Trucking School. One Poor Saps Perspective.

So I'm gonna try an chronicle my trip through trucking school here. But I'm going to do it a bit different then others have. I believe all these "3 week cdl mills" are generally the same as far as procedure and so forth. So I'm not going to describe every single detail that happens like where the bathrooms were, what we ate for lunch and so on. . More of a big picture type description. I want to document it for the new guy that hasn't started yet and is a bit nervous as to what to expect, how its gonna go and how he/she is going to feel going through the process. HOWEVER I'm gonna try and inject some humor and sarcasm along the way, so if you are easily offended or have no sense of humor, this might not be the post for you.

So here we go. First I'm enrolled in a school that has a weekend class for those that still work during the week so I'm gonna break it down basically by the weekend/s Ours is going to be about 8-9 weekends long

The first three weekends are all classroom. We met out classroom instructor. This guy is "The Bandit", "The Snowman" and "The Rubber Duck" all rolled into one. He looks like a cross between Merle Haggert, Richard Petty, and Grizzly Adams. VERY VERY nice and knowledgeable man. He walks with a limp due to "truckers hip". His left arm is visibly tanner then the right due to hanging it out the window for the last 35 years and his face has a map of the USA etched into it. Clearly this guy was a Pirate in a former life and you immediately respect him when he walks in the room even thought you aren't sure why?

I wont bore you with all the classroom stuff but for us its was basically 3 weekends of reading the book chapters and taking practice quizzes. That was rotated by listening to war stories from our instructor the old sea captain and sitting quietly while he swore at the computer trying to get the power point presentations to work. He had some great stories most of which I'm sure were a lie and he always prefaced the with "don't do this when you get your license" His best story was when him and a buddy were offered $80000 to run a load of Coors beer from Georgia to Texarkana TX in 28 hours! They got into all sort of hijinks! (just kidding he didn't tell that story)

Anyway back on topic. Just read the book chapters twice, take the quizzes and you will be fine. Don't over think it. If you have done the High Road CDL training program here you will be fine. Keep in mind they will give you about 5 times more info then you will really need for the DMV exams. The DMV exams aren't tricky just take your time. If you're like me and have a 7th grade reading and comprehension level and you can tell the difference between red and green you will be fine.

So once you are through the book and go to the DMV and take your permit and endorsement tests the last thing they will do is get all your pedigree info. The license, your permit, your med card, hair sample, blood urine semen and stool sample and put it all in a file with your name and your $3500 check.

Now we part ways with the classroom instructor. We shake his hand, he gives us a "big 10-4" jumps in his Trans Am and squeals away into the horizon

At this point they now wipe the drool off your mouth, grab you by the ankles, smack your bare butt and send you out to the range.

We go home anticipating weekend 4 . Our first on the range. Confidence and emotions are high!

The license, your permit, your med card, hair sample, blood urine semen and stool sample and put it all in a file with your name and your $3500 check.

You did mention something about sarcasm and being funny, right?? All in the same file? Wouldn't that get a bit messy?

Jopa

Weekend 4. Our first on the range. Confidence and emotions are high. I'm pretty sure saw a few "high fives" and maybe 1 or 2 "chest bumps" as we were walking out there. I'll start by saying our school range is set up in stations. 2 backing stations. 1 pretrip station and one bobtail sleeper truck that's for shifting.

First they start us all out one at a time in the shifter truck station. We all make 1 or 2 laps around the range with the instructor slow shifting up and down just to make sure we get the concept. We all go around twice and its clear we are all at basically the same level. We Suck. I like to call it "The Grinder 500" You go around range making only left turns 500 times at 5mph shifting up and down through the first 5 gears. Its like slow motion NASCAR for inept truckers.

