Trainers...

Rough glad you made it through

 

I think random trainers and students at megas anyway, are a lot like the lottery. You don't know if you are going to win or not, but the chances are you aren't going to.

I know there are some good trainers here on this forum, knowledgeable, care about the students outcome, care about the end result for the company. But they are unfortunately rare, from stories I've heard. Students are the same, I guess. I can't imagine being a trainer and having to take in unknown problems, abilities, attitudes. You couldn't pay me to do it.

But on the other, if I knew the person wanted to learn, would apply themselves, valued proper instruction, and wouldn't be a troublemaker, I'd train them.

 

My grandfather and his drivers got me going for the most part. Thankfully. My father had way less than no patience and I don’t know if I would have survived if he did it.

 

• Not being on time
• Not being able to tell time
• Not being able to do 3rd grade math
• Not having a basic understanding of the HOS
• Being deficient in object permanence
• An inability to interact with others - seriously how hard is it to answer "are you loaded or empty" or "where are you going"?
  
• Saying "I understand" when they clearly don't
• Not being engaged in their learning
• Not listening to the answer. I cannot say "you need to hit the button in the lower right corner that says 'details' " any clearer.

 

Trainers that don't train and just use to title for extra money.
That goes on way too much.

 

So if that's your reality, why do you train? Do you do it for the odd decent student? Money?

I'm curious because I couldn't see myself doing it for the reasons you mentioned, as well as the additional risk physical risk, and potentially additional legal liability. It's probably not inconceivable that a student could do something that puts your truck in adversarial litigation where you have "the hammer" or equivalent wanting everyone to pay, from the company to the driver to you, the trainer. Is it really worth it?

 

It's not like every student, or even the majority, fit the list. For the first three items, I've had some great drivers who are good people, but they've never been in a situation where time actually mattered or had to apply basic arithmetic. It's annoying to deal with, but that's what I'm getting paid to do. I also genuinely enjoy teaching, I have since I was 14.

In terms of remuneration - the pay is barely adequate, but training guarantees I'm home every weekend and used to guarantee I would hit max bonus as well. Being a trainer has also opened some doors to work on interesting projects and have my voice heard at corporate.

That said, I'm seriously considering not training anymore. More and more I'm having to deal with brain dead individuals who are getting into driving because they're tired of their dead end life, but don't understand why their life sucks. Very rarely am I getting someone in their 20's, most of the time it's 40 or above who hasn't had to think critically about anything for the last 20 years. Then add in the ease of getting a CDL with an automatic transmission and the utter failure of the Entry Level Driver Training mandate and it's been going downhill.