Starting the Squire Program 10/10/14

alright, so I made it home safely after about a 19 hour bus trip. I really do appreciate Knight for giving me a chance to come home and see the family rather than busing me to Atlanta, putting me in a Hotel and just waiting around the terminal for a trainer.

So I was told I should have a trainer by no later than Monday probably. This gives me about 4 days home. Than I will be out until after my CDL test on the 11th of next month. Than I will be sent home for about another 4 days than come back on the following Monday for orientation and my final week of training!!!! After that I will test out for my own truck. Things are going great and after talking with the SE regional manager for the Squire program, I am really happy I chose Knight. We were talking about some of the info that has been coming down the chain and there are some HUGE things coming up with Knight in the future!!!

 

From what I was told truck choice is dependent on your home terminal where you will get it assigned out of. Some will let you know what they have and see what your preference would be while others will just throw you the keys.

As for training and going solo, after you are done your mandatory 4 weeks training, you go back to your terminal to "test out" for your own truck. As long as your trainer agrees that 4 weeks is enough and your ready, you will head back to the terminal.

You than just show that you are good and confident in your backing, drop and hook and those kid of skills, than they will assign you a truck for your solo probationary miles. Through the Squire program right now they are in the midst of changing how many miles you have to do as a "probationary" period. Right now it is 30k miles (roughly 90 days). they have to be SAFE miles with no incidents at all (to include late deliveries and any issues that you cause too). If you can continue SAFE miles, than at your 15k mile mark they are starting to release drivers out of the Squire program and allow them to become a full Knight driver.

What does this mean? it means that your sliding pay scale now goes from the (recently increased ) 32-41 CPM to a 35-43 CPM pay bump. You will than be assigned a Knight dispatcher instead of a training/Squire Dispatcher/DM.

 

Hope your ready man, because from what I hear the two days or so before the test all they do is give you a truck at your home terminal and send you to a spot in the yard to practice and you are on your own. Hope you got enough road time. Good luck.

 

Wow so your so confident that you are going to go 11 days and not even practice, you have more balls than me my friend! In Atlanta they have us report to the terminal 2 days prior to practice our maneuvers so we do not screw up the day of our test. Also don't forget to make sure that you have your pre trip completed PRIOR to going out there to test out for your test. The other 2 guys from the class before us that left on Tuesday and test on Wednesday ended up not testing because they did not complete their pre trip prior to their road test.

 

if you had issues with having confidence to where you are thinking you might do something unsafe or hit a curb, you should have brought that up before you left man.

 

well the infamous wait for a trainer continues. Going on Day 4 with no word yet. I am going to call in tomorrow to find out what is going on. I see so far the only thing that is lacking besides the amount of trainers is communication. If I was going to be sitting at home for awhile, I wish they would have told me that and not just "should be any day that we have a trainer for you."

When I called in Friday I was told I should hear something by end of business, and that did not happen. I was on the Facebook groups with other drivers from Knight and some trainers have stated that their students they were able to pick up were waiting up to about 1 1/2 months. I really hope this is not the issue!