Profile For The Infamous Todd Holmes

As a few others have mentioned, every single thing you've brought up and over analyzed has been talked about before in numerous threads which can quickly be found in the search bar. I've said it a couple times already that I'm a firm believer that you're really not interested in trucking, you're a troll who lives for the sound of your own voice.

If that is the case, what can be found in the search bar, then why does Brett even allow new posts on things supposedly covered before to begin with?

Stop being so antisocial, people, please! Many people are under the impression that drivers (and railroad men) are antisocial cliques.

Being a firm believer that "I am not interested in this craft". I would not stake my soul on it.

Brett, what I do need to know is how to properly communicate with people in this business without hurting anybody's feelings or giving a bad impression of myself to others.

Seriously Todd, you've done nothing but self impose a bad impression of yourself on here, I really think you should just have the decency to quietly fade away from this site and leave it to those who are seriously trying to get their trucking career going, and those who are here to help! PLEASE, ENOUGH ALREADY!

I'm on the last chapter of Brett's Raw Truth. In Conclusion.

In his last chapter, he was talking about the wonders of GPS in his Technology and Entertainment section. Yes, Brett, I love GPS too but so many technophobe drivers here seem to love and trust their Rand McNally. I have had a Garmin in my car since 2011. I have never had a road map in my car since I got my Garmin new. Before I got a GPS, I would use Google Maps or Mapquest and print out driving directions at home to go some place I didn't know. It was awkward to try to drive and read this thing behind the wheel. Hearing the voice turn-by-turn directions keeps my eye on the road and I can quickly glance at the screen to see the route highlighted in pink.

MY GPS only got me on a wild goose chase once on a northern California county road way up in Del Norte County high inthe mountains. I've heard these things are more goof-prone in rural areas than in big cities. Neither the GPS nor any visible road signage warned me of a dead end in the road due to fallen debris from a hillside about one hour into this road where I had turned off from a highway. My Garmin was set in the "save fuel" mode. In a semi, there would have been no way in the devil to make a U turn on that narrow road where it was impassable to a pile of fallen hillside and rock that blocked it. I called the Del Norte County Sheriff when I got back in the Crescent City to complain about this road and its lack of warning signage. This particular county doesn't seem to inspect and maintain its roads often. This was in the summer of 2011 and I was returning from a camping trip at Panther Flat in this county back to Sacramento via Mount Shasta where I would spend one more night at a campground there. I wanted to take a more scenic rural route back than I101 coastal via Eureka I came up. The road should have been closed and had signage posted at the intersection where it began. The road did even have gates that were open at its entrance. I've found my Garmin unit is more reliable if you set in the "save time" mode rather than "save gas" mode. It's a Nuvi 1350 series. Even a Rand McNally atlas wouldn't ever know a two-lane county road would be blocked due to an unforeseen landslide ahead plus no warning signs posted anywhere so I can't fault GPS entirely.

Tomorrow, I will start reading High Road Training and try to resist any temptation to post anything unless it is a direct question for clarifications as to what I read in that material and maybe I can earn my welcome back here. Yes, I'm free of smoking cigarettes for many years and drinking for several years but have to break that addiction to posting things on impulse. I do get lonely.

A final reply from Ms. Jones at Wilson Logistics to me:

(I'm glad she is speaking positive things to me and shows no ill-will toward me. It helps me feel better!)

"Good Afternoon, "Todd".

No offense taken. Please do keep Wilson Logistics in mind once you have achieved your desired health status.

Take care and best of luck to you!"

Todd, I wish you well and truly hope you some day find the psychological help you so obviously need.

i say that with the deepest sincerity. Mental illness is tragic, and those who suffer often do not know why. They often self medicate and although i'm glad you are not doing that, it seems you are attempting it in other ways.

Please seek help.

Now, Rainy D., do you have any work experience in any of the healthcare fields? If not, please try not to diagnose me on these boards.

