Profile For Darrell S.

I start my training at TMC next week. I am looking forward to to as it is a complete career change for me after 20years in the oil field. You may want to look take a look back at what your trainer may have perceived of you as a trainee. And what he may have expected from you. Truck driving is a very independent job where you are responsible for every thing that happens to the truck and it’s cargo. You brought up many examples of things that he was not doing and may have not been doing correctly. In my personal opinion you should have been up and doing he Pre-trip before he even started doing his. ( It would give you an opportunity to compare notes on anything you may have missed, and even if he did not do it as least you know it was done.) When you got the gash on the front tire that was a good catch on your part. But maybe the trainer was waiting to see if you would take responsibility and make sure the tire was fixed before heading out. ( there was a good possibility that he seen the split and felt that it was safe enough to travel on for a short time after his years of experience but with your inexperience you should have it repaired immediately.) While being irritated while you were practicing your backing skills. Did he just tell you it is time to practice your backing or did you ask him for time to practice because you knew it was a weak point that you need to work on. Because he may have seen that as a lack of initiative on your part if you knew that was a weakness in your skills and was not take a proactive approach to gain better skills and experience. As for securing your load where you getting prepared for the upcoming task of securing your load while you were being loaded or did he have to tell you. Your trainer forgetting his license should have been a good opportunity to get all the driving experience you could be simply saying since you forgot your license why don’t you let me do the driving. Because the way I see it you are both licensed CDL holders and both employees of the same company so you both are responsible for safe and legal operation of the truck. The reason I brought up these points are not to criticize you but to bring up some possible reasoning on why the trainer behaved like he did. You have to remember as a trainer he probably has had a lot of trainees that just want to say they are a truck driver and not truly put the effort into it. I have been on both sides of the fence in my 20 years in the oilfield of being a trainer and trainee. You need to realize that just because someone is a driver does not mean they are a good teacher. He may just be an old school driver and a hard a$$ from a different generation. But really does care about the people he trains and wants you see the whole picture and not just one aspect of the job of being a steering wheel holder. So maybe with your next trainer go with the attitude that you are a truck driver and take charge of you career and every opportunity to gain knowledge and use your knowledge you have gained to work as team with you trainer to make both of your jobs easier. But there is a possibility that the guy is just a a&&h@le and nothing you could have done would have been right. Good luck.