Profile For whosfate

Clyde,

I don’t get on here much, but I would like to add a little bit of my experience with Millis Transfer for you.

I went to their company training in February of this year and completed in March. Training is 3 weeks (unpaid) followed by 3 days of company orientation. Their class sizes are small (we had 5 students) and their training was very good.

Afterwards, I went out with a trainer for 7 weeks before graduating into my own truck. You have to log a minimum of 15,000 miles with your trainer (I did 18k). You will test for your CDL after you’ve been with your trainer for a little while and they feel you are ready.

As far as pay is concerned, I was paid $0.42/mile for all miles the truck moved whether I was driving or not. If you get a trainer that likes to run hard like mine did, you will get miles. We almost always ran in excess of 3k miles a week. One week we ran 4400 miles followed by a 3800 mile week. You can do the math. While with your trainer you will not be paid for detention ($20/hr. after 90 min.) or extra stop pay ($15). Millis increased our base pay to $0.43/mile at the beginning of May.

I don’t know anything about Roehl, but I can say that Millis is a stand up company to work for. Everything they told me has been straight up and everyone that I have met here has been very helpful.

One thing to consider is Millis is transitioning to a fully automatic fleet, there are very, very few manuals left in the fleet. You will take your CDL test in your trainer’s truck which will very likely put you with an auto restriction on your license. That may or may not be a concern for you.

Any other questions just ask me. In fact I should probably write a training diary from beginning to present day on here.

God Bless

A little off topic, but cell phone carriers do not own towers. They lease space on a tower owned by another company (Crown Castle, SBA, etc. ) that leases the land from a land owner. Most of the major providers use the same equipment as their competitors and share the same tower as well.

I have noticed that sometimes the available coverage you have depends on the device that you use. For instance, my wife and I both have AT&T and several years ago my phone would have coverage where hers did not. We have the same phone model now.

I spent 4.5 years (2000-2004) in construction and equipment upgrades in cellular communications industry.

I was approved for training and I start CDL training next Monday May 1, 2017.

Kurtis, nice to see another member here going to TMC. I will be starting there as well on Monday, May 1st. I'll see you out there. Safe travels to you!

-Bill

Hello OTR,

As Rainy said, double clutching is merely "clutch, neutral, clutch".

The reason for this is that heavy duty transmissions, such as those found in a big truck, do not have a synchro-mesh transmission. A synchro-mesh transmission has synchronizers on the gears that allows the gears to slow down and mesh together when you shift and also allow you to downshift at any road speed/RPM combination . The synchronizers are typically made of brass I think which is a softer metal than the gears, this may be one reason why heavy duty transmissions lack them; because of the amount of torque that is passed through the gears would be very abusive to the synchronizers and would require a larger transmission case to accommodate them.

By double clutching, you are giving time for the counter shaft in the transmission time to slow down so that the gears will mesh. In a HD transmission without synchros, the gears will grind if the RPM AND road speed are not closely matched. When down shifting you also need to rev match the engine RPM to the road speed for the gear you are selecting. I have driven a stick shift all my life and I rev match the gears in my own car when downshifting, not because I "have" to, but because it is easier on the drivetrain and there is no engine "surge" as the RPM's catch up to the road speed.

At one time, even cars and light duty trucks had to be double clutched.

Okay gang, so I have decided to start a training diary here on TT like so many before me.

I hope to keep up on these entries as I progress through my CDL training and OTR instruction. I am hopeful that my posts here will serve to help others into what to expect going through this. After countless hours of research, self reflection, and talking with my wife and children, I am starting on a new journey in a new career. Not me only, but also my family.

04/03/2017: I received my official pre-hire from TMC. My recruiter there is Angelynna and she has been nothing short of fantastic in answering my questions and getting my application before the hiring committee. I will be going through TMC's in-house CDL training program for 19 days in Des Moines, IA and then on the road with a trainer for 5 weeks. There is no pay during the in house CDL training, but transportation, lodging, and all of my meals will covered. Afterwards, it will be a $500/week salary for the 5 weeks in OTR training.

