Werner: My experience (in progress)

I am most definitely NOT a reporter. Yes I do write very well, as a college educated young lady with a Bachelor's Degree should. Being a journalist, was highly recommended to me, by my college English professor's, however, I have issues with the lack of morals and ethics displayed by today's journalists. They are nothing but a bunch of blood-sucking vultures who spin the truth, and will lie, finagle, and misrepresent the people they interview just to get a story. It's no longer about responsible and respectful journalism, it's all a rat race to see who can get a Pulitzer Prize the quickest. No thanks, that's just not my style. However, my bachelor's degree in Electronic Media Communications appears to be worthless in Colorado because I have only had 6 total interviews in 8 months for my degree field, and I didn't get any of those jobs.

I am just here to make money to get my student loans ($50,000 worth) paid off, so I can then go on to law school.

Driving is something I am good at, and I have been around trucks all of my life because of my dad, who was a shop manager for a trucking equipment company that put dump beds, flat beds and sand spreaders on rigs. It's also an industry that is always in need of drivers, so when I couldn't find a job in my career field after 7 months of hard looking, I went and got my CDL and got on with a trucking company.

I plan to drive a few years OTR, then find something local so I can be home every day and go to law school at night to get my Jurisprudence Degree.

As for being in a truck, I'll post up a picture of my truck Tuesday evening. Currently I'm sitting in a hotel room while my trainer has a light outpatient surgical procedure today. We'll be back on the road Tuesday morning.

Tuesday we ran from Denver to Laramie, he drove to Laramie, then I drove the rest of the way to Salt Lake City. Stopped for the night, then I drove us to Reno, he took over and drove us to Sacramento where we made our first drop. I drove us back to Reno yesterday, and he dropped me off at the hotel.

I got my first paycheck today too, it was for the 6 days since orientation started a day into the pay period, so it was a day short of a full 7 days, but every penny was there and accounted for. They didn't jip me or short me in anyway.

 

I know where you're going with that, and a lot of that is the DRIVERS not turning the trailer in for maintenance. one driver picks it up, notices all the issues, says oh im not messing with it, that's not my job, and doesnt make any notations and drops the trailer without saying a word. next driver comes along, sees what a mess it is and does the same thing. next thing you know, you have a trailer that's gone 4 years with no maintenance and is in serious violation. then the Driver gets a ticket and now he/she is mad at the company because they didn't maintain the trailer. It's most likely not the company, it's all the previous drivers who were too #### lazy to notate in the qualcomm and every time you log dropping a trailer, there's a macro you have to submit that asks Does the trailer need maintenance? Y/N? and failed to get the truck to maintenance.

If the driver doesn't do his/her job, then maintenance can't fix the trailer the Driver didn't notify them about that needs fixing. and the company gets all the blame. No. it's the DRIVER!

99% of all the crying in the Bad Trucking Forum threads, is the failure of the Driver.

My trainer is a 2 million mile safe driver for 20 years. He's never had an accident, he's never had a DOT or safety violation or been put out of service.

 

I am not going to disagree with you here, but still it all STARTS with the driver. they are the first line of defense.