Memoirs Of CDL Training Add A Lil OTR

For some reason I am having trouble sending the next post.

For some reason I am having trouble sending the next post.

I've been following!! All I can think, is you tried to send TWO within 2 mins of eachother???

WELL that didn't go well.

All I know, is . . that happens !! DANG I REALLY WANNA HEAR IT ALL, MAN!

~ Anne ~

Jose My trainer When I try to load a long post, nothing happens. So I will do a brief synopsis and if you want the flowery prose, aka the nasty details ask away. I was flown from Love Field to Odessa-Midlands then El Paso. Hitched a cab to the Petro where I met Jose Lopez from Dominican Republic. At the time resided in Round Rock Texas. Very nice, calm tempered for most part. Always making fun etc I cant recall many issues if any we had. On a scale of 1-10 my backing skills a 3 his maybe a 5. Did not teach me much in that dept. --Left El Paso en route to Clarksville Ark had to pass right thru Dallas.(why did I fly to El Paso?). --Wal-Mart dc or we dropped at Wally Dc then Tyson load from Clarksville to Kent Wa. --North to I-90 then on to Seattle area. --Whoops. As I was pulling away from fuel island and laughing at something Jose was saying, I knocked over the concrete ?pylon?. Jose said "watch your GD trailer, no get us out of here" Ok we left. Not my call. A couple drivers called over cb saying "keep going we tried to give attendant your truck info he didnt care" Ok Lets see if this posts!

Seattle and more

Oh Seattle, I believe there is a law against smiling there. I encountered one heck of an angry a@&@&@e there. He was the inbound contact at this food dc in Kent. We showed up a day early, Jose sends me in to see if we could get unloaded. This dude flips .... on me. Tells me to gtfo there etc etc. Be lucky if I take your load in the morning. Off to the crappy TA for the night. Well I return in the morning w a box of donuts to brighten his day. Welllllll Nope. He proceeds to chew me a new one, grabs the donuts while telling me to take my crap and go. I might get a door by the end of day. Angrily I leave slamming doors etc. As we are attempting to turn around "Hey a$$ kissing trainee from Stevens get your a$$ into Door 2 now...comes over the cb Well how about that? Got unloaded and out to Peshastin to get a "HOT" load of apple going to Ft Worth. Rush load. So we pick up and luckily before we got too far, "take load to rail yard then get empty from some drop yard in the GHETTO. Jose decides we will sleep there. Joy! Police Helicopters spotlighting the area all nite. Sirens etc

**Next up the 7 drop nursery plant load where we encountered "shut down in Paducah" "flaming nursery owners and Victor hates Blanco" "Redneck wants to fight me b/c I am letting a gd mexican train me. Jose and kkk."

--A few things about my trainer that irked me. 1) he never ate much and would get an attitude if I sat down to eat. I only did so when we were parked for the day. (??) 2) he would not wash the windows 3) He would blast this hispanic hip-hop/mariachi/flamenco cd (all 3 styles were discussed in liner notes) at random random times when I was driving.

--The nursery run

That's some funny stuff!

Jose My trainer When I try to load a long post, nothing happens. So I will do a brief synopsis and if you want the flowery prose, aka the nasty details ask away. I was flown from Love Field to Odessa-Midlands then El Paso. Hitched a cab to the Petro where I met Jose Lopez from Dominican Republic. At the time resided in Round Rock Texas. Very nice, calm tempered for most part. Always making fun etc I cant recall many issues if any we had. On a scale of 1-10 my backing skills a 3 his maybe a 5. Did not teach me much in that dept. --Left El Paso en route to Clarksville Ark had to pass right thru Dallas.(why did I fly to El Paso?). --Wal-Mart dc or we dropped at Wally Dc then Tyson load from Clarksville to Kent Wa. --North to I-90 then on to Seattle area. --Whoops. As I was pulling away from fuel island and laughing at something Jose was saying, I knocked over the concrete ?pylon?. Jose said "watch your GD trailer, no get us out of here" Ok we left. Not my call. A couple drivers called over cb saying "keep going we tried to give attendant your truck info he didnt care" Ok Lets see if this posts!

A.) Yes, it posted!!!

B.) Bollards, indeed . . . ARE the NEMESIS!!

Enjoying the read, too!

~ Anne ~

Nursery Rhymes

---I am using my old log books to jog my memory. I think only Werner was using at this point in time. We get moving down the road and on one of my driving turns I logged 9.5 hrs and drove until 2am. Thought very highly of my progress. Wellllll around 1pm the next day we stop for fuel at a really crappy Pilot in Paducah, Ky. Jose gets a message to call Kip from Stevens Safety dept. Shut down for 24 hours because I drive 9.5 hrs and at night. This made feel like $&@@. Worst part though the Pilot was just plain nasty.

+++ A little side note on Kip. During orientation I thought of ol Kip as just a wanna-be braggart. All the instructors would tell one of their war stories, Kips was always better. Kissing butt, etc etc Fast forward to Orientation 2, "dumb/dumber stage. I got to know Kip and he is a stand up guy. Wealth of experience and knowledge of the business. I watched a recent video from Stevens on veterans as drivers. Kip is still with them. He did a 30 minute presentation on "Seat Covers"!!! Please comment if you know what I am talking about.

To be continued

Nursery Rhymes

---I am using my old log books to jog my memory. I think only Werner was using at this point in time. We get moving down the road and on one of my driving turns I logged 9.5 hrs and drove until 2am. Thought very highly of my progress. Wellllll around 1pm the next day we stop for fuel at a really crappy Pilot in Paducah, Ky. Jose gets a message to call Kip from Stevens Safety dept. Shut down for 24 hours because I drive 9.5 hrs and at night. This made feel like $&@@. Worst part though the Pilot was just plain nasty.

+++ A little side note on Kip. During orientation I thought of ol Kip as just a wanna-be braggart. All the instructors would tell one of their war stories, Kips was always better. Kissing butt, etc etc Fast forward to Orientation 2, "dumb/dumber stage. I got to know Kip and he is a stand up guy. Wealth of experience and knowledge of the business. I watched a recent video from Stevens on veterans as drivers. Kip is still with them. He did a 30 minute presentation on "Seat Covers"!!! Please comment if you know what I am talking about.

To be continued

I understand that it is training, but you were forced to do a reset, albeit not a full reset, for driving a really nice clip and because the majority of the hours were at night? Take a deep breath, Kerry. Think of it like boot camp. Some of the things sound really dumb, but they have there purpose. Ok, I am good. Back to your memoir.

In response to Kerry L, in Stevens defense, 6 plus hours of my driving was at night. My first over 6 hr drive plus my first at night. Trust me I was livid. It just hit me but I did talk w Kip later about it. He explained it. Even explained why he had to be a jerk about it. All good. While on Stevens subject, lets talk about them! Stevens is an excellent training company. I am thankful for the fact I was with them at the start of my career. A little extreme in the eyes of other truckers but if I were still trucking there training would still be a part of me. Although I would not have met my wife if I were still trucking, I do wish I had never left. NEXT UP-nursery

Well I typed a nice long story that wouldnt submit. Bad internet. I will re-type shortly. Few things I recall that were new, exciting, scary etc 1) Took me a few weeks to get used to being called "driver" 2) Stevens was frequently made fun of over the cb. "Im passing you Stevens dont drive too fast you might toss the salad your hauling". "Dont set your brakes afire you might saute that spinach". Haha! 3) Wondered daily I had done the right thing 4) At the end of the day most truckers stuck together, looked out for one another.

More to come