Pinellas Technical College

I have been in contact with J&R Schugel, they have me set up to go to New Ulm on July 24th .. of course nothing is set in stone until you are assigned a truck. I have a small blemish on my MVR, I have an at fault rear-end accident from March of 2016. The road was wet and I hydroplaned into the back of another vehicle and got a careless driving ticket out of it ... so that narrows my choices. I talked with the recruiter and was honest with her and she said they can work with that. I also have spoken to Trans Am, have them as a backup plan in case Schugel does not work out. Have an app in with Southern Refrigerated Transport, have yet to hear from them though. Apparently Schugel is recruiting hard here in Florida and the Southeast for not only drivers but for customers too. Hopefully it all works out with them.

From my list you can probably guess I will want to do reefer, but I am open to doing dry van too.

 

J&R Schugel has a mixture of automatics and 10-speed manual and all of their trucks are APU equipped. They have DirecTV available, however the driver pays for it. Not to bad though, $60 per month and includes the same package TransAM offers, TV included with DVR + HBO and NFL Package. They will install a fridge and inverter for free, however you are responsible for purchasing the equipment. The DirecTV is not a big deal but I will want a fridge and inverter as I plan to cook and eat in the truck ... truck stop food is expensive and not very healthy. I do plan to have a TV and my PS4 with me for some entertainment, I really do not watch much TV anyway. I can put that $60 for DirecTV into mobile Internet and watch stuff on Amazon Prime or my Firestick.

 

Very quick update while on break. I passed my pretrip test. I missed two things. I did not cover the break when I did my safe start and I did not check my horns ... LOL .. but I passed. Sadly my classmate did not, he has a retake on Thursday. I will be back later with a full recap of the day.

 

Turned it in this morning, did not hear anything about it when I left for the day. Pretty sure they were busy in the office today, their secretary called out sick so they were doing thier jobs and hers. Sure I will know something about that tomorrow.

 

This morning I woke up with a weird vibe .... I was just "off". I am sure most of it was nerves due to my Pre-Trip Inspection Test. I got my truck started up and coupled and then assisted my classmate with his at the request of Mary & Laura. He ended up dragging a rear axle around the track .... it was locked up tight. It was on a range truck that had been sitting in this subtropical climate ... the moisture locked up the brakes on that axle. Laura came out and rocked it back and forth and it broke free.

After we got him coupled it was time for his Pre-Trip Inspection ... he was first. While he was doing Pre-Trip I figured I would work on my backing skills .... BIG MISTAKE. Our track doubles as a test site for several departments around the school district and for third party tests the school books. There were two tests going on and all I could really do is drive in a circle and shift .... BORING. So I parked and went inside to study the Pre-Trip until my turn. Finally it was my turn ... Mary was my tester and she asked me to go wait for her by the truck .... so I wait and wait and wait some more ... close to 15 minutes. Finally I give up and go back inside because it was HUMID and I was sweating hard. She finally comes ... apparantly she answered the phone and got stuck answering 100 questions for a prospective student. So she reads the instructions and we begin. I got the engine compartment, coupling area and in-cab. As I stated earlier I passed. So after my test it was time for our break. After break I thought finally I get to do some backing ... WRONG ... another #### test. When they do these tests they take over our backing areas and basically put us in a holding pattern. 30 minutes pass and we are finally able to do some backing .... the only back I was able to do successfully was driver side offset. Parallel, blind side offset and alley dock was all off ... I just could not do them today. Laura promised me a full day of backing tomorrow ... so I am hoping she keeps her promise.