LOOOOOONG Overdue Update

Congrats Miss M.

Long time coming, persistence pays off...

Rick

Thanks for checking in and congrats on getting this far! Some of the toughest times may still lie ahead as you work through the early stages of being solo but as always you just have to stay the course, learn as you go, and have faith that things will get easier with time. They'll never be easy, but they'll never be as hard as they are now.

All of these nightmare trainers you guys have experienced are a huge problem for this industry and it's one of the things we're working on a solution to right now at TruckingTruth. I have a lot of ideas for how we can weed out the bad ones and help students work through the difficulties they're facing. I've been on the phone all week with companies that have their own training programs and we're putting together a program to help fix this situation right now. I'm not going to go into detail at the moment because it's a work in progress but we will have something going within a few weeks to help make this better for everyone.

One thing I can tell you guys for a fact is that the companies are as horrified by this problem as anyone. People have the idea that these companies know which trainers are bad trainers and they're allowing it to happen. That is in fact an extremely rare exception. Part the problem is that the trainers are two faced. They're as gentle as Mother Theresa when they're dealing with their dispatchers, safety managers, and training coordinators but as soon as they close that door and they're one on one with a student it's like Jekyll and Hide - they turn into a monster.

So one of the biggest problems is identifying which trainers are a problem and which ones are doing a good job.

Now you might think, "Hey, I told them my trainer was a jerk but they didn't do anything about it!" Well that leads us to the second big problem which is trying to identify which students are actually the problem. Many of the "bad trainers" being reported by a student aren't bad trainers at all. It's the student that has all of the wrong expectations about how training is supposed to be done or the student and trainer aren't getting along so the student is trying to make the trainer look bad to the company.

So right now the companies are being bombarded with complaints by students but because most of this is all happening when the trainer and student are alone it's extremely difficult to figure out who is really the problem. The student tells one story, the trainer tells another. Who's being honest and who is lying? Often times it's extremely difficult to know.

So we're putting together a system to help figure that out and make things better for everyone. I'll give more details as this comes together but I promise you we're going to make this better.

In the meantime, for anyone experiencing problems with their trainer, just try like crazy to work through it and endure it if you can. It's only a temporary situation and you'll be running solo soon enough. If it's completely out of hand however then request a new trainer. But keep in mind that the trainer's job is not to make life easy and comfortable for you. Quite the contrary. Trucking is hard!! Either you can hack it or you can't and one of their jobs is to put you in stressful situations and press your buttons just a bit to see if you crumble every time things aren't easy or don't go as you would expect.

But back to Miss Miyoshi - again, congrats on making it through training and we hope you'll keep in touch! In fact, part of the solution to this problem with students and trainers is getting solo drivers that recently completed their training to help mentor students that are going through hard times. You just came through training. You know how hard it is. You had help and advice from drivers that went through it before you and hopefully you'll have the chance to help those coming in behind you. So check back with us as often as possible and let us know how things are going!

Brett says:

One thing I can tell you guys for a fact is that the companies are as horrified by this problem as anyone. People have the idea that these companies know which trainers are bad trainers and they're allowing it to happen. That is in fact an extremely rare exception.

Swift does have a procedure for this, you get it in the orientation briefing. But it's not pushed as much as it should be.

You get a business card from the Mentor program people, with their direct phone number. The new drivers are told to call if there are any issues. And, during the training ride, at least twice you need to talk on the phone with them and they ask you how things are going. The problem is, when they ask, "How are things?", the reflexive answer is "Fine!". But you do have an opportunity to speak directly with the people who can make changes.

The problem is, when they ask, "How are things?", the reflexive answer is "Fine!". But you do have an opportunity to speak directly with the people who can make changes.

The other problem is that you're often times talking with people who may or may not already be well acquainted with the trainer you're ratting out. When I worked at US Xpress years ago they had "Driver Liaisons" you were supposed to call if you had problems with your trainer. Most of the driver liaisons were trainers themselves so they likely knew the people you were complaining about. That's no good at all for the student. You need to be able to speak with someone that you know is looking out for you. The people you're instructed to call at your own company may indeed be looking out for you. Then again they might be best friends with the trainer you're having a problem with. It's a risky proposition at best for the student. You make that call to complain but you really don't know if you're creating a much bigger problem for yourself.

