Profile For Luke O.

In my best Gomer Pyle voice...

"Well, Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!"

Luke, if we ever tried hard to help someone it was you. We pretty much knew we were beating our heads against the wall, but we still gave it an effort. You have yourself to blame. Prime would have bent over backwards to get you on board had you showed just a little bit of evidence that you were worth the effort.

You left home knowing you hadn't provided for your own family and now you want to throw Prime under the bus. Please, don't take us for fools. We all managed what you couldn't even make a start at, and you think we're going to believe that nonsense? You were completely unprepared and lacked the Commitment needed to make a decent showing at a training program.

To those reading this sad turn of events, you need to realize this is all too common. We try like crazy to prepare people for this, but most of them just don't get it. Patience is required when going through a Paid CDL Training Program. Patience is especially required during the Holiday season.

your a ****ing joke dude. were u there? tell me, were u there with me, next to me, at my training? Well, were you? NO ya ****ing werent. Why the hell would I ever bother to go to something if I knew ahead of time that I was going to be rude and not try? I wouldnt, defeats the purpose of not trying. Its like you post something on this site, and your honest, and because someone else cried wolf too many times, now anyone and everyone who says anything that isnt exactly how you guys says it should be, those people must have clearly acted a fool like the original cry baby. Its sad and its a sign you guys have became numb to reality, living in your own perfect little world where nothing bad ever happens.

Im.going to point out a few things..

1.) The "crappy pay" that doesnt support your family of $200 per week was NOT supposed to support gour family. You are specifically told this in orientation and by the recruiter. The $200 per week is an advance to feed you. Period. And yes it is $200 so i dont know where you got that other number from, and had YOU prepared you wouldnt need to send money home. Many companies do not even offer an advance.

2.) Even if you are not.matched up with an OTR instructor, you can do the pad training and test then go TnT. Had you the patience to stick it out, you would be fine and making money next week.

3.) No way in hell do i believe you were treated the way you were. I know those pad guys personally. Brett, George, Dave, Ron, etc. Every single one would give you undivided attention and tips. Brett took Splitter out to help him pass his test after he failed twice. . Dave gave me extra backing help in 10 degree snow storm and was freezing .... for HOURS. George champions Truckers Agaisnt Trafficking cause he cares about people so much.

4.) The sim lab is set up in a group setting so why werent you watching and learning from your partner or those around you? The "poor me i never drove a manual anything" doesnt fly with me cause i never drove a manual either but i certainly got through training.

first off it IS 180$, they leave 20 on the comdata card to pay atm fees. You CAN NOT access that money unless you spend it on company terminal, such as the store.

2nd of all, I didnt say that the pad instructors were rude with me. What I said was they declined my request to drive a truck BECAUSE class was over, not for any reason. After friday, we never went back to the sim pad.

instructor: "we are going to run though this scenarios and that scenario, try your best."

that was it. nothing else. again can you read? i clearly mentioned that all of the previous sim labs i had no issue whatsoever, passed the test even on the first try. However on the sim lab we did for backing i had trouble. Im sorry but ive never driven a 53 foot trailer before, much less on a simulator where I can GOAL and see whats to the side of me. I had some people around even attempt to help me. I had this one guy for like 20 minutes tell me exactly what to do, and he was dumbfounded that for some reason I couldnt swing the trailer the way I wanted it to go. Even my roomate, same thing. Kim was the instructor, she was either constantly finalizing other peoples scenarious or talking over paper work. YES, when i asked her what I was doing wrong, she said do this do that, and i did, and she was like, idk why its not working for you, watch me do it. So i watched her do it, and that was that. is it so unreasonable that someone doesnt know how to back a trailer when theyve never done it before?

4th, I never once verbally complained to anyone. you misread what i wrote, not surpised at this point. I kept all that **** to myself. Even when I finally left, i left discreetly and politely, wasnt yelling at anyone or arguing.

In case you forgot, i had already mentioned long in the past that i read all about the **** you WERENT supposed to do in training and i took that **** to heart. like i said once again, on time, arrived early, polite with other students and instructors, etc. Just because i said they didnt help me, doesnt mean i was an ass to them. believe it or not people can be upset without being a jerk.