But maybe you are correct after all. It sounds like a good idea. Really. I could really ask my primary VA doctor to consult me with a VA behavioral specialist to see if my obesity and chronic fatigue might be connected to some yet-to-be-diagnosed mental health issue. It is as important to have a healthy mind as it is to have a healthy body. It would not hurt me to ask and check it out. One of the things I often suffer is a morbid fear of death and dying from some undiagnosed illness and this seems to come on during episodes when my fatigue and/or body pain is severe. Many of my family members have died of heart disease or cancer. The fatigue often makes me feel depressed. Or is it the depression causing the fatigue? One of my roomates (he moved out early last June) thought I had OCD and/or hypochondria.

Please everybody don't insinuate that I am a crazy person by what I type on these boards.

Todd, this says it all...

I know some people here think I'm a lazy bum but I can't help that. You've never been inside my body to feel how badly it is suffering and even my "doctor" (a VA government pill-pushing idiot who likely failed to make it in private practice where there's much better money in medicine) thinks CFS is a joke.

OMG...we can now add VA Dictirs to your growing list of undignified vocations. You are such a jackass.

Todd if the above description of your condition is entirely accurate, how then can you even consider driving an 80,000lb CMV? I’ll give you the answer, YOU CAN’T.

Like they say on Shark Tank, I’m out.

Good luck Todd. Get your sh** together.

Peace.

I'm a man of HOPE. I want to actually be HEALTHY enough to WORK FOR LIVING, period.

I want to actually be healthy enough to scrub toilets and pack industrial vacuum cleaners on my back full time. If that is my hard, long narrow winding uphill rocky road (my ticket) to becoming an OTR driver with a handsome paycheck, I am NOW willing to do that. So be it.

I actually envy the HEALTH and stamina of those people who are shoveling horse manure at minimum wage (or below) full time in 100-plus degree heat. I wish I had the physical strength to do even that.

Believe me, I want to be as strong as Superman. I want to again be like that tough soldier I was when I was younger.

People might wish me well on my physical rehabilitation attempts. All I can do is try.

You know how you get an answer? You apply for the job and on the application YOU BE TRUTHFUL. Nobody is going to spend the money on sending you to orientation just to send you home. The people who get sent home most likely lied on application, failed physical or failed a drug test. These companies extend an offer to come in to orientation based on the information you put in the application and they will verify that when you're there. If JP, Wil-trans, or Prime is your first choice just know they're more selective than other carriers.

Again, fill out the dang application and you'll know where you stand and what you need to do to be hireable for them in the future.

Well, I just did get an email reply from one Ms. Jones from Wilson Logistics as follows:

"Good Morning, (my legal first name). Need to provide a correction; it is Ms., not Mr. I received your email yesterday via our general mailbox. Yes, Jim Palmer and Wilson Logistics are the same company, just a different division. As for our hiring policy, we take all applications on a case by case basis. If at any point we need documentation to verify any history, we will request it at that time. I’ve attempted to reach out to you a few times; if you can give me a call at 406-829-6286 to discuss any further questions you may have, I’d greatly appreciate it!"

This pretty much answers my most nagging question about hiring policy and work history gaps. It's kind of a roll-of-the-dice thing. An "ify" situation. It's not a definite "Go hold down a toilet-scrubbing job for a year or two and then get back to us!" kind of thing.

So, I politely replied to this lady as follows as honestly as I could:

"Jan. 3, 2019

Good afternoon, Ms. Jones:

Thank you for your reply.

I do apologize for the masculine assumption in using "sir" as I am not familiar with the given name "Japera". I was taught in the 4th grade (by a lady teacher, I might add) to address a formal business letter as "Dear Sirs" whether a woman or a man actually reads it. So, please take no offense. Nothing personal. Just a habit.

I'm now in a serious and committed weight-loss and exercise regimen to achieve a healthy body weight and body fat percentage with a diet and exercise program as provided through my healthcare provider, the VA.