Those that pick up the shifting right away (and by right away I mean you didn't kill anyone yet, send an instructor through the windshield or send the truck flying into swamp behind the range) He moves you into the first backing station. Just straight line backing. NOW here is where they separate the people who cant back from the people who REALLY cant back. For those of you who have been backing trailers for your whole life behind your pickup truck I say this to you...... HA HA! Forget everything you think you know. At this very moment in time your manhood will be tested like never before. I have another post in this section called "humbled and frustrated already" read through it and read Bretts article about The backing range, clown soup for the soul. It will describe it perfectly.

Now the instructors move those who really cant back into another station. Offset backing. Here is where you have to look over both shoulders before you get into the truck to make sure there aren't any hot chicks watching you. Once in the truck you are not allowed any food or drink other than bottled water. The bottled water isn't really for your thirst, its mainly to wash away the tears and frustration. . The instructor will show 1 time just to prove to you that it actually can be done then he leaves you along to do it by yourself and let you screw it up about 237 times in front of the whole class. Here is the spot in the day where your start to see more grown men get frustrated and throw tantrums. At this point on day one you will receive no further instruction from the instructors. You are left to rotate through the stations all on your and continuously do everything incorrectly. The instructors spend the rest of the day taking cell phone video of you for youtube and text pictures to your wife and girlfriend of what and idiot you look like.

Day 2 of weekend 4 is more rotating you through the stations with little to no instruction just to make sure every reaches a certain point where the snap and scream F word into the dash because they either keep turning the wheel the wrong way or overcorrecting or have just completely given up on ever learning how to downshift. The only other thing the instructors add on Sunday is they take 4 of you at time in a bobtail sleeper cab into a quite industrial area so they can add the fear of killing a pedestrian into the mix. Again purely they are sizing you up but really they are jut out for some laughs and to kill time cause they are a little mad they got stuck with the weekend shift.

So you go home on weekend 4 after your first 2 range days broken, a severely bruised ego. And a wet shirt from wiping tears on it all day. Cancel any plans you had to make love to your wife in the next few nights. Making love is for winners, and that is clearly not you. Besides she is probably to bust facebook messaging you cute truck driving instructor that was texting her all day

You also look through all your paperwork to see at what week you could quit and still get a partial refund

I'm enjoying the h*ll out of your take on this!! Your descriptions are a ton of fun to read and really helpful at the same time. Don't change a thing...just keep it comin!

Mike this is funny s!*t, I love it!! I start school a week from Monday, now I'm nervous and laughing at he same time, thanks!!

Weekend 5 is in the books. With a little hindsight it has occurred to me what is going on. It has been described to me in the past that in Marine Corp boot camp, the way they train is to first break you down in order to build you back up. That's exactly what is happening here. The first range weekend was filled with frustration, tears and a demoralizing test of manhood. When you show up on the second weekend of range days the instructors immediately brag about whose Youtube videos from last weekends comedy backing show is getting the most views. But after that its straight to work and right to the range for everyone.

Like I said before our class is set up in stations, 1 pretrip station , 2 backing stations and one old sleeper cab truck shifter truck for The Grinder 500 track. On weekend 1 everyone is anxious to get in the trucks. But on weekend 2, everyone wants to do the pretrip station. Everyone realizes its the only station where you can retain a shred of dignity.

Anyways, the trainers drag us by our leashes like a dog that's going to vet to get neutered and knows it over to the backing trucks. He gets in with you and lets you do it one last time your way just so he can tell you why you suck so bad. Once your ego has been completely removed, you can now receive instruction! You probably here people describe "it just clicks". And its true it really does. NOW don't read that wrong. You still really really suck! But NOW know why you suck! and you know how to correct it.........sorta. So now he leave you alone to do it 237 more timesbut now you almost get it each time.... almost. Then it happens. When absolutely no one including the trainer is watching... you nail it perfectly. A perfect blind side back with no line encroachment or smashed cones and not one single hot chick around to give you a wink or a thumbs up and tell you what a bad azz super trucker you are! So now the trainer comes back to watch you do it again and you screw it up 27 more times before you complete it again once....and poorly.