Everyday after class i spent time talking to other students and drivers. asking lots of questions. On at least 4 separate occasions I had drivers let me do a pre trip on their tractors (minus in cab). If there was an opportunity I took it, however I can not wait around for weeks waiting for a trainer/progressing to better pay, when I have mouths to feed at home. Easy to say you dont understand when you have no kids or obligations other then living in a truck, which youve said so yourself many times.

I planned ahead, but I wasnt born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Ive held the same job for almost a decade but the pay is limited in that field. When the money dried up I chose to make a sacrifice and leave for trucking. However I still have to pay bills and ****. I can't go very long on such poor wages.

I know there is local training, but the instructor Daniel SPECIFICLLY said there was no room until next week, and only about 10 spots and no one could gurantee I had one of the spots, ofc they couldnt. But i cant afford to wait and see and if not end up being on the hook for tuition now because I waited around and ended up having to leave anyways because again, family. Find me someone with a family, who can afford to not work for more then a week.

Well, I left Prime after 1 week. My sole reason for this was when Monday arrived, we were told we would be waiting at least till the beginning of the 3rd week for trainers. And the other issue they said was currently there were not enough trainers, because a lot of them were on hometime before the holidays, and then after that a lot of them would be gone for the holidays. I was one of about 30 "priority" students who were still waiting for trainers. I was specifically told by the instructors along with another fellow, that we would probably be waiting longer then normal, because we both put down that we 'smoked and chewed' during the initial trainer matchup assessment, and that putting both down considerably increases the wait times.

Secondly, i came to find out that the measly 200$ a week compensation during psd was really only 180$. Not to big of a problem unless you have a family to support, and wiring money home is like 10$ so really the compensation was 170$. Anyways my point is, they said we would need to wait until the 3rd and possibly 4th week for training. In fact from the time of orientation ending to the day I left, we had only had about 5 students chosen for training otr, and 4 for local. I weighed my options. Wait around for a trainer that might take awhile while my family starved at home, or go back home to my old job where I can support my family again, even if at reduced wages.

So I went home. Along with about 6 others who were in the same situation. Or at least they said they were going home. I know my room mate said they were leaving in a day or two.

I went into Prime knowing about the 200$, but I was told by my recruiter that come friday you would for sure be on the road with a trainer, at the latest saturday. On day 1, the instructors told us the same thing. It all sounded gravy until after orientation they changed the story. I am a little irritated. I mean I had my permit and cbts done and finished early tuesday, and passed my sim-lab test on first try with a 90/100.

Speaking of sim lab, when sunday came around again, they had us practice backing. I have never driven manual or backed anything. I had a great deal of difficulty and was unable to back the trailer (everyone finished before me). I repeatedly asked the instructor for help but they kept telling me to wait my turn so I patiently waited for over an hour for them to talk with me. At that point they told me to just think it through (had been doing that for first hour). I did it in my head, did it with my hands, trying to picture every possible way the correct way etc. Finally while they stood there telling me to just do it, and I was explaining I don't understand what step am I messing up....like please educate me. Instead they grabbed the wheel and backed the trailer up for me. I learned absolutely nothing. But then class was dismissed. I had another class to be at over at the main terminal in 45 minutes and had barely enough time to talk with the trainer. I asked if I could at least come back later that night for further instruction and she said no, the lab closed earlies on sunday, after the last class.

My first time out on the pad, was on the previous friday. We were told to stand in line to wait for a turn to drive. I was 3rd to last in line. i studied pre-trip for about 2 hours while waiting (only had 3 instructors driving that day, and 2 of them were only doing single student rides). I finally got to the front of the line, a truck pulled up to get us driving, and then the instructors arubptly said class over. I was like wtf. I told the instructor I didn't get a chance to drive yet, and said there was only 2 people behind me, could we stay a little late so we could get the chance to drive and he said No. So all in all I had a poor experience at training. Even though i studied diligently, arrived 20 minutes early to all my classes, never missed my classes, and passed all my tests first time, i never drove a truck, and had what I felt was poor or in adequate training. Couple that with the crappy pay, and increasing wait times for trainers, along with my roach infested hotel room (had roaches all up in the bathroom, told housekeeping and front desk and they said theyd take care of it, yet every day we still had roaches in it, and yes everyday we told front desk and housekeeping).

