Updated Celadon Experience

Had a post composed on my tribulations with accepting a position to return to OTR trucking, but trashed it by hitting the Menu button taking me back to the Home page before pressed Submit! It may have served to be therapeutic anyway...

That being said, I'm scheduled for my Refresher in Indy on the 26th, the refresher at my request. Otherwise, they would have set me up in a Solo truck after attending Orientation. I haven't been behind the wheel in over a year and a half.

Good decision? Good decision, I think.

Well it was the safer decision, allowing you to get back in the swing of things so there's certainly nothing wrong with that. It's trucking after all. You have to do what you feel is the safest thing to do. I think you'll find it will come back to you super quick so you might think, "Oh man, I didn't need this" and in that case just enjoy it anyhow!

Best of luck to ya. Let us know how things go!

Update on the Update:

I got through 2 days of Refresher, with one afternoon of backing practice with the other refreshers in their drop lot where they have van trailers all parked by the yard dog. I spent "47 minutes," my roommate will remind everyone, taking one chance to back it in. Got it. More waiting the next morning, and they took us in the training truck to familiarize with the driving course. Double-clutching cama back like natural, and I downshifted satisfactorily and made my turns pretty much textbook. As a matter of fact, the instructor had be go around a second time, to let me "end on a happy note." Said I needed to take a deep breath and relax.

Now to today; I was among the first group called by the Safety Representative to do it for grading to get on to Orientation. First tester at the same drop lot. I get the back doors to the hole, start coming back under when the tandems started pushing the trailer near straight the hole, with the slightest visibility of sunlight between trailers up at the corner on the left. The tester blew his whistle, I put it in Neutral and popped the brakes. He tells me I hit on the right side. Looked, and sure enough, right door hinges are up against the blind-side trailer. One final chance tomorrow, and have to stick the road test.

Sorry, the drives started pushing the trailer back in the hole on the tandems...

I was wrong about the "one final chance," and still failed on each of the three chances they give to back it into the tightest spot a professional driver would ever encounter. So, I'm back home.

Well, the other drivers that were there coming from other companies told me it looked like I knew what I was doing, and I would just pull up and (over-) correct myself out of the spot.

So I just returned from a costly class on how not to get a trucking job...