The other problem is that you're often times talking with people who may or may not already be well acquainted with the trainer you're ratting out.

You sound like you've been sipping some Kool-aid! Yep, trucking can be a small world in some ways.

Brett, it's really awesome that this kind of thing will be getting more attention. I kind of feel like the training position should be a dedicated, salaried position. If you have an O/O there is always going to be the mileage/revenue issue that has to be balanced with the training schedule. My first trainer was only interested in my ability to help her run her miles, not my training.

But until something like that happens, there needs to be more communication to the trainees about what is and is not tolerated, and what is truth and what isn't. My first trainer had me convinced my every move was being watched and that I might or might not "make the cut" after training was over. She even said I would likely be fired after the trailer ding. Turns out that wasn't the case at all. I was already a full employee at Prime, not on any probationary period. And it is basically expected that as a trainee you will have a dent or ding here and there. Also, keeping your trainee hostage by not allowing them to pee when necessary is also not acceptable. The list goes on.

If there can't be a trainer specific position, and then there must be a fail safe system in place for trainees to be able to voice their concerns without fear of reprisal. I get it that some students are basically crybabies, but I think overall attitude and action up until that point should be able to make the distinction.

I kind of feel like the training position should be a dedicated, salaried position.

Miss M, You are READING MY MIND! I have been thinking that same thing myself. My trainer was a L/O. We got along well and I learned the basics from him but his goal was $$$$$. Dedicated Company Trainers would be ideal. It could be a Full or Part time position. How many Veteran Drivers would like the opportunity to semi retire and train 3 or 4 new drivers per year at maybe 5-6 K per student? Just a thought

That is an excellent idea. I truly think that if it was a dedicated position it would easily eliminate 80% of the training issues. You would have better trained drivers, which is paramount. How trucking works, paperwork, HOS , inspections, QC stuff, all could be taught in a real world environment. And I think it should all be run as a solo run, NOT teams. How much am I learning if I'm always driving the night shift but all the docking and customer I traction happens when I'm asleep?

Part of the issue too is that students who are on a truck with someone thousands of miles from home with a company they just started do not expect to be believed, or think they will sound like a whiny cry baby.

This trainer did have personal issues going on and seemed to be in a downward spiral. She liked to take a lot of time off so from Nov to Jan when I was with her she wanted to run hard to the point where I wanted to strangle her and could not sleep.... then would take 2 weeks off. I met two of her past students and both spoke highly of her so I thought it was me.... but both were men, so maybe that made a difference.

Then she passed me to her friend who was totally psychotic. I took photographic proof of his illegal activities and he was fired. I found out later I was put on his truck so he could double his miles as a team cause he was in the hole with his lease. She was put into a mentoring program so prime hoped to improve her. She got her million mile safe driving award as I was upgrading.which earns respect.

The expectations of the students can go the opposite direction as well. Because I didn't know what to expect, I thought it was normal what she was doing. There was no "cushion" between our shifts to get things done like showering and eating. All showers and food were done on my 10 hr break. So I might sleep for a couple hours then she'd wake me to shower then I'd try to sleep some more. Even when she drove I had to wake up and deal with the customers do the QC, do all paperwork. She was a very aggressive driver and would scream and yell , blow the airhorn, and floor the pedal so the on guard would beep the entire time. All this caused me to walk around like a zombie with no sleep. Like miss myoshi I was only permitted to stop when and where she approved so bathroom breaks were on her schedule. when she was driving I was told "go now cause I'm not stopping for 400 miles". When I was driving she'd have me stop so she could go on the side of the road (easier for her cause she is a transgender with a *****. Wanted to be a woman but would then whip it out when convenient).

I wasn't sure if this was normal for training or normal for teaming. Later I found that the good trainers put an hour or 2 hour cushion between shifts for personal time. Good trainers also allow their students to sleep. There's a difference between "I need you to be awake so I can teach you this" and "you gotta be awake so u can do all the work". During all this... she was fun most if the time. Although she coukd get snippy at times for the most part we got along, so I assumed it was all normal.

Another issue I HATE and needs work is the fact that the trainers pay the salaries of the students. This puts the trainers in a "I'm you're boss you do what I say" mentality even with some of the good trainers. However, one prime person I trust told me the trainers are actually leasing rhe students from prime at the .14 cpm rate. Trainers then have in their head "I'm paying the student salary" but in actuality they are paying prime to rent the student at a cheaper rate than an experienced driver. True or not I don't know. But some trainers make this point and expect a slave.

