Prime not so good exerence.

All it wouldve taken is 1 message, or a walk. You did neither.

 

Not hard to figure out... 1 message to your FM, or a walk up to dispatch. Obviously you dont read much on here.... Im in Ga now.

 

Then keep squawking. Something that big happens around the yard, everyone hears about it.

 

You are right, it is obvious, but I think he means well. There's nothing wrong with trying to defend the company you work for. But the one message or walk to dispatch deal is laughable. I mean, it could be that easy, and it could work. And you could also hit the lottery too. Thats just not how things generally work at Prime. Think of it this way. You have a problem or do something wrong out on the road and get a citation. You decide to go to court and fight. Now its you and the officer. Your word against his. Who do you think the judge will believe? Probably the officer about 99.9% of the time. Thats how things generally work at Prime.

But the thing is, thats how things should work. Personally? I would believe the officer 99.9% of the time too. And its the same in your situation. The company is going to side with the guy that already works for them, not the trainee. Its called loyalty. You simply cannot imagine some of the people that try to get hired on here and the stories they tell. I'm not sure the 99.9% figure would be accurate, but its probably not too far off. The problem is generally the trainee, not the trainer. So the company, in addition to being loyal to their employee, they are playing the percentages. If they bet on the trainer, they will be right the vast majority of the time. So the object is to get "in." Once you're hired on you're in good shape. The problem can be in getting there in some cases.

Some of the problems I had while training were unbelievable. Unfathomable. Thats one of the reasons I never said anything. I didn't think anyone would believe me. It was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. But in the end, I survived and got to where I needed to go.

My advice to anyone that may encounter similar problems while training would be to document everything. Take pictures. Pretend you are going to court, because you will likely have to overwhelmingly prove your case. It seems like a shame that things have to be that way, but then again if you work here, thats kind of the way you would want things to be isn't it?

 

You're quite wrong about that. Trainees that bring problems like that to management are taken quite seriously. If their allegations are found to be true, the trainer is gone. I've seen it happen.

If you had "problems" during training, you did no one any favors by keeping it quiet.

 

You've accused me of being wrong before. But thats okay. You simply don't know what I know and I'll leave it at that. Maybe one of these days I'll run into you and I'll explain the position I'm in. Then you can quit accusing me of being wrong.

As for my training experience, you're wrong. I did myself a favor. You could say I did a disservice to the company for not reporting everything that happened, but you would be wrong about that too. Again, you don't know what I know.

And a lot of what I do know? Some things I can share, some I can't. But you probably would just accuse me of being wrong again if I told you in a lot of cases. I am shocked and amazed on a regular basis. Welcome to the world of a big business.

 

I know an instructor who was terminated by Prime for something a trainee accused him of. So when you say that Prime will screw over any trainee who accuses an instructor or trainer of something - I know you're wrong. And I suspect that this won't be the last time you and I disagree on things.

Now if one was going to make some accusations against a trainer, you'd need something to back your charges. You just don't go in, and ruin someone's career without some proof. I'm also going to say that IMO, things like this are somewhat isolated. The OP's charge of someone being drunk and driving a truck certainly is an exception - the numbers from CSA bear this out. But there's something else too - I don't think any of us posting here would hesitate to drop a dime on a driver who was visibly intoxicated. So someone walking (stumbling) around the pad in Springfield "drunk" would have (IMO) a poor chance of making it back to a tractor without being noticed and reported.

First off, the management personalities that the OP and you have mentioned don't tolerate BS very well. In fact, try pulling some of that on them, and see how far you get. Second, the kind of behavior that the OP is trying to say is commonplace here would have us all on the streets. Want to know why? Both Safer and CSA report incidents of DWI drivers - and that affects a carrier's safety rating in a huge way. From increased inspection activity at the coops (aka PrePass red light rate,) to the ability of sales to book freight. Even long term alcoholics can't hide their intoxication very well, or for very long. It catches up. When the OP says a drunk driver was talking to Larsen without there being consequences, I find that very hard to believe. If the driver was intoxicated enough that a trainee knew about it, the management people he would have encountered would have detected it - and would have done something about it... because it affects them too, in their wallet. Just like it does yours.

And there's something else you miss. All it takes is one jerk with alcohol in his/her system to kill someone with one of these trucks, and it could very well be over for Prime. A large enough lawsuit - and that's the end of it. Prime has been in business for quite awhile, and tolerating that sort of behavior has a way of finishing one of these companies as well. As for me... don't accuse me of being naive about "big business." I've worked for some of the largest, and the crap that goes on is rampant. I have no illusions about how low people will go to throw you under the bus to advance their own interests. And I don't have much use for people who don't have the moral fiber to do what's right.