I hope to recover from my obesity and its symptoms very soon and I'm so very eager to become a productive member of the American workforce once again. On a positive note regarding my health, thankfully, I have not smoked for 14 years, touched alcohol for several years (except red wine for cooking) and have a long-standing clean DMV record.

Thank you once again for your reply on hiring policy regarding work history. I was deeply concerned that might be a serious issue regarding coming into a new career as an OTR driver.

I will save your email messages in my Employment folder for now and bear Wilson Logistics and Jim Palmer in mind when hopefully in the near future my doctor will clear me to return to work full time once again. My doctor assures me that averting my obesity is the key to ending my disabling condition.

Sincerely, (my legal name) Future OTR Driver Hopeful"

Based off your post history I highly doubt any company would cold email you trying to recruit you. Your history here indicates a student would be nothing but trouble from before even making it to their school.

Bob, you don't know me to judge me fairly, sir. If you got to know me you might not think me a bad person.

Kinda like how you have pre-judged janitors, buereaucrats and minimum wage workers?

Waffled when asked direct questions?

And taking us down the Rabbit Hole more than once only to surface with confirmation that you “knew it” all along.

Get real Todd (for just once). If you don’t want to be perceived as a pain-in-the-ass, stop conducting yourself like one.

And for the record, I think you would be very difficult as a student because based on every one of your posts, you lack a basic, but necessary set of personality traits to be successful:

Ability to follow instructions

Strong work ethic

Single-minded focus

Humility/Coachability

Positive attitude

And that’s just a few...

You have repeatedly and chronically demonstrated the opposite in your interaction on this forum. Conduct yourself in school, during orientation...and if by some stroke of luck “road training”, your failure is imminent.

G-Town, I was a straight-A student through college. Yes, I've only achieved a humble associates degree, computer information science, though. I now think pursuing a higher degree or a ton of certifications at my age, 55 this April, a waste of time. The IT industry is full of young people anyway. They don't want to hire some gray old fart like me. That computer geek technology stuff is too brain-racking at my age anyway and now I find computers boring to death.

Please cite a sample where I may have failed to follow instructions?

I know some people here think I'm a lazy bum but I can't help that. You've never been inside my body to feel how badly it is suffering and even my "doctor" (a VA government pill-pushing idiot who likely failed to make it in private practice where there's much better money in medicine) thinks CFS is a joke. People will believe what they want to believe. I only have to somehow convince any future employer (if there ever is one, I might get killed by a meteor tomorrow morning) of that I am otherwise not a lazy bum.

Now, I have to go do some more rehabilitative exercise.

If I were a hiring personnel for a trucking company.......

If I were the owner of a company

Todd, you don't even have a job and you haven't had a job in almost 15 years. You've also never been in charge of hiring or owned a company. So why are you expecting people who actually hold these positions to do things the way you expect them to be done? The truth is you have no Earthly idea how these jobs are done so you shouldn't even have an opinion on it.

What you should do for starters is stop judging everyone. You should have one thought on your mind - what do I need to know and what do I need to do to land a job in this industry? That's it. Your opinions and expectations are based on absolutely no experience or expertise, so why do you think they are so valuable?

Brett, what I do need to know is how to properly communicate with people in this business without hurting anybody's feelings or giving a bad impression of myself to others.

Ok, I have made diplomacy mistakes here but I don't want these to carry over to a job interview.

How should one approach prospective trucking companies/recruiters with questions or concerns whether by US mail, email, text or telephone?

I think asking about hiring policy is not trivial at all. Other people posting on this site have indicated to me that an employment gap could be a serious issue or barrier. The hirers either will hold my employment gap against me or they won't, all other things the same. I'm certainly not a convicted felon. Regardless of the length of my employment gap, I do have US Department of VA documentation to cover each and every minute of it and my VA doctor would gladly sign a release back to work if he felt that I really was able to go back to work and that's going to be mostly based upon what I tell him as to how I feel. I know my own body. I know whether it has the stamina to take on any job full time including being a Walmart door greeter full time. Those poor people have to stand all shift long on their feet and drivers are seated most of the time while on duty. If I can sleep a solid eight hours and stay up without taking a nap or lying down on my bed once at any time for the other sixteen hours, and do this consistently for at least a month, I will feel 100% ready to get back to work.