04/06/2017: I took my DOT physical and passed resulting in a 2-year medical certificate.

04/13/2017: I took my CLP tests here in PA with HazMat and tanker endorsements. I passed all of my tests with an 80% score which is passing and apparently the highest you can score...lol. When taking the tests, as soon as you reach an 80% (passing) grade, the computer stops the test and you move onto the next. It was explained to me that this is done to free up the computer terminal sooner and anything above an 80% grade is not very meaningful as you have already passed the test. All four tests took just under an hour to complete; I do not think there was any time limit.

04/17/2017: Today I will be going to a local center for my FBI fingerprinting to complete the background checks for my HazMat.

I am scheduled to begin my orientation/CDL training on Monday, May 1st. I am both very excited and a little bit nervous about this as I do not want to be sent home for anything. I have read just about everything I can regarding the 120lb. tarp test that you have to pass. I have been hitting my free weights lately and I able to overhead press (standing military press) 120 lbs. easy enough, but I have to think that there is a difference between 120 lbs. on a barbell and a tarp that weighs 120 lbs.; the weight on a barbell doesn't move around.

Well that is all for now, I will update the thread as things progress on my journey. 14 days till show time! So little to do! So much time! Wait...scratch that!

-Bill

Old thread, but it seems to keep going...and going

I delivered newspapers with my dad in elementary school and then on my own in middle school and part of high school. During high school I attended Votech half of the day for auto mechanics and worked at a local garage in the evenings. Decided auto mechanics wasn't right for me (I was very good at it, but it didn't seem to pay much) and worked at a local roofing company. This was a low paying, dead end job, so I thought I would go to culinary school to become a chef as I had enjoyed cooking. Lasted a week there and returned to roofing for a short while.

Afterwards, a friend of mine told me that the company he worked for needed someone to help out. It was a local contractor that was in the telecommunications construction field. I worked there for about a year and half and really enjoyed the work and the travel. This was in 2000/2001 when the DOTCOM bust was happening and work slowed down a lot. I was 21 and thought about driving truck for a living and was in contact with Schneider, but there were some things that didn't work out. I continued building cell tower sites for the next few years and met my wife during a long period of no work in the industry; I was a pizza delivery guy at the time when I met her. I went back to building cell tower sites when work picked back up for a little while, but decided at 22 that I had met my future wife and I wanted to come off the road and settle down and start a family.

I then took a local position at a small, niche engineering firm as a Mechanical Engineering Technician. The pay wasn't much, but the work was steady, I was home every night, had good benefits, and was learning a ton. After 2 years, the main guy that was working there left for another company and at 26 or 27 years old, I ran the entire day to day operations of the company as a design engineer/project manager. I was the only that worked for the company the last 3 years that I was there. I learned a lot and felt it was time to move on to greener pastures.

I then went to work at another local company where I was a Field Engineer for 6 years. We deployed CAD/AVL systems for public transit agencies nationwide (looks something similar to the Qualcomm systems you use in trucks, but a lot more functions). Anyway, I was in charge of managing the field installations, managing subcontracts/subcontractors, and mechanical and cabling design. I also mentored junior staff members. This was a good paying job with excellent benefits (I had 27 days of paid time off per year with 401K/ESOP), but I really wanted to get into project management and was a burned out on what i was doing. So I left that company for a project manager position with a manufacturing company that rebuilt train wheel sets and gear boxes. I wasn't a good fit there culturally, so they found reason to terminate me and I am actually glad to be out of there. That was in December of 2016.

Since then, I have been on unemployment and have submitted about 100 resumes and have received a total of 2 interviews. During this time, I have looked heavily into starting a new career as a truck driver and have talked it over with my wife and children. I am now 36 years old and currently set to go to TMC for orientation in May.

