Hey guys been reading forums for a couple months and have been mostly unemployed doing side jobs and building sweet gaming rigs and office PCs for cash. Recently decided to go all out and get into trucking as I enjoy the open road and have no issue being by myself. Just arrived in Lewiston Idaho from Boise at around 3pm pst. Swift now uses the red lion hotel here but the room I got was across the parking lot and is not enough energy close to the quality as the main hotel. Still a stepid up from who they previously used. I checked in and got in my rooand so far as of 4:15pm pst I'm alone in here. On one hand I want the room to myself on the other I wouldn't mind a study buddy for all that pretty trip mumbo jumbo. Lil info about me if interested. I'm a dude in my late twenties and have been freelancing worknow most my life and decided it was time I needed a career to achieve the goals I have for myself and the goals I share with my beautiful fiancée. I met my fiance playing the MMORPG world of warcraft. I decided to server transfer and picked Area 52. I joined the first guild I ran into and played for a few days here and there, one day someone in guild chat mentioned she was having a panic attack at the doctors office because the doctoright makes her nervous. Being that I have dealt with anxiety myself I knew how nice it was just to have someone talk to you to help you relax and get back to being chill! I sent her a pm letting her now I too had panic attacks in the past and the best thing to do is tell yourself "hey its just anxiety imy going to be OK it's just anxiety and it's OK it will go away soon." Shirt York after her panics subsided and we became good friends and talked for months everyone we played. Eventually we decided it would be cool to meet up so I drove from idaho down to Texas and we spent a week together. When I got ready to go she grabbed a bag and left with me home to idaho! That's a little brief story for yall. I will try to update this thread every night after CDL school and note my progress and inform of anything exciting happening and whatnot. Just be known if you get stuck in this sub building for red lion its subar. I would not mind if it was actually free but provided I graduate and go solo I'll be paying for it so I'd have preferred the main building myself! Just an addition. This is the school you will go to if you go for swift as a noob from Idaho, Oregon or Washington. Idaho noob
Day 1: Day one started off with a quick roll call and a couple instructors introducing themselves and a quick little chat to the group. After that we were asked where we were from idaho/washington/Oregon. There's one person fro, Oregon and a couple Washington the rest idaho. Reason they ask is because Washington has a more strict pre trip test so they have different packets to study. And Washington has different costs associated with the skills test. The next step was we busted out our drivers licenses and CDL permits and dot physical long form and medical card as well as social security card they did not need birth certificate odly. Early on we were walked to the terminal and had a urine drug test but results take a week to get back or so. No issues here though I know that! 9 of us went in and one gentleman unfortunately was sent home for failing his first test he will be allowed to return and he had good spirits and will return after he studies the book before he comes back on in. After we busted out the tests we we nearly into lunch and swift provided free lunch for day one and day one only. We had little Caesars pizzas. Six of the pizzas if I recall correctly. After lunch we kept working on rewriting our pretrip word for word exactly as they are printed for us. I suspect this isn't just to torture our joints but to help burn it into our brains. This is our homework for the week and is due Monday I believe. We watched a short cheesy video then went into contracts while still working on pretrip rewritting. After contracts were finished we briefly we over logs which for class is all about paper logs because it's good to learn incase we need it as a backup or change companies in the future. Contract: Tuition : $3900 Hotel : $500 Repayment plan is $75 a week for 13 months but what they don't tell you prior to getting here is that hotel makes that $92 a week for 13 months to pay back the $4400 to swift. If you stick around with swift for 26 months they pay you back for the tuition but we were not given specifics on the rate it's paid back or how. Overall day 1 was a test and some paperwork with a bit of bookworm type study. On the shuttle back one of the range instructors made the comment he dislikes people and his entire goal is to make someone cry I found this to not only be extremely unprofessional but insulting. I find that to be a for, of bullying and intimidation and I will absolutely not let it happen without consequences there will be a lengthy email to a several higher ups if this happens to my group and I witness it or it happens to myself. I found it unprofessional and don't think and individual like that should be training new people, trainers should be encouraging and helpful to help people succeed not make them cry and possibly quit. Other than that the day was swell and tomorrow we have a closed book test on HOS so hopefully we all kill that test and continue chugging along. Idaho noob.
I met a couple ladies on WoW too. Have been playing on moonguard for several years now. Haven't met any of them irl yet though so it's good to hear that is working out for you. I hope your swift training goes well!
Also if you don't have one grab a mobile hotspot (some phones already have em) so you can play on the road. You'll have 100ish ms with the 4g which isn't bad.
This is very typical of these crooked CDL training schools from the big companies who get a check from our wealthy government (OUR tax dollars being wasted) for everyone who enters their program. They hope you do quit early because they get their money either way, so it's in their best interests to discourage as many as they can - more money in their pocket. Don't let them do it. Tell them you're getting paid from my money and I'll be ###### if you're going to talk to me that way. Give him his **** right back. Tell him if he treats you with respect, you'll do the same. If he treats you like ****, he should expect the same from you! Go get 'em!
Typical of these big companies who get a check from our wealthy government for every one who enters their course. They get paid whether you finish the course or not, so it's in their best interest if you quit. Don't let that ***hole treat you like that. Tell him you'll treat him with the same level or lack there of, respect he treats you. Tell him he had to start somewhere, too and you don't have to take his ****. It probably won't do any good to contact the higher ups, since it's they most likely look the other way. Tell him you'll write to your congressman if this continues, and ask him to do an investigation. Tape him doing it on your iphone if you can. Tell the teacher you don't have to take that kind of treatment and you expect the same respect that they would expect from you. Tell them you're paying for their salary when you pay for that course. These sleazy companies really get my gord!
They will reimburse you $37.50 in every check, so it is really only $54.50. And they will not start deducting anything until you are running solo.
