Team starting out with US Xpress

Not wishing for you to still be stuck come Monday but we do hope to meet you. I am a big, ex-football player and my wife is the always happy blonde. Craig and Anne. Thank you for the dumbbell advice, I passed it on and thank you so much for checking in.

 

Thank you, but I think we are OK with three weeks away from each other. I think three people in a truck just sounds crazy. All part of the adventure. Day one of orientation was great. Anne is all done with the paperwork and drive test. I held the door open at the Medical Clinic for everyone and so was last in line, a couple of hours later my DOT physical and Drug Screen were completed while Anne was back at USX getting her drive test completed. I will get mine tomorrow. Pretty impressed so far.

 

So, we arrived in Dallas Sunday after 20 hours on a Greyhound bus. Now all we have to do is earn a job. We do not actually get hired by US Xpress until we complete orientation, This includes a DOT physical, physical skills capability test, complete background/employment verification and passing a road driving test. Most of this happens on Monday, then if you make it through that, it is learning company stuff and watching videos for two more days. If everything works out, we get hired and get sent out with our respective trainers on (likely) Thursday for approx. 3 weeks driving. Then we come back, take an “upgrade” test and get our own truck and start driving together.

We are very tired after the, very interesting, bus trip. We checked into the Ramada Inn (pretty nice) and Anne took a nap while I watched football. It was a very lazy and very early evening. Breakfast at 6:00 AM and shuttle bus to orientation at 6:40 AM.

Day one of orientation was great. The facility is awesome and very comfortable. I am not sure what I expected but it was not this. 19 in our class and most are experienced drivers, only 5 students. Anne is all done with the paperwork and drive test. I held the door open at the Medical Clinic for everyone and so was last in line (big mistake and the last time I will be that nice ), a couple of hours later my DOT physical and Drug Screen were completed while Anne was back at USX getting her drive test completed. I thought I would get mine Tuesday but since they have another class starting on Wednesday they pushed it off until then. Dodd, the instructor, is awesome and pretty funny. Pretty impressed so far and we are feeling very confident that we have made the right choice. We met Anna (musicgal) who had contacted us on here about US Xpress. She has worked as a driver for USX since April and was at the Irving Terminal getting some repairs done on her truck. She actually drove us to get our drug tests and physicals. Very nice person.

After we got back to the hotel, we went out to dinner with a bunch of our new (almost) coworkers. We went to a great little Mexican Restaurant, Taqueria Arandero and the food was excellent even though it looked like a dive. Anne and I split a large burrito that was very tasty and two steak tacos. Huge dinner for two for ten dollars, pretty sweet. One of the people with us, Connie, had maybe the worlds most perfect dinner. I quote from the menu “Alambres – Fajitas marinated with bacon, bell peppers and onions served with rice, re-fried beans, guacamole, lettuce, tomatoes and tortillas” I mean, marinated with bacon....maybe the worlds most perfect dinner.


Day two was video after video. Each break was spent making sure Chattanooga was getting what they needed. Long day and lots of information. We are so ready to get moving forward.



By the way, hint on the physical capability test for women. It seems you can take 20 pounds out of the basket (females only) with no penalty. It is a good idea. Test was pretty simple and took maybe five minutes.


Ready for day three.