Werner Trainer Craps Himself

I had to walk away from the screen I was laughing so hard I couldn't breath!

Someone PLEASE locate @later_dude and bring him back!!!

 

He was back on this thread not too long ago and gave us an update,

 

I laughed so hard I cried.

 

Thats funny, thanks I can now take one company off of my list.

 

I never bothered to read this before. This is really funny and a terrible story at the same time.
Now here's a guy that oughta sue somebody.
I trained at JB in a spring ride cabover. And I thought feeling my internal organs bouncing up and down inside my body while in the bunk going down road was bad.

 

Oh yeah, if my trainer Lemuel T. reads this , thanks man. Even if you did shut the truck off in Houston in July during the day while I was in the bunk to try to get your fuel bonus. All is forgiven.
Btw, I think my driving habits kinda killed that fuel bonus anyway.
Sorry 'bout that.

 

Almost 22 years ago now I did the Orange training thing. I will give Schneider credit: back then the program was mostly being run by real former experienced truck drivers who were taught to drive a truck not just get behind the wheel and pretend to know a thing or two. 1994. My trainer's name back then was Gil. He turned out to be a good friend and remained so right up until his aneurism nearly killed him some years ago. He lost most of his memory. One thing I remember really well that stood out was probably something Schneider would have fired him for in a nanosecond.

When we met for the first time he did the normal trainer "size the trainee up" routine and we made small talk. A little about family and life in general. Normal human contact things. I'd explained that both my uncle and father had driven, dad off and on since the 60's and that he started in a B-Model Mack bubble cab with a 26 speed duplex and not one single day's experience nor training. I pointed out that at around 13 years old, dad had taught me to handle his old International CO9670 cab-over with a 9-speed tranny. So I'd at least seen what it was like to be behind that wheel before I got behind it professionally (no, dad never put me out on the highway but we did a few laps around parking lots that were empty). Anyhow, Gil made it a point to tell me a small story from his time behind the wheel in other capacities and at other times. His first sentence stood out:

"Don't EVER let me hear you tell a story like this one... " Then he proceeded to tell a tale of how one night waaaaay back when he was driving along, doing about 80ish and "sucking on a toothpick" when he noticed a guy in a row boat rowing along in the median of the highway, keeping pace with his truck. He was on a coast to coast 3 day turn back east after a 3 day west run.

PS: If I have to explain "sucking on a toothpick" you should probably find an old-school driver and ask that question. But don't be judgmental about it. It was a different era in trucking.

I've done my share of thousand-plus mile days and I've never seen a row boat in the median doing 80. But I will admit that I do have my own brand of oddity stories from trucking.

One other thing I have to tell about Gil and his prowess at training, and I hope Schneider can take this jab for what it was worth because it speaks straight to the very heart of the training issues going on today in our industry. After we'd finished eating and chatting and our waitress had cleared our table. After he'd assured me he could teach me to drive that Schneider set-back axle single bunk cab-over like a professional. After the "I can teach you to do this job, the physical part of it, the driving part of it, the backing part of it." He made clear that he could teach me to drive but he couldn't teach me to cope with it. Only then, after he was relatively sure I could go down this road, did he say to me the most valuable thing he could have said.

Remember I said Schneider had a very good program back then, and even he felt so. They were good at weeding through those who could handle the rigors of trucking and passing on those who could survive the real world of trucking. And so Gil said to me, and it was so very prescient and I felt rather eloquently put, "Well, they filled your head with all that orange ########. No let's take you out here and teach you to drive a truck." And he did.

Thanks, Gil, for all the insight and wisdom you passed on to me. It's been a valuable commodity over the last 3 million miles.

 

Hell, you think that's bad, try waking up in the sleeper to catch your co-driver drinking a beer in the driver's seat with the key in the switch, and then deciding to drive to another truck stop. Or a co-driver with three months' experience on you that thinks he's there to train you.

Or even better, a super-trucker co-driver that violates company shutdown order to drive 50 mph on solid ice in a state that had declared a state of emergency due to weather conditions, grossing 63,000 lbs. Because he didn't have InterNet on his cell phone where we had shut down. SERIOUSLY?

That same driver went on to blame the fifth-wheel when he dropped an empty three times before leaving a yard (third time it almost hit the guard shack, and keep in mind this was after pulling a trailer I hooked 2500 miles). He then jumped the fifth wheel on the next load (didn't get out and look), dropped that one in transit, and hit a light pole in a turnabout.

He also got the truck stuck in a snowbank making a turn he shouldn't have been trying to make because he was on a road he shouldn't have been on. This cat couldn't do anything without his phone or his GPS (which was set for 50-ton gross, not 40) telling him what to do.

Because of that, he traversed most of Nebraska on US-30 instead of I-80, blowing through little burgs at 25+ over their posted speed limits because he wasn't paying attention, and missing a fuel stop. Yes, I got off of all three trucks, and CRST had the nerve to dock me $150 for getting off the last one.

After two months of arguing about this with the Crooks Recruiting Super Truckers, I told them to give themselves a Freightliner enema. They tried to pressure me with the $4000 contract for my training. I was willing to work out a payment plan, but was told it had to be paid in full at once.

To which I said, "Screw you AND your contract, because I haven't made $4000 since I've been here, and $4000 won't pay for the funeral I face if I stay here." The fact that a new recruit who heard the conversation, put their paperwork down and walked out, gave me no small satisfaction.

I could go on, but maybe I should have posted this in its own thread? LOL

 

Smoking a joint? Something to alleviate the jaw grinding from amphetamines? One of those?

 

Im guessing the toothpick had been soaked in a substance other than thc.