R and D's big adventure at Knight Transportation. Wait, really? Yes Knight!

That's right folks. The ex comes off, I'm a trucker again. The wife and I start orientation at Knight transportation on Tuesday.

They where not the only job offer we had, but they had the best pay offer at 42cpm. Next closest offer we had was 34cpm. She's going to have to go with a trainer first for a few weeks because she doesn't have enough experience. She actually prefers that to having to go solo OTR which if she wanted to skip the training she would have to do for 90 days at Central. Soon as she's done with the training we'll be a team and make 42cpm split. Until then I'll run a few weeks solo. I'll do my best to update this thread and provide an objective look at both the good and the bad of the experience.

Maybe I can even get the wife to post once in a while.

 

Wife gets home Saturday night. It's been 7 weeks since we've seen each other.

If I don't post for a few days I hope everyone understands why.

 

Off to our first day of orientation.

Hi, ho, hi, ho, off to work we go.

 

Just like in the Pride thread when I was with them I'll try and post runs, miles, and some weekly pay info once in a while. Hopefully that will give you some ammo with the wifey

Made it thru day 1 just fine. Dot physical and work well stuff. There is only one other guy besides me and the wife so we got done early today. Tomorrow is all the classroom and prehire stuff.

 

Did our road tests first thing this morning, took it in a 9sp volvo and it went nice and smooth.

Good news from today: Night has fixed the problem of getting reimbursed for scales. They have switched to TCH cards and now you can pay for the scale with your TCH.

 

Well Friday has come and gone and no driver codes for me and the wife. Told that their clearing house hasn't finished our background work. Now I can buy that for my wife since she's new to the company. For me however it's utter B.S., I've only had one employer since my last stint with Knight and I handed them a two day old DAC report with that employer's info in it.

When we agreed to go to Knight it was based on what we where told. Silly me for listening to a recruiter. First thing that was dangled out in front of us was that I might be able to be my wife's trainer. I smelled a high bull factored right off on that one so I figured that that was going to be a no go. I was right.

Now we where told that my wife would absolutely not have to do any solo driving. That if she had to go out with a trainer that when she was done with the trainer we would be able to team. Well today she was told while on the way to the DMV to have her long form scanned(mine was scanned earlier because I didn't have a current medical and needed it before I could test drive) that She was going to be a squire for 90 days no matter what and would have to drive solo once done with a trainer till that ninety days is up.

Here's my take on why this is happening. The recruiter wasn't feeding us a line of bull on her not having to do any solo. The problem is the driver development manager in the Tulare office as much as told me today that if it would have been his choice I wouldn't be rehired. I believe he is the roadblock and is insisting on my wife having to do the entire Squire program including the solo despite her having just completed training at another company. I have been in contact with the recruiter about this today and he has gone over the driver development managers head to the regional safety manager to try and get a modified training for my wife approved.

This may be a day late and a dollar short. We got out of Knight at 3pm and went back over to the other company we had a job offer from. They where still interested and we filled out apps on the spot and then went and took drug tests. They said they would call us as soon as the drug test came back and have us come in for test drives. As far as I'm concerned at this point Knight is on hold, If the smaller company gives us a job we will take it for less money just to avoid the kind of stuff we had to deal with today.

 

Yep and the frustrating part is that at it's core Knight has a business model and operating philosophy that give it every possibility of being a place where drivers could be happy. In keeping with the medieval theme, it would seem that the minor nobility and royalty are to focused on exerting control over their holdings and enforcing their power of rule that they can't apply logic, reasoning, and simple human compassion to allow tranquility and serenity to prevail in the kingdom.