Why can't I get one simple answer for one simple question from a company?

Well, I'll wait and see if Mr. Jones responds to my message.

Yes or no.

PS - Brett, if you do believe I have a 15 year employment gap even with documented disability for that whole duration, should I just forever forget truck driving based solely on that fact alone?

Bob, you don't know me to judge me fairly, sir. If you got to know me you might not think me a bad person.

Todd, unfortunately we know you very well. You have revealed yourself repeatedly. Nobody's judging you by anything other than the evidence you're giving.

Also, it doesn't matter if you send a trucking company an email, a phone call, or a pony Express overnight delivery. If you ask them about hiring requirements your inquiry is going straight to a recruiter. What were you expecting? They don't employ some sweet little old lady to answer every bozo's question that happens to come to them - that is the work for the recruiters. They don't deal with the general public through some customer service department.

Well, I might not be the most competent Trucking Truth poster in the world, Old School, but I am not a bad person. I never once claimed to be perfect. If this man is a recruiter for a company, I want a straight honest answer about hiring somebody whose has just been on disability for several years and not dance around the issue like a car salesman. He gave me all that other fluff but never once answered my simple question. If this man were more professional, he would have stated in his message to me that he was responding to me on behalf of the inquiry I have made using Jim Palmer contact information that I retrieved from Jim Pamer's own site.

If I were a hiring personnel for a trucking company, I would want an application submitted and preapproved for CDL training before a ticket for the Dog is even issued to a potential recruit. If I were the owner of a company, I wouldn't even want to pay for a bus ticket unless I had determined the candidate met all my hiring criteria (eg. no convictions for violent or drug-related crimes, not a registered sex offender, no DUI, no license suspension etc.) in the first place.

If there were an alleged disability-related employment gap, I would at least want verification of recent disability history and something in writing from a doctor saying something to the effect of "cleared to return to work". I'm not going to require off the bat that somebody get off even verifiable disability, go hold a Walmart greeting sign, push a broom, scrub toilets, pour Starbucks coffee, shine shoes, drive taxis, mow lawns or flip burgers for a year or more then come back and see me about a possible driving career.

Based off your post history I highly doubt any company would cold email you trying to recruit you. Your history here indicates a student would be nothing but trouble from before even making it to their school.

In case some people here are interested, I just now replied to this alleged "solicited" email with the following:

QUOTE

"January 3, 2018

Mr. Jones:

Thank you for emailing me about truck driving recruitment. To be honest, sir, I'm not now ready to return to work due to disability for which I am now in the recovery process.

How did you come by my email contact information, sir?

I did email a message to Jim Palmer Trucking with contact information its website provided with a question just the other day. Are you affiliated with that company?

My question was in regard to that company's hiring policy since I honestly have no verifiable work history over the past several years but I can provide disability documentation should I apply for employment in the future to explain such a work history gap.

Is having a gap in work history even for a verifiable disability history still an automatic disqualifier for being hired at Jim Palmer or any other company you are affiliated with, sir? I've heard a rumor that Swift and others in the freight trucking business might pass people over based on such disability-related-work-history-gap reasons but I don't know that for a fact.

Sincerely.

(my legal name)

Boise, ID Resident and Future OTR Driver Hopeful"

END QUOTE

Perhaps, people here can kindly give me advice on how to properly communicate with prospective trucking employers so I don't say or type the wrong thing and bungle it badly for myself. Yes, communication/people/soft skills is where I feel I am still tender, I do admit.

At least I was polite to the strange man in my email by addressing him Sir.

I'm actually interested in what he might have to say to me. It is unreasonable to even ask a prospective employer about its "hiring policy" in detail? Is that none of my business?