Profile For Bob C.

Yes, G-Town, I was road tested at orientation and assigned to a trainer after being hired. Thought that went without saying...drivers fresh out of school aren't just put in a truck and turned loose solo either. I was not required to go through any 'refresher' at a school before hire. My hiring and training process was no more and no less than what the drivers right out of school were required to do.

I suppose anything could make you undesirable or unhirable to SOME companies. So technically I can't call that a lie from the recruiter. But he certainly was misleading you. Your CDL will most certainly not be invalid if you don't sign on a line after 30 days...or 300 for that matter. I for example got my first driving job in 2014 almost 4 years after completing school and getting my license. It took very little effort or persuading. I called up one megacarrier....was in orientation a week later. It wasn't because I'm so charming because I'm really not.

Here's where I'd draw it....the chatting on the phone constantly thing. Of all the tendencies you listed...that's the worst one by far IMO. I think it's a joke that one can legally babble your way through an entire shift at the wheel (as both of my trainers would come near to doing when I first started out) as long as one is wearing a dorky headset...as long as you've been a good consumer and paid your dues to the 'tech' industry. I happen to think that having protracted and unnecessary conversations at the wheel is the dangerous distraction...not having one's arm bent. That is to say I think it's our brains that get distracted, not one's elbow or hand.

Not to mention that having to listen to those long, banal, tedious conversations drove me nuts. Rude..check. Dangerous...check. I'd be out of that arrangement pronto based on the phone thing alone.

I was in the same position before I started working as a driver...completed school and passed my CDL road test and didn't get much interest from the half dozen or so employers I applied to due to points that hadn't fallen off my license yet. I said to hell with this pretty quick and went back to what I was doing before. Just shy of four years later, I had no points on my license by this point, got the urge to try trucking again...got hired real easy by the first company I called. From what they told me, if I had been out of school five years they wouldn't have hired me...I would have had to go back to school. There were no issues regarding expired medical certification...mine had been expired two years and that didn't affect my license at all (I'm from NY, your state may do things differently). Just had to get it renewed during the hiring, orientation process...just as I would have had to do had it NOT been expired.

I wouldn't worry about chains...I've never put chains on my tires and doubt I ever will. In fact I'm pretty sure the only time I've even seen chains on a tire was 7 years ago in school or training when we were being shown how to put chains on a tire. Backing was a ***** for about the first 2-3 months when I started. You get over it. But if there comes a very difficult back and you're convinced you can't do it, stop trying, find a place to park, and inform the company that other plans will have to be made. Don't keep going till you break something. You'll get no applause for your determination, and even the slightest damage to your vehicle or other property will likely do down as an accident on your record for the next 3 years.

I keep a hammer, screwdriver, adjustable wrench, pliers and duct tape. Hammer and duct tape are used quite often...the rest very rarely.

There are a couple of policies or conditions that I would never work under, but...forced dispatch ? I don't even see how it makes sense to object to that as a company driver. Seems an inherent feature of the job in a large fleet. They can't very well put every load up for discussion and a vote. Personally, I never even state displeasure with any individual load. If it becomes a trend...one of a bunch of lame loads that leads to an 1800 mile paycheck after a week of them, then I'll say something. But I'm not going to let anyone hear me complaining about the run I got TODAY....makes it too inviting for someone to assign me an even worse run tomorrow.

When I get home after a couple months in the truck, I'm a bit of a basket case because all my stuff isn't within 4 feet of me in its proper little space or cubbyhole at all times anymore. I'm always looking for things. That could be anywhere. Spread out over vast distances that one must traverse by walking.

Nope, never worked for Swift, so I'll accept that their trainers might do a bit better than I imagined . But I sure wouldn't be sleeping too soundly behind a guy with only 50-odd hours at the wheel, alone up front and expected to take me 4-500 miles. And then I'd probably be something of a liability on my shift at the wheel as well. I know where I was at that point.....50 drive hours, a week 10 days into training...way too much of my attention was still focused on just trying to shift correctly, having little tantrums as I failed to do so, and then dreading the next time I had to shift. I might have been closer to menace than merely a liability. I'm very glad more and more drivers are training and working on automatics now.

It's been a while but I think trainees only ran as a team the last week of training in my first company, and even then didn't do real team type miles...probably 4000 or so. Anyway...no need to get real bogged down in the details...we'll agree to disagree a bit... I just think training is grossly undercompensated, maybe a quarter full on your diagram. And though I get an idealistic twinge now and then I'm generally a fair bit over on the mercenary end of the spectrum.

I gotta say though, Errol...the Swift incentives you're touting there are even skimpier than I'd been offered, heard or surmised. The payoff after 30,000 miles is a bird in the bush...an unhatched chicken. I trained a guy, he upgraded...I don't want to hear that I'll be paid for that 3, 4 months down the line. I should get it on my next check. As for the miles...the trainee is going to be driving most of the miles...it's not like you'll be spending a month teaming, making double miles. Your miles will be roughly the same...you'll just be in the passenger seat, and with a lot more responsibility and stress than you'd have in the driver's seat. So no financial incentive to train there. So that leaves us with, as a here and now cash benefit..........100 bucks a week. Far short of even the 15 percent I was talking about. Hell no, thanks. If that's their offer, I think negativity is a very reasonable response to it.