TT has been a huge resource for me in deciding on this career path and has dispelled so many untruths that I came across when I first started researching trucking. Interested to see what the good Lord has for me down the road as I start this new chapter.

Victor,

Glad to hear that you did well backing into the receiver. I can completely understand how hard it is being away from family during times like Easter.

A few years ago I was in Santa Rosa, CA for a project I was working on and was there over Easter. It was hard being away from my little ones, but it's a sacrifice some of us have to make to provide for the ones we care about.

I also hear you on the openness of the west. I lived in Las Vegas briefly and was amazed at the vastness of the night sky. Really makes you feel small. Have you noticed your depth perception being way off? For instance a mountain or some other land feature will appear to be perhaps a mile or so away, when in reality its about 10 miles away! I never got used to that.

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

Hi Victor,

I have been following your training entries here lately and it seems like you are having a blast in your new endeavor. I'm currently preparing to go to CDL training on May 1st.

Thank you for your comment on PA being beautiful, I was born and raised here and always felt this was one of the most most beautiful states having already traveled about half the country. The mountains here can be a handful in the winter, especially some of the 2 lane state roads lol.

If your ever on state route 322 headed east from State College, there is a section there called Seven Mountains, that decent is no joke, especially in a loaded rig. I've never driven a semi down that mountain, but have driven it in my personal car for many years in all kinds of weather. Fun times!

Keep up the good work and attitude! God bless you sir.

Bill

Thank you G-Town! I'm pretty stoked and anxious to get rolling!

Ya know, I see so many Swift trucks like yours around here I think of you sometimes when I see them, wondering if that's you behind the wheel. Do your runs ever get you to the State College area?

Hello Everyone,

So I just wanted to post an update to this thread that I started a while back and let you all know that I received a pre-hire from TMC! I was beginning to wonder if that would ever happen. Through much prayer, being an advocate of myself, and staying in touch with and communicating everything to them, I received my pre-hire last Friday, March 31st.

Yesterday, I just completed a DOT physical here locally and was given the green light for a 2-year medical card. I know I will have to take another DOT physical at TMC when I get there, but I wanted to have a baseline of my general health, and what to expect, prior to arriving (I don't go to the doctor much). The doctor that did my physical has been doing them for 35 years, so I should be good to go.

My orientation date to start their CDL training program is May 1st and I still have quite a bit to do before then. I am studying the Highroad Training Program here on TT and getting some other things in order. I anticipate taking my CDL permit test within the next week or so.

As far as TMC, they seemed to be the closest match to what I was looking for in terms of a trucking outfit (based upon my research here and my own reflections) and I do hope that I am exactly what they are looking for in terms of an employee. I have always believed that no matter your profession or where you work, you and the company you work for are a partnership to accomplish a common goal, and if that doesn't happen its time for one or both parties to move on. Everyone is in business for themselves (but many don't realize it) because while you may not own/manage/control the company and its resources, you yourself are a resource and you just so happen to peddle your time and talents rather than a specific product/service and that is something you do have control over. Ok, got on a bit of a soapbox there.

What I am most nervous about at this point is TMC's tarp test. I have read quite a bit about it and watched one of their videos demonstrating it. Even the recruiter asked if I would be OK with it...LOL. I have been hitting my weights again (been off them for about 8 months now) and I can still dead lift 120 lbs. easy enough, but I have an inkling that a 120 lb. tarp is a different beast with a different technique. I'm going to continue squatting/deadlifting as heavy as I can for the next several weeks (I know, should have started sooner) to build strength and start losing the 20 lbs. I put on over the winter.

I am both excited and nervous at the same time. This is such a big leap for me in terms of a completely new industry, though I have been around equipment for a long, long time. There is so much to learn! Things you're never taught, but need to know in order to not only survive, but also thrive in this industry. Trucking Truth (thanks Brett!) and the people here have been such a great resource to finding the straight and narrow! I'll start a new thread in a few weeks to journal my time at TMC in Des Moines.

Thanks for reading!