I am now home, and I am planning to go through another company here locally, one that actually trains you rather then has you twiddle your thumbs in a classroom every day while instructors are nowhere to be found. nearly all of my classes the instructors were 30 minutes to an hour late. I understand that the way the program is written is meant to weed out people, but I strongly felt (as did others in my shoes) that you should be willing to sacrifice family priorities for the job. Like you should be ashamed to have a family if you can't commit to the joke pay and waiting around with no training or being snapped at for asking for extra training.

So to finalize here. Trinity Medical called right on time that I was slotted for. Just a quick run down over the form I had filled out online yesterday. Budda bing budda boom. All is good and cleared for take off. Like I posted earlier, I think this a huge help just for the peace of mind's sake or to catch something that a newbie like myself would not know any better that would be specific to the industry. I highly recommend asking your recruiter if they provide this service if you should have any medical concerns or under a Doctors care for a condition. They will more than likely want a letter from your Doctor stating you are clear to drive a truck.

I had to go through the same process. once you actually get there all they will do is check your height, weight, vision, blood pressure, and make sure youre able to move around like a normal person. the entire physical itself took less then 10 minutes, its simply the waiting that takes forever. took me around 3 hours to complete all steps. I will say though that if your BMI is above 32 i think it is, they will possibly disqualify you. In short if youre overweight you can be disqualified, but if your extremely overweight its almost certain.

my starting class of 85 ppl had about 30 semi overweight ppl, and about 10 extremely overweight ppl. out of the 30 about half are still here, and out of the 10 only 1 or 2. most were sent home for health reasons.

The post is about does Junior Honduras have a negative reputation within prime?

Luke what exactly are we missing here?

You asked for “insight”, which you got plenty of. Since a Prime instructor stared very clearly NOT to use Jrs’ PTI thats all you need to know, and in an indirect way, answers your question about reputation.

Lots of energy on something that to all of us seems insignificant.

The only insight It showed me is that he's a regular dude who makes vlogs and not everyone knows about him. this entire post, you are correct, is how do I put it, not important. I figured that was obvious from the get go, but considering it is about a very specific topic, I figured Id ask it here. Im not worried about what the instructor said because I personally do not use junior honduras videos for review. but at the same time, knowing of him, i merely had a minor curiosity on the grander scale of things. In other words I was pondering things on the hidden social interaction levels that yes, they arent important, and yes, most people clearly dont think about them. In a round a bout way that has given me the insight I was asking about. case closed.

as for the pre trip video...if prime told you not to use it....why would you?

Well thats just the thing, I havent as I stated earlier nor do I have the intention to. Thats not the point of this post. The post is about does Junior Honduras have a negative reputation within prime?

Im not quite driving just yet, but from day one of researching megas and sponsored training, most of what you here is to stay clear of them. And the majority of the reasons people tell you to head for the hills, are things that a rookie drive doesnt have the luxury yet to avoid in the first place. Ive only been at prime for 3 days now, still in orientation, but I will say, they treat you exactly how you deserved to be treated.

and what I mean by that is if you act like a dumbass, they will treat you like that accordingly. if you repeatedly dont follow instructions, and are asking questions that have already been answered, then you should fully expect to be treated like your a moron. Because you are. Its that simple. Dont go into your training acting like youve already been hired and you can say and do whatever you want, because you cant.

On the flip side if you are asking intelligent questions, putting in real effort to get ahead and study, and despite you being ridiculously exhausted you still arent complaining, they notice that. Im not saying your going to suddenly be on everyones radar as a star driver, because you wont be. But at least youll be treated respectfully which is a major boon to you when you're still in training and arent worth a dime to the company yet.

For instance, ive got all my initial training done at this point other then sim lab testing. And ive got about 16 hours of downtime over the next 2 days. But instead of ****ing around like a lot of people are, im spending my time either studying pretrip, studying for the final cdl exam, or at the very least learning about trucking some more.

