Prime Inc PSD And TNT Training Program

This post may be a little lengthy but I promised to be as detailed as possible for a couple of people here on the forums interested in Prime. So yesterday I arrived at the Campus Inn here in Springfield Mo.. After a 13 hour bus ride from Nashville TN I was quite exhausted, however I will not complain as there are people here who had much longer rides than me. About 12 people from my final bus from St. Louis were all coming to Prime in fact. Once we arrived and called the shuttle to the Campus Inn he arrived within minutes to pick us up. Once picking us up he went over some basic rules as far as Orientation and the do and donts. The two huge ones you will hear repeatedly is to one be on time for orientation. It begins at 7 am and you will get a wake up call at 545am. They will tell you over and over they take this seriously as Prime says if you're late to orientation you will be late to loads and you will be sent home at your own cost. Number 2 you will sign a piece of paper saying that you will not consume any alcohol while at orientation and if you do you will also be sent home at your own expense.

After arriving at the Campus Inn we were exhausted and just wanted rest. However we were given a packet of paperwork to begin filling out. They were very friendly and told us this is our time so if we didn't want to do this right now we did not have to. It just must be completed by the end of day one. Most of us however went ahead and done this so we would not be rushed on our first day as we already have a lot going on during day one. The packet consist of basically your driving history, work history, and criminal history. Always be truthful during each step of the process as they will match this up with your online application you did and the information you gave to your recruiter. This is also where you pick what division you want to run (reefer, tanker, flatbed) they have a piece of paper explaining each and you check the one you want to do. Me I am doing flatbed.

After this process we were giving our room assignment. The hotel they have is fairly decent and really close by within walking distance to a lot of different things such as Walmart, convenience stores and restaurants. You will have a roommate. I may have gotten lucky as my roommate may be leaving with a trainer today and I will be alone in the room. He has already been through the process he is just waiting on his drug test to come back that got delayed for one reason or another. So far every person I have met from Prime has been very friendly and helpful.

Anyway that is all I can think of at the moment. I am up really early today since the bus ride yesterday wiped me out. Orientation begins in two hours so I will update today again at the end of day one. Any questions feel free to ask and I will answer the best I can or try and find the answer out.

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Forgot to ask, just how large a group are you starting with?

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Forgot to ask, just how large a group are you starting with?

If there is one piece of advice I could give it is to do your cbts! Get them done early.

As for class size, it's really not super important. After orientation you will be 1:1 with your otr instructor. Almost all of your training is that way. You may have to go to the pad for a couple hours with other while you wait for a trainer, but it's 99% 1:1.

Day one of orientation is complete and it was a very long tiring day. We began at 7am right after breakfast. The class began with 87 people I believe. The class is usually very large but Prime is very organized and the process is ran very efficiently. They even compare it to a boot camp. We started off just going over basic things about the history of Prime and our schedule of things we need to accomplish for the next few days. Again the theme of the day was to be on time for all your tasks and classes. They will tell you early is on time and on time is late. You will hear this often. They will send you home if you cannot be on time.

After the introduction and things like that you are broken up into 4 groups due to the size of the classes and given tasks to do by the end of the day. You will then be turned loose to go complete these. They will not hold your hand during orientation. You are expected to get certain things done by certain times. They figure you are an adult and can accomplish things on your own. Of course if you have any questions you can always ask and they are more than willing to help. I have yet to meet one rude employee. Everyone here is more than helpful and friendly and seem to go out of their way to assist you with any issues you have.

The first thing my group did was the drug screen which is still urine only. At this time they test your urine also for sugar and protein. We had a few people have sugar in their urine and will be retested tomorrow to see if their sugar level is under 200. If not I assume they will be sent home to follow up with their doctor. We then went straight to the doctor and completed the rest of our physical (eye test. blood pressure, etc)

The next task I did was the integrity interview. Basically they match your packet up with what you filled out online and told your recruiter. So always be honest because they will find out. This can take anywhere between 5-30 minutes depending on any issues they find. I was out in about 5 minutes tops.

After that I went to the Apex testing. It is a physical agility test where they test your agility and you also pick up crates of different weights using proper lifting techniques and also carry some and set them down, pick them up and carry them again. You finish by climbing up and down 3 steps of a ladder 6 times. If you are going flatbed like me you also do an additional test of picking a rolled up tarp from an overhead shelf using proper technique, sit it on the floor then pick it up again and set it back on the shelf. All this is quite the workout but not very hard and it's very doable. We even had a couple of smaller women do the flatbed portion.

After this we had 2 and a half hours of Simulator time where today we just worked on basic shifting and the shift patterns in the truck. The simulator is the closet you can get to a real truck so you can practice on it without the fear of tearing up actual equipment. The instructors are really good and really dumb it down to the basics so that you can really understand it. It is an accelerated course so you have to pay attention and really keep up but again its very doable.

Finally you are given several CBTs (computer based training) which we have until Wednesday evening to complete. We must work this into our schedule and get this done. So any free time you have, which you usually have a couple hours at least each day you should be in the computer lab working on these. It is open until 10pm each night so it should not be an issue to get these done. You used to be able to do these on your laptop if you brought one however today they told us they want us doing them in the computer lab so they know that we in fact were the one doing them.

This is all I have for today and I will post about day 2 tomorrow. I know these posts are long but I am trying to be as detailed as possible so I apoligize in advance.

Sorry for the late update, it has been a very hectic crazy week. I will get the last 3 days caught up now in separate posts so there is still some organization. I am going to get better at doing these updates. So day 2 of orientation began with someone from the log department coming in and giving us a log class to teach the basics of how to log legal and the things that the DOT will look for on your Elogs. After that we had our daily roll call and I noticed we had already began losing people. In my best guess we were down about 5-10 people by day 2.

