Rookies MUST READ: The nightmare that was supposed to be a step up the career ladder

the Safety personnel at Werner.

everyone keeps saying I did wrong by leaving werner before I 100% had the job with Knight. I don't understand this.

All of my life it's been, if you get an offer of employment, you give your boss a notice. Usually 2 weeks is respectable, some give a week, some give 3 weeks, some give a month. You work your last day and then you go to your new job's orientation the following day or the beginning of the next week.

And I've never once had a problem doing it this way in my entire life, until this happened. I've never had an offer of employment rescinded like this.


I was in the process of driving/moving from St. Louis to Denver to be at orientation for Knight in Aurora the following Monday.

I was in Western, KS when I get a phone call telling me there's a problem.


so I'm not sure what this talk about "not leaving Werner before I 100% had the job with Knight" is all about. I thought when you offered someone a job, that the only thing contingent left was your road test and drug test and passing a DOT physical?

I've had job offers in the past, and when I was offered a job, all this petty nonsense about background checks, and mvr's and dac report's was already done before any offer of employment was ever made. Because Werner isn't the only driving job I've ever had. I worked for Iron Mountain driving a 26' box truck (under 26,000 lbs GVWR), and when I showed up for orientation, all this nonsense was already done before I got there.

That's the way it was when I was a courier for a courier service.

That's the way it was when I delivered pizza.

Don't have any attitude at all.

They are teaming me up with a veteran driver lots of experience before he got on at FedEx and 3 years with FedEx, so hopefully I will get some decent instruction. I've been reading the crap out of my CDL manual though. Gotta take turns slower, merge lanes gradually and not suddenly, easier to tip over doubles and triples than it is a van. Increased following distance in inclement weather, even more so than a van trailer. But I'm pretty confident, (but not ####y), that I will learn. But I am gonna be pretty cautious.

I've taken responsibility for what I need to.

I'm not saying damage to a truck shoudn't be a factor in a hiring process, but I think there should be discernible differences in the severity of the incident or accident and how its categorized.

someone who dented a fairing, got a tandem stuck in some mud in their first 60 days of being solo is significantly a lower risk than someone who ran a red light and broad sided someone or rolled a truck. Also the amount of experience should be a factor, at what point in their career did it happen.

Should be categories of severity.

Incidentals
Preventables
Accident

let's call a spade a spade, and a rake a rake. denting a fairing and having a stuck tire in the mud, do not make you a reckless driver.

giving someone a murder punishment, for minor damage is not befitting of the crime. A hood, and a fairing dont constitute major damage or even moderate damage.

But that's the way it is right now in the trucking industry, and I don't think its right, nor do I agree with it, but thats just my opinion. All accidents/preventables whatever they're called/considered are not equal.

that's what I'm getting at here. and most of you seem to be missing the point. but by your replies, you'd think I ran my semi into a school bus full of kids and dismembered half of them, while I was loaded up on a drinking binge, while snorting cocaine or something.

there's plenty of other rookies out there who have done FAR WORSE than anything I have done. And sadly some of them still have jobs. If I didn't care, I wouldn't still be trying. I'd have de facto'd off to somewhere else and given up by now.


and not only that, but for an industry that whines like a mule that they're short 35,000 drivers with a growing expectation of being short 240,000 by 2040, beggars shouldn't be choosers...especially when it comes to grievances of a lesser nature.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/02/usa-trucks-driver-shortage-idUSL2N0RO18P20141002