This goes back to another post about lease or company trainers. Company trainers don't have that mentality because they aren't paying to lease the student. I had 3 lease/owner trainers (the first quit prime for a local job). The first was great. The other two had the "you're taking 20 min to back and that is 20 miles I'm not getting paid". For that reason I got almost no backing practice.

The students need a place to ask what is normal... or the companies need to explain that in orientation. Maybe the companies could.monitor if there is a break in between shifts. Honestly when I brought it up on this board at first, the other commentors thought i was exaggerating. They did not have the same type of experience so they could not understand.

Companies also have to fear lawsuits when dealing with both students and trainers. This trainer began a transgender journey just before I got on the truck. I suspect the hormones affected her. If prime fired her, a good attorney coukd argue it was for the transgender issue.... as her problems seem to have begun about the same time. However me and miss Myioshi had good standing as women to sue... make it look like prime wants women to fail. So even an awesome compnay like prime can find itself between a rock and hard place.

You guys are awesome and I love your thoughts and ideas on this. This topic is going to become front and center for TruckingTruth from now on and we're going to do a lot to improve the entire training process for everyone involved - students, trainers, and the companies themselves.

First let me start with the key points:

If there can't be a trainer specific position, and then there must be a fail safe system in place for trainees to be able to voice their concerns without fear of reprisal.

I agree wholeheartedly and that is one of the keys to a successful training program at any company. There has to be a way to identify and weed out the bad trainers and that information is going to come from the students themselves. I think the problem here is that reporting your trainer to your own company is a scary proposition. You have no idea if you're cutting your own throat as a student by reporting your trainer to someone who may have an allegiance to your trainer.

Students need some sort of whistleblower protection. Right now I'm thinking that TruckingTruth can serve as an independent 3rd party who can safely and reliably put the student's best interest first. I also think that solo drivers like yourself who have been through the training process successfully and are currently working at the same company as the student can act as mentors now to the next wave of students. It's far more likely that a driver in your position would be more interested in protecting the student than they would the trainer. So I'm thinking about setting up a mentoring system through our website that allows drivers to mentor students throughout the training process. We can speak with these students to identify the root of the problems they're having and help them get through it. We can identify whether or not the problem is with the student, the trainer, or maybe a little bit of both. We can help the student through it and report the trainer directly to the company if we feel there's a legitimate concern here.

We can also setup a tracking system for trainers. We can get students to evaluate their trainers and keep those evaluations to see who is consistently getting good scores and who is not. That will help us verify the quality of different trainers through different students over time. This system would help weed out the bad trainers and it would allow incoming students to identify the best performing trainers and put in a request to have their training done with them. The company will then be able to recognize who their most valuable trainers are and reward them however they see fit.

There needs to be more communication to the trainees about what is and is not tolerated, and what is truth and what isn't

This has also been an issue for a long time now. One of the challenges companies face, believe it or not, is that some students and some experienced drivers for that matter simply don't take safety and professionalism seriously enough. If you don't threaten people with consequences they simply won't perform. So a trainer might say, "If you bump into something you will be fired" hoping the student will take safety as being a deadly serious priority and never, ever take the chance of bumping into anything. If you tell a student, "Well, you can bump into a few things and you won't lose your job. It's ok" then guess what? You're going to have a lot more damage done to the equipment.

So how do you get students to take safety as seriously as possible, and yet keep them around even after they make a mistake or two? That's the challenge these trainers and these companies face.

Not only that, but any downtime is extremely costly. So as a student you might ding the truck and lose $100 because you had to sit for a day. But that lease operator is going to lose $300 sitting for a day and they now have to report this through their insurance costing them even more money. On top of that they might lose any bonus money they would have coming for keeping a clean safety record and getting a student through training safely.

And what if that delay causes an important load to an important customer to be late? The company could be fined and potentially lose a very valuable customer.

So the consequences of even a tiny mishap may be quite small for the student but they're far more severe for the trainer and the company you're working for. So they want you to take safety seriously but they'd rather not lie to you or stress you out more than you already are. It's a tough challenge they face with that sort of thing.

But of course setting the proper rules and expectations, along with establishing trust between the student, the trainer, and the company are all critical factors in a successful training program.