After this wrapped up we began going to the DMV depending on what group you were in and what time your daily simulator class was and providing you had already did your medical and your file interview. The DMV here seemed very quick and friendly compared to my homestate. I am happy to say I took the Missouri CDL permit test and passed all 4 of Primes required sections on the first try. (General Knowledge, Air Brakes, Combination, and tanker).. Big shoutout to the High Road Training Program on here.

After returning from the DMV i was pretty much free until my 6pm Sim class as I already had my permit and completed all my CBTs the day before. So i just basically hung out around my room and still studying the High Road Training Program so that when I return to my homestate I can go ahead and begin the process of obtaining my HazMat endorsement.

Later that evening my group went to Sim Lab where we continued working on shifting except now we have moved on to upshifting and downshifting. Like I said the Sim Lab is required before you clear orientation and is very fast paced so be sure you pay attention and do not be afraid to ask for help. Our instructors are top notch and I promise you can not go wrong by listening to them. After the Sim Lab ended that was all I had to do for the day so I went back to my room to sleep.

This is it for day 2 so now I will post the next 2 days updates so that I can be caught up.

Day 3 of orientation Wednesday began with a Pre-Trip class. This class is very detailed and about an hour and a half long. You will receive a 9 or 10 page packet detailing every single thing you will need to know to pass the pre-trip inspection portion of your CDL test. You will need to learn and study this packet at every single chance that you get. The even have a truck with a pup trailer parked out here in the parking lot of the Campus Inn so that you can go out there at anytime and work on studying this. Take advantage of this. The way Prime has it set up and the way they teach you is if your learn the packet and how to say each and everything on it then you will score a 100% on this part of the test. They really do everything they can here to set you up for success but in the end it comes down to you executing it.

After this whoever needs return trips to the DMV for retesting is free to go do this. In Missouri you can take each part of the test twice a day until you pass it. There are 4 sections so this is a total of 10 tries at each section throughout the week so you should be able to pass at some point. Usually on Wednesdays the highway patrol will come to the campus inn to test you but during this week they did not come for some reason. So whoever was left just went there to take it. Also during this time the female PSD students had their own separate meeting and whoever was assigned a sleep study had to go to a meeting to get that set up.

The only other thing I did on this day as all my stuff was completed by day 2 was my daily Sim Class. Each group rotates times each day to keep things fair so this night my class was from 8:30-11pm. On this day we worked on skip shifting mainly and lane changes to prepare for the final sim lab test on Thursday.

This basically was day 3 in a nutshell so now i will do day 4 so I will be caught up through today (Friday)...

Day 4 of orientation (Thursday) began with a health insurance and benefits class going over everything that is available for the company drivers. If you are coming in as a Lease Operator then yours will be different but I plan on being company for now. Then we moved on to our daily roll call and by this point the class has really thinned out a lot. I was told that our class began with between 90-100 people and by day 4 we were down over half that. I think i counted about 40-45 left. People are sent home for different things such as medical, background. drug screens and work history not checking out. So again be upfront and 100% honest when you apply to Prime. They do not look to send you home they will try to really work with you as long as you are honest during each step of the process. They are good at what they do and if you are hiding something they will find it and you will go home at your own expense.

After this we had a few hours of free time where the people who still haven't passed their permit test had a chance to go to the DMV again and retake their test. During this time my group had our Sim Class in which we completed our final exam on shifting (upshifting, down-shifting, and skip shifting) me and my Sim partner tested out as soon as class started so we moved on to backing for the remainder of the time. We did the straight line backing and right and left offset backing on the simulator.

After our Sim class we went back to the training room for our final training meeting (basically our graduation from orientation) during this time they went over the training schedule for us until we actually leave out with our PSD instructor and went over the rules and expectations while out during training and we talked about staying safe out on the road. Right after this is when you become an official PSD and anyone who doesn't have any pending issues such as medical, permit test not passed yet, drug screen not back yet, or work history not verified yet gets their picture taken and is issued their Prime badge/Comdata card.

Since my sim class was already done for the day I was free until the next morning so I went to my room and studied some pre-trip and went to bed. Later tonight I will post today's update on the official final day of orientation.

Day 5 of orientation Friday final day.. My schedule differed from the original schedule so I will explain both. I did not get cleared and badged on Thursday as my drug screen results were still pending along with a few others. These things happen when the lab is getting this many at one time.

If you are cleared and badged by Thursday you take the shuttle over to the millennium building for the weekly safety meeting. You will also get to tour the main terminal and then head over to Prime East to begin working on the pad.

Since I was not badged we met in the training room for about an hour to discuss pending issues that anyone may have had and how to resolve them so that you could be cleared. Prime really seems to try and work with you through any issues and get you cleared instead of just sending you home as I said before as long as you are always honest and upfront. I was just waiting on drug screen result so there wasn't much I could do at this point but to play the waiting game. They said they are usually always in by Friday unless there are issues with yours.

Around one pm I was called and my results had came in so I was sent over to the Millennium building to pick up my final medical packet and get my badge made. I was also given a schedule to follow for the remainder of my time here until I am called by a PSD instructor and leave out with one.

This basically sums up the entire final day, pretty boring sounding I know but they have to have everyone final cleared and processed so a lot of this time can be a bit of a waiting game.

Saturday Day one of PSD phase... We began a day with a Meeting at 8 am in the training room just basically doing a roll call and going over a few things about this phase and the process. After the meeting I went outside to practice my pre-trip inspection and was contacted by a PSD instructor. He picked me up here at the Campus Inn and we went out to an industrial area and I drove the truck around for a few minutes and he said he would take my on his truck for this phase. So tonight we will be leaving out for Wyoming to begin my PSD phase. So I will continue to update as I am able to.