So at this point now that your leg is sore from clutching all day, another instructor grabs and says "lets go, we're heading out on the road" you laugh and say that's funny. But he's serious. This time with a short trailer. So after you run to the bathroom to take a whiz before you go(read puke here) you are saddled up and down the road! So far so good, a little quite in town driving doing some practice shifting and making sure your not taking out street signs around corners he says the unthinkable........."take a left here onto the freeway" and you do it. SO! up until this point I know Ive made this all sound sort of negative. But this moment right here is where it will most likely all change for you. Once you start heading down the on ramp, grind yourself all the way up to 10th gear and slowly and successfully merge into traffic without killing the mini van full of sixth grades on there way to the spelling bee something happens. After you wipe a quick tear and the sweat from your brow, pull your shorts out of your crack this overwhelming feeling washes over you. HOLY CRAP "I"M DRIVING A SEMI TRUCK DOWN THE FREEWAY!!!!!!! . All the heartache from the backing range is gone and in your mind you are a bad azz super truck ready to do some illegal bootlegging all through the south with nothing but the your basset hound and you buddy running blocker from the smokeys! Its right at this moment the instructor snaps you back to reality and says " ok not bad but you need work, exit here" And back to the range you go. So that about sums up weekend 5. just repeat that each day. Whats now however becoming interesting is seeing your own small progress but also the progress others in the class. You actually do start to bond with them and start rooting for each other. I'm betting all classes are about the same. everyone sucks at first but halfway through you can see a couple guys who are basically ready to test, A couple guys that are most likely gonna kill somebody someday. And everyone else is in the middle. Don't worry. Your not going to be one of the ones that kills anyone. I'm talking about guys that actually speak almost zero English and the language barrier alone is going to have them fail. We have one stand out. Hes from Mexico and this guy has been bumping docks in Tijuana since he was 9 years old.

So that wraps up weekend 5. Confidence is back up slightly and theres a chance your wife will let you back in the house now this week.

One thing that has stuck with me since that our classroom instructor the rubber duck said to us. "once you pass this class and your DMV road test, don't kid yourself.......your still a terrible driver and don't ever forget it" He could have been a motivational speaker in-between making 70's trucker movies. But I get what he meant. Don't ever get complacent. Always try to improve stay safe. Oh and stay away from the lizards in west Memphis....

Sorry for the bad punctuation everyone. This forum has no edit feature and lets be honest, I was warehoused for 12 years in a inner city public school so I'm lucky to just be alive much less be able to read or write.

Good posts Mike. Appreciated the humor and you taking the time out of your day to write all of this! Keep up it I'm following!

Sorry for the bad punctuation everyone. This forum has no edit feature

Well, actually it has an excellent edit feature. After you finish writing and before you submit what you wrote, click on the preview button at the bottom. Your text will be rendered in it final form (different font) in a second window below. You can then read it over, find any corrections you want to make and go back to you original edit window and make the corrections. As you make corrections, you can hit the preview button again, see your corrections and go the whole process as many times as you want. When you do finally hit the submit button, then it is too late to make changes to the post.

But I wouldn't worry too much about grammar and such. You humor and sarcasm comes through, and from what I can tell, everyone is enjoying what you write without complaining about edits. Just keep doing what you've been doing . . . looks good to me.

Jopa

I just found about 10 misspelled words in my post and spell-checked 'em. I cannot type worth a damn and I always go through the above procedure a couple of times each post. One word of warning, though, if you take too long you might find the webpage unresponsive. I don't know if that is true for everyone or just because I have a lame internet connection. I "copy" long posts and paste them into "Notepad" as a back up so if the page goes into never-neverland I don't lose all the effort.

Hey Mike, I'm loving it! You show a lot of insight already, and I think you'll make a great truck driver, or at least a great story teller about the time you tried to be a truck driver! Keep it up everyone's enjoying your reports.