Short Mentor/Training Programs

Watkins Shepard is 10 days orientation/training. You do train but you go back to your hotel every day. Kinda like CDL school cause there are other drivers in the truck as well. The 10 days is also orientation so you don't drive all 10 days. It's a lot of stuff in 10 days but if you have drove some before it will be perfect for you. When done you get the keys. There is a terminal in Fontana, CA not sure how those guys run but it's worth checking out. Schneider does own Watkins Shepard but they operate separately as 2 different companies. As far as hiring goes as of last week Watkins still does it own hiring and orientations as well. Any questions let me know. I been with Watkins for about 14 months now and love it here.

 

Training is not really about training. New drivers get kinda screwed I think. It's really a miles game to make money. Companies don't or can invest the money to actually train a new driver because so many quiet. I just the nature of the trucking business I guess. People never think about how their is no training freight. It solo or team runs and if you put two driver on a solo run, someone is losing money on that. So companies are forced to run trainers as teams. Now you have the time problem. Because the customer expect to get team service.

 

I think starting is .32 or .33 a mile. But you get a raise at 3 month, 6 months and a year. By the year you will be at .39 a mile. 6 months is .37 I think. You do get paid extra for stops, that's really where the money is if you can stay on those. We do have to tailgate the furniture freight but they give you a dolly and it really ain't all that hard. The other freight is no touch. All I run is the LTL furniture stuff because that's where the money is. The equipment is all auto volvos or freightliners 3 years or newer usually. Unless out of the MS terminal we have 10 speed volvos down here. They don't micromanage you at all, I get my load and I never hear a word from em. And as far as me personally I never sit. I always have a load or know where I'm going before I get empty. Different terminals run different stuff so it depends on what terminal you are out of as to what your home time is and what you haul more of.

 

Couldn't handle being with a trainer so you quit.

Didn't like the run so you quit.

I know people like that, always running from one crappy job to the next because they'd rather find and excuse to quit than to make it work. It's not long before no one worth working for will give them a chance due to their job hopping.

If you want to make a career of this industry you need to change that attitude quick or you'll never get hired at a good company.

Good luck growing up.

 

This is what you said in your first post -

"Anyway I had to quit that place too after only a weeks on my own.
The reason was ... the owner was a psychopath! He made me ran from CA to GA and back in a really short period of time."

 

@Chinatown , is this another one of those "tell them only what they want to hear" threads? I've been trying to avoid those posts to keep the peace.

@pattyj , @Ridgeline and @tinytim all said things that he probably doesn't want to hear. Thing is, OP did say, repeatedly, how much he loves trucking. But if that's so, why does he quit a job the first time things don't go his way?

"You're wrong Six, I don't quit the first time things go sour."

You're right. You did wait for the return trip to California. Since you "love trucking" so much, what is your goal? You do understand, don't you, that to reach ANY goal that you can't quit when things get difficult?
Do you just want to drive or do you want to be successful at driving?