Profile For Mark H.

Agreed, but hopefully people learn that before they ever decide on a trucking career, even a local trucking career. Mainly because you just never know when things are going to go south, and no I don't mean the freight.

Look at the Indiana area the past few weeks, interstates were crippled due to poor management at the state level and quite honestly a pretty bad winter storm. Some of those drivers I imagine were on their way home or doing their last drop and then heading home, but there's no way you could honestly predict or plan for a natural issue such as weather. So people got stuck on the side of the road, in accidents, stuck in truck stops and god knows anywhere else they could manage to get to before the interstates got shut down.

If you aren't prepared for such cases, stay away from trucking. It's not for you. If your significant other can't understand that you're going to be a few hours late or a few days late to your scheduled home time due to unforseen circumstances, trucking aint for you. I say this for even local drivers, every part of this country has weather, and you never know when its going to go bad, from hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, snow, ice, even rain and floods, plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Leaving for Prime Inc on the 19th at 12:30 riding the dog from Indianapolis to Springfield.

So I wanted to list off the things I will be taking with me, just as a reference for other new drivers, and for the older guys to say whether or not I forgot something...

Compact briefcase that has all of my important documents in it, like my STATE SEAL birth certificate, social security card and direct deposit information. As well as a few notebooks for note taking (and practice log books, and keeping track of my miles and pay, and to jot down my trip info once it comes over the qualcom, and the ever important trip planning.)

One bag of clothes for roughly two weeks, considering the time of year, I went ahead and packed nothing but cooler weather gear. Since I live up north but grew up in the south (Jacksonville Florida) I am pretty comfortable with wearing jeans everywhere, including when its 100F in the south. Also packed in some long johns (this is long underwear for those that don't know..) because they can help keep you toasty in the cold and take up a very small amount of space in your bag.

Sleeping Bag. brand new, freshly bought for a whopping $15 at wally world.

Small bag with my shower stuff + two towels in it. Also the ever important shower shoes, not into getting any type of fungus.

Just wanted to say that just because you are a trucker, doesn't mean you have no social life. If you don't have a social life because you chose trucking as a career, then you are not very good at being social or have a lack of social skills.

No reason at all you can't log in to websites like this one and chat it up with people, chat it up with other truckers at the truck stop, shippers, receivers, and etc.

Not to mention calling home on occasion, your significant other will appreciate it I bet.

Http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0002D6K86/ref=pd_aw_sbs_2?pi=SL500_SS115

Just one of the many "on the go" cooking utensils I found on amazon

All the info that I have gotten from the Prime recruiter has all the info that Paul spoke of. If I am not mistaken the $200 advance's have to be paid back at $25 a week. Thinking I am in the same boat as you. I will get a final paycheck from my current job about 3 weeks after I quit for all of my vacation and holiday time that I have built up.

I should hear from my Prime recuiter Monday as she has been on vacation since Christmas. That way I can find out if I will be enrolled in a class in Feb. Best of luck to both you and Paul.

Hey Ray is your recruiter Cindi? Because that's my one as well and she's on vacation until Monday lol

Thanks Ernie!

After doing some more google searching and what not I found the information I was wanting on the trucks. I think I would personally be able to handle one of the little "cute" trucks (ie. lightweight). My main concern was I really didn't care to have to eat out every single meal and would rather be able to do a bit of cooking or sammich making myself on the truck and save a few of those hard earned dollars.

After finally finding it, basically what Prime drivers are doing is having the detail shop take the passenger seat out, and drop their dorm-room fridge in , in its place. Also some a few postings of a couple of guys adding in smaller plastic book cases to hold a few things beside the fridge as well.

I personally am thinking I should just go for a big one though, I like the thought of having more space as I would be living in the thing for 3-8 weeks at a time.

I am pretty sure the prospects for new drivers entirely depends on your current place of residence.

I can open a newspaper from any city with in 100 miles of my house and just blindly look at 10 jobs in the classifieds, 9 of those will be for a trucking company of some sort. Mind you I live in the mid west and am surrounded by freezer storage warehouses , wal-mart warehouses, oreily parts warehouses, amazon warehouses, pretty much any place that generally has a warehouse...so its natural to have tons of trucking companies in the area as well.

Thank you for that list Star, I appreciate it.

Does anyone on the forums know what kind of trucks the newbies at Prime end up getting? I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the new company drivers get the smaller light weight trucks now, and I am basically wondering if that just means, less amenities inside of the truck, smaller bed, etc etc?

Hello all, my name is Mark. I have been considering a career path into trucking, coming from the IT world. Thanks to this various website, and some decent know how of how to abuse google search into getting the information I am after, I have been looking at various companies to basically pay my way through CDL training, then supply me with a career with that company.

At this time I am currently looking at mainly Prime Inc. , for a few reasons. Somewhat because they have a reefer base right by my location in Indiana, and because they also pay you after you obtain your CDL and begin that training segment. (Let's be honest here, at that time you're training but you're also doing team driving for the company, you should get paid for it.)

Now I've been doing my research and decided I would be getting my CDL permit here in Indiana before I accept any companies offers and jump on the old dog to head to their head quarters. Hopefully that would mean more simulator time for me.

I have a few basic questions I think some of the newer truckers and hopefully a lot of the seasoned truckers may be able to help me with as well.

First question: What all should I actually take with me to say Primes HQ in Springfield? Obviously I will need all of my personal information and identification and the standard "you're here for a really long job interview" information, but what other stuff? Bedding? Toiletries? Any other stuff I haven't honestly thought about yet? Oh, would it be ok to bring stuff like my laptop/tablet, just cause well, netflix, amazon prime, etc etc?

Second Question: How good is Prime about putting you with someone you live near? Some of the stuff I have read here and other places basically indicates companies try to put you with trainers that live your in general area, so when they go for home time, you can go for home time as well. (That and since they have a reefer truck hub maybe 45 minutes away from my home, I don't imagine it'd be too hard to find someone based out of there to train me...there's a guy about 5 minutes down the way that I just saw today parking his semi in front of his house, it was a Prime truck so hopes are high yah know.)

Appreciate all of the obvious hard work that has been done on this website, from the training information, blog posts, stories, and over all forums full with information from actual truckers and not just recruiters selling you a dream.