I've Just Received An Unsolicited Email Message From A CDL Recruiter.

Please cite a sample where I may have failed to follow instructions?

Mayhaps the multiple times you've been told by multiple people to jump on the "High road training" But your response was always I'm working through the "Raw Truth" material first. You've been doing that for quite awhile, ahem, it's an 88 page book for crying out loud! How long could it possibly take?!?! I'm pretty good at reading comprehension and could read 88 pages and be tested on it in a day. Maybe your reading comprehension isnt as good, fine, but weeks, wow!

Brett, what I do need to know is how to properly communicate with people in this business without hurting anybody's feelings or giving a bad impression of myself to others.

Seriously Todd, you've done nothing but self impose a bad impression of yourself on here, I really think you should just have the decency to quietly fade away from this site and leave it to those who are seriously trying to get their trucking career going, and those who are here to help! PLEASE, ENOUGH ALREADY!

I'm on the last chapter of Brett's Raw Truth. In Conclusion.

In his last chapter, he was talking about the wonders of GPS in his Technology and Entertainment section. Yes, Brett, I love GPS too but so many technophobe drivers here seem to love and trust their Rand McNally. I have had a Garmin in my car since 2011. I have never had a road map in my car since I got my Garmin new. Before I got a GPS, I would use Google Maps or Mapquest and print out driving directions at home to go some place I didn't know. It was awkward to try to drive and read this thing behind the wheel. Hearing the voice turn-by-turn directions keeps my eye on the road and I can quickly glance at the screen to see the route highlighted in pink.

MY GPS only got me on a wild goose chase once on a northern California county road way up in Del Norte County high inthe mountains. I've heard these things are more goof-prone in rural areas than in big cities. Neither the GPS nor any visible road signage warned me of a dead end in the road due to fallen debris from a hillside about one hour into this road where I had turned off from a highway. My Garmin was set in the "save fuel" mode. In a semi, there would have been no way in the devil to make a U turn on that narrow road where it was impassable to a pile of fallen hillside and rock that blocked it. I called the Del Norte County Sheriff when I got back in the Crescent City to complain about this road and its lack of warning signage. This particular county doesn't seem to inspect and maintain its roads often. This was in the summer of 2011 and I was returning from a camping trip at Panther Flat in this county back to Sacramento via Mount Shasta where I would spend one more night at a campground there. I wanted to take a more scenic rural route back than I101 coastal via Eureka I came up. The road should have been closed and had signage posted at the intersection where it began. The road did even have gates that were open at its entrance. I've found my Garmin unit is more reliable if you set in the "save time" mode rather than "save gas" mode. It's a Nuvi 1350 series. Even a Rand McNally atlas wouldn't ever know a two-lane county road would be blocked due to an unforeseen landslide ahead plus no warning signs posted anywhere so I can't fault GPS entirely.

Tomorrow, I will start reading High Road Training and try to resist any temptation to post anything unless it is a direct question for clarifications as to what I read in that material and maybe I can earn my welcome back here. Yes, I'm free of smoking cigarettes for many years and drinking for several years but have to break that addiction to posting things on impulse. I do get lonely.

Most of your questions will be answered, some in a thing companies do called Orientation.

If you’re lonely, get off your rear, away from the computer and get involved in a church or community service organization. It might help you shed those pounds you’ve talked about. And it’ll boost your self esteem.

so many technophobe drivers here seem to love and trust their Rand McNally.

OMG Todd, your biggest problem is your unique ability to misunderstand just about anything you encounter. You seem to live in a rabbit hole of your own making. Your disability is not chronic fatigue. It is, well I'm not really sure what it is, but it appears to be a total lack of common sense. Forget about trucking. You're far better suited to something with straightforward objectives, something like Janitoring.

so many technophobe drivers here seem to love and trust their Rand McNally.

OMG Todd, you're biggest problem is your unique ability to misunderstand just abou anything you encounter. You seem to live in a rabbit hole of your own making. Your disability is not chronic fatigue. It is, well I'm not really sure what it is, but it appears to be a total lack of common sense. Forget about trucking. You're far better suited to something with straightforward objectives, something like Janitoring.

LOL

He is just trolling. He loves to hear (see) himself talk.

Chronic fatigue, I have it too. Suffering from it right now actually. Been up since 2 AM on 5 hours of sleep for a 14 hr day. Bet Grumpy is pretty tired who is going through school. Bet Old School might be alittle sleepy while recovering from a major eye surgery. Both who are much older than you are. Your chronic fatigue is a mental deficiency and nothing else. You can overcome it.

You're far better suited to something with straightforward objectives, something like Janitoring.

Come on he said janitorial work is beneath him, I think he should hold out for CEO of a major trucking company he already knows how they are conducting their business all wrong!

Todd,

I fixed your email reply to Ms. Jones; you incorrectly referred to your health care provider as your doctor:

I will save your email messages in my Employment folder for now and bear Wilson Logistics and Jim Palmer in mind when hopefully in the near future my "doctor" (a VA government pill-pushing idiot who likely failed to make it in private practice where there's much better money in medicine) will clear me to return to work full time once again. My "doctor" assures me that averting my obesity is the key to ending my disabling condition. Sincerely, (my legal name) Future OTR Driver Hopeful"

Todd: Tomorrow, I will start reading High Road Training and try to resist any temptation to post anything unless it is a direct question for clarifications as to what I read in that material

No clarifications needed, it's all there completely clarified, just read, understand, and test at the end of each section. It's only 162 sections, catch ya in a year or two?

Wow, so many different possible outcomes. "Todd" you were in the military. When you asked how to communicate with people in this industry without hurting feelings, put yourself back to an E3, dealing with an E6. Remember how you dealt with your ncos, and your company grade officers. That should help put you in the proper frame of mind. If you constantly use the term Sergeant, or sir at the end of each sentence after basic (insert the appropriate title for whichever Branch you served in), you know eventually you're going to get your cheeks handed to you. Informally, of course, since you "were simply trying to be respectful".

Truck driving is just like every other job on this planet, and yet very unlike most of them. Employers will look for reliability, the ability to work as part of a group cooperatively, work ethic, reliability, work ethic, notice a trend?

Being a professional driver, however, requires a bit more. It requires a willingness to do what needs to get done to accomplish the mission, safely and within the bounds of policy and law. It requires the ability to work collaboratively with people who just don't get that need. It requires people able to Verbal Judo their way through the day, while dealing with difficult, sometimes almost impossible, people and situations. It requires someone willing to put the mission over their personal comfort.

Many of us on this list entered the field as a second career, after doing something else for quite some time. The suggestions, advice, and indeed some of the criticisms , come from viewing the situation through the lenses that were developed over time. The best piece of advice this former MP, and multi-decade supervisor would give you, is unlearn anything you had previously learned, and go back to the basic training mindset where you, and all the other people starting out, are ranked 0 newbies. Adopt an attitude of humility, and be chill.

I wish you good luck as you move forward in the process, should you choose to continue.