Watkins Shepard 30 day training as experienced by Warpdrvr

Well, I finally made it....only an hour late, after a weather delay, a missed flight due to weather delay, barely making standby on the next flight, and finally in Seattle, a stupid burned out light bulb that kept us there an extra 45 minutes....but I AM here! I have a day tomorrow to kick back and check things out hopefully and find out where a store/restaurant is so I can get some grub...I had a sausage mcmuffin at 7am, and a wendys single burger at 5pm....by the time I got here, I was hungry...I did find a vending machine, so it's cheetos and fritos for dinner!

IT'S FREAKIN' COLD HERE!! Got off the plane and it was 30 degrees, or -2C for you Canadians out there...No snow that I can see so far, just really cold. I did pack cold weather gear, so I should be OK. Good luck darin on the road test.....United has a pretty good program so if you do what they tell you, it should all work out.


Thats all for tonite...I"m tired and need to check my email before I hit the sack....Oh, recruiting is right next to my room, so I'll tell em all hi for everyone. That says something for the company that they put them with the drivers and not behind metal detectors and bulletproof glass....

 

Today was a kick back day...I got to meet Roxy and Kristy and Roxy gave me the dime tour....I spent the rest of the day bored mostly.

I took the aptly described crappy Malibu to get some breakfast, then came back here and surfed the web some (free wifi, cool), talked to my wife on the phone for a while. I took a 1 1/2 mile walk for something to do so I wouldn't die of boredom, then had some lunch and took a nap. I also walked around the yard and looked at some trucks. After my nap, my roommate showed up, it's Clay13 from here. He's from the same area as me so we have something in common. We went to Wallyworld for grub and then back here to hang out....Class starts tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll have more to report....

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah....

Spent the first day watching a bunch of corny videos in the morning, then after break meeting with the shop manager and he gave us info on getting the trucks repaired and/or maintained. After that, we watched some more videos until lunch.

After lunch, we did something called drivers risk indicator or something like that...we then got a history lesson on WS, talked about all the terminals, took a break and talked about air brakes. That completed our official school day.

We got keys to the 2 yard trucks and spent about 90 minutes putzing about the yard, up and downshifting. Me and Clay13 went and got some dinner, came back and more driving around the yard, practicing up and downshifting some more...boy these trucks are so much nicer than the school trucks!

Methinks we get to go on the road tomorrow for a little while, so stay tuned for that!

Oh, almost forgot..we missed meeting southbaydad by just 10 minutes or so...he was here while we were at dinner and had left by the time we got back. Too bad, I want to meet all the WS drivers that post here. Maybe he can swing by again!

 

Mostly just where they are and who the pertinent people are at each terminal...as for getting out tomorrow, it will be a run probably thru the city of Missoula, to see how we handle the vehicle in traffic, around corners, avoiding curbs and that sort of thing. Don't know about snow, it was supposed to snow today, but all it did was sprinkle some...clouds came in and it got too warm to snow. Upper 30's to low 40's. We'll see what tomorrow brings

 

That would be great, Mike. Don't know where you are at the moment, but if you get here over the weekend, I'm sure we will be around! Look for the bobtail doing circuits around the yard...LOL

I'll post more about my day today, really tired and am gonna call my wife now..