Questions or comments from the wives of Walmart drivers.

You should make your own account on here. The part on the side where it says how many years as a driver, you put truckers wife! I would like to get my wife on here as well but her world in teaching is so overwhelming with her special Ed students that she just doesn't have the time.

 

Ask and you shall receive.

Gloria here, with her own user name.

 

Hi Gloria. My name is Dee and I am waiting patiently (???) with my DH for his pre-test. It is scheduled for the 1st of October. Fingers crossed he doesn't forget anything on the pre-trip and his road test of flawless. Hopefully I will be a Wally Wife soon!!

 

Nice to meet you Dee!!! If you have any questions, in general, or from a wifes perspective, feel free to ask.

If he wants to feel better about the pre-trip (the hardest part), have him watch youtube videos on complete and correct pre-trips. It will help with identifying little things that they do every day, but don't point out.............. which is what you have to do when pre-tripping for Walmart. He is already a great driver, or he wouldn't have been considered in the first place. For the road test, DO NOT curb a tire, and make sure everything he does is done safely............ including get in and out of the truck. Of course, no speeding. Walmart is all about safety.

I'm sure he will do great. Everyone is nervous when they go, so that is completely natural.

 

Gloria:

Do you know how long it takes after the driver passes the pre-trip & road test before they would start? My husband is concerned with his current employer finding out he is trying to leave. They can be "revengeful" and is really worried about it.

 

Ok Dee, the thing is, all DC's are different. It depends on how long it takes to get all of the verifications in, and when they can arrange for everyone to start orientation.

For us, Buckeye hadn't hired (they did this hiring in 2 batches of 5) in 6 years. They were out of practice, and needed to get the current drivers together that were going to help with the orientation.

My husbands X company was also vindictive. When Walmart faxed over the employment verification, he started getting a bunch of nasty comments from the dispatcher and the owner. He told them that the verification was only preliminary and he didn't even know if he had the job yet. When he knew, then they would know. Short of nasty comments, nothing else happened that hadn't been happening for the last year or more (basically being treated like garbage and his seniority being ignored for a new guy who would run 24/7). He had planned on giving them 2 weeks notice, but based on how they treated him, he gave one.

I would have him talk to human resources and see if his job verification can be the very last thing they do. This may have changed since then, and they may already have it. They want to work with their new hires, as they have already spent a decent amount of money getting to that point. The hiring process has been greatly streamlined since Rick got hired, almost 2 years ago. Buckeye took extra time from the verifications to orientation date due to inexperience and having one guy that they were waiting on who was supposed to move to AZ from TX. After all of the wait, that guy ended up not coming.

Anyway, communication is his friend. They can tell you time frames better than I can at this point. One thing to know about Walmart Transportation is they are very easy to deal with. Nothing your husband can tell them about his current company being vindictive will be a surprise to them, as they have heard it many times. They will work with him the best they can, to cause him the least pain possible.

BTW, all of this is really worth it. This timeframe right now is the most stressful. If his employer starts to get crappy after getting the verification, just tell them that he doesn't have the job yet, and was just keeping his options open. Hopefully that will be enough, as they will probably know how unhappy he is anyway.

Sorry I couldn't be more help. Things have just changed too much in a short period of time, and every DC is different.

 

I know this is the wives of Walmart drivers forum, but thought I could help with DEDriver's question. I'm in that in between stage now. I did the pretrip/roadtest on August 21st. The thing that takes the longest now is the background check. My background check didn't clear until the 15th of September. I got a call from H/R on the 18th asking about my hazmat endorsement. I told him I already had it and faxed a copy over to him. He said they were putting together the last of my package so I'm assuming that orientation is very near. I know there is another guy who is trying to get into the same DC I'm trying for and he got a call from Betonville saying that they can't get a response from a county he lived in and that was holding him up. I don't know if they are going to wait on him to clear or move on. I'm going to call H/R at the DC on Friday to get an update. Hope this helped is some way. Good luck to you guys.

 

Thank you both so much. His pretrip and road test is next week. HOpefully he does okay and he moves onto the background check and such. He really wants this job!

 

The best advice I could give him is just to relax. Haven just gone through it, I was a wreck for weeks leading up to it. But once I got there, it wasn't so much how I did it or anything like that, he simply wanted to know what I knew. He was tough, but once he knew that I had a grasp of what I was doing, the mood lightened. Take your time, don't get in rush, and it'll be over before he knows it!!