driving and find it hard to sleep while the truck is moving)

and im wondering what company is there that is hiring new drivers, has quality equipment, i live in johnstown PA and am willing to do OTR i can slip shift like a pro but am more comfertable in an automatic and am better with GPS than a map aneyone got any advice?

 

well was exagerating a bit on age and quality of the trucks.. some of the trucks asighned to new drivers are good.. but ive seen a few that are a pain as far as quality of ride/driving. best example is me and my trainer had to go to a truck stop and pick up a rig that was abandoned by its driver when he quit.. i got to drive the rig back to the terminal solo wich was quite fun as far as being first time in a rig by my self... the down side is it would not slip shift at all.. i had to double clutch it the whole time and quite frankly i suck at double clutching.. but i learned how to slip shift quickly and easily.. with in 1 day of being shown how i had it down...

im not the complainer type.. in general i put up with more BS than most ppl i know.. i just dont wana get stuck with a truck that cant slip shift.. but that would probibly change if i become proficiant in double clutching...(ive yet to actualy meet a experianced driver who double clutches at all and most ive talked to have as mutch trouble with it as me..

and the more i think about it the more i want to go back to usa truck despite all the complaints ive heard and read about them.. i dont want to be the 1 that falls through the cracks because of bad circumstances and a bad tooth at the wrong time.

and about the map V.S. GPS thing.. i know how to read a map.. just not as proficiant or quick with it as someone that has been doing it fo years.. and i know the downsides of gps .. most dont know what a 1 way street is.. maps can be inacurate in certain areas, some maps for them arnt updated quickly and acuratly, unless you got a good one it will try to route you down a slower speed limit road even if ist just a slightly shorter distance than the road with a faster speed limit (car gps) i rely on my car gps for delivering pizzas and it can be dead on acurate at times and other times its off by a block or tells you you're destination is on the wrong side of the street.. so i know the gps isnt as good as gaosple and shouldent be relyed on too heavily... but its a good tool to point you in the right direction and keep you on track as long as you have the atlas to back it up and are aware that sometimes when it sais "turn now" the actual turn is still down the road a little..

you need a good one with 1 ways, low clearances, waypoints, fule stops, ect.. i allready have a trucker GPS unit and software for my pc (pc version is better for trip planing) and wouldnt use it exclusivly.. i would use it to help plan out the trip in congunction with a trucker atlas,, program in fule stops,meals, exetra.. but i would allways double check with the atlas to insure its the fastest safest route..(i dont wana be one of the pore smucks that runs there rig in to a low clearance bridge and tells the cop "my gps told me to") at that point the gps would just be a navigater helping to ensurte i dont miss turns afterall its prety tough to try to turn around in a big rig most places... a gps is just a tool but if you rely on it too mutch and dont have aneything else to fallback on you end up being the tool..

anywase i wont be able to do anything untill thursday when i dont have to go to work untill 4pm so i figure my best shot is to call up usa talk to the head of the traning department and see if he can help me out.. and i plan to emphasise the fact that i dont like changing jobs/companies and having a relyable driver who isnt gona up and quit over somthing little or alot of something littles had got to be a big thing in an industry with sutch a high turn over rate.

i will be a driver.. i wil not give up... i wil not fail... there are verry few companies i would never work for and i realy would prefer going back to USA...

 

quick update.. USA curently not taking rehires (though they are putting a few compleetly new ppl through traning school) so there not an option for atleast a few months when the economy picks up and even then i would have to take a "refresher chorus" to satisfy there requirments..

ive been off the road for 5 months now and im hoping not everyone would make me take a refresher chorus.. driving is like riding a bike once you learn you never forget.
im hoping i can find a company that will just put me with a traner for a while afterall all the refresher chorus is is going back to the traning school and redoing the program wich is desighned to teach drivers just enough to pass the lisance test.. "you learn how to drive a truck at school and you learn how to be a truck driver on the road"

the only other option i can think of would be to find a owner operator with an empty truck that would be willing to put me in it (probibly verry unlikly considering my lack of experiance)

in the mean time im gona keep aplying to every company i can think of hoping that one of em is hiring... corect me if im wrong but i think refrigerated carriers are probibly about the only ones hiring right now (because they mostly haul food products and everyone needs to eat just as mutch nomatter what the condition of the econnomy is)
so i got an ap in with CR england..

if aneyone knows of a company that is hiring could you tell me? would make it a lil easier for me..