Theres 50 on general knowledge 20 on tanker 20 on combination and 25 on air brakes.

this was for Prime's testing in springfield mo. you can miss 10 on general, 4 on tanker and combination, and up to 5 on airbrakes. anymore and you fail that section. once u pass a section u dont have to retake it. i just took my tests yersterday and passed on the first try.

as long as you study before hand you will be fine. I only studied for about a 1 week for a total of probably about 20 hrs and still passed. I studied using high road, cdl prep phone apps, and online practice exams. I never once looked at the dmv manual.

general knowledge i got exactly 10 wrong and 40 right which is the minimum passing score of 80%. the other 3 i only missed one or 2 questions on each one and my scores were 90%+

i do have to caution you though, make sure you use all available resources and take practice tests. there are some questions on the permit tests that are worded in such a way they are trick questions and are very easy to get wrong. You really need to slow down and take your time. if you dont know the answer skip it and itll ask you again later. Alot of the people in my group failed because they were rushing through and not carefully reading. Before you hit submit "yes thats my final answer" stop and reread the question again. look at all the answer. you need to be at least 90% sure thats the correct answer. If all else fails and you truly dont know and after skipping and it recycles back to you and you still dont know, look at the question logically and try to narrow down the answers.

for the Primes testing each question has 3 possible answers, so if you can narrow down at least 1 of them, and you guess, you got a 50/50 chance of getting it right rather then a 30% chance.

So if you dont know, Junior Honduras is a prime vlogger. Alooot of people seem to know who he is, even if they dont watch his stuff. Anyways one of our instructors specifically said not to watch his videos for learning pre-trip (which i havent anyways but thats not my point) . I thought that somewhat odd because he seems very knowledgeable. This got me curious and made me start wondering, just how well known is he throughout the company? is he what people would consider a "star driver" and a corporate idol or is he simply someone who has drawn attention to himself (for better or for worse?) through his vlogging?

I read on some other forums theres controversy around vlogging while trucking, and that Prime at one point tried to essentially ban vloggers from mentioning Prime's name, or showing Prime's name in videos. Ive also heard theres controversy around Junior Honduras himself because he's a well known vlogger and prime driver...

any insight in to this?

Well today started out again at 7am. First couple of hours was orientation review, followed by pre trip introduction. Most of it Im already pretty familiar with as Ive studied before ever arriving in Springfield, but again it amazes me the amount of people who show up and just plan on winging it. I cant wrap my head around that.

Shortly after I grabbed some OJ and went back to my room to start on my cbts. Someone said it takes a day and half to do them. I sure hope not. Like I said in last post, I wasnt able to start them yesterday because I was litterally at muscle/brain exhaustion levels, no joke. I managed to get about 6 hours of sleep last night though so today has not been nearly as bad as the day before. Im working my way through these CBTs in the comfort of my room. Gonna be up all night burning through them so I can get them taken care of before tommorrow night.

So I go down to the waiting area for the shuttles at around 1040am and found the dmv shuttle already there and full. I think they really need to stick to a schedule more strictly because Ive learned now to never bother with those shuttles. They are either super early or super late. So I walked down to walmart with 2 other guys intending to take the bus, but we forgot to figure out what bus to take and the few people at the bus stop had no idea either. Luckily a Prime drive was there going somewhere else, and he called an Uber for him and us. We gave him some cash and took the uber down to the DMV.

I managed to pass combination, tanker, and air brakes with only 1 or 2 wrong one each. General knowledge though, I barely passed scoring exactly 80%, 40 right and 10 wrong. That was pretty nerve wracking. But I am happy to say that the High road greatly boosted my confidence beforehand, as well as other various resources. I havent really studied for the CDL much since arriving, and I still passed. I will say though some of the questions covered some stuff that was either not in High road, or I simply hadnt gotten to it yet. Before I had reset my score I had covered about half of general knowledge areas, and the majority of hazmat, combinations, airbrakes, and tanker. So who knows.

It seemed like very few people I was with passed the test today, so that is one weight off my shoulders and I guess all I can say is thats why you ****ing study long before you ever get on that greyhound. I just barely caught the shuttle back to the campus inn, got the permit and stuff scanned, grabbed some lunch, and now here I am knocking out some more CBTs. Headed off to health awareness class soon and later on this evening sim lab again.