As I mentioned in my last post, a job loss forced me to search for other avenues of income. Truck driving had long been in the back of my mind as a potential source of income, and appeared more and more as a logical choice the older and older I grew. I no longer wished to work in greasy restaurants as I had in the past. I didn't necessarily want to drive forktrucks and work in dirty factories all my life. So, with few options ahead of me, I chose the next logical means of employment: truck driving.
Since I lost my former job and was in temporary unemployment, that entitled me to enroll in job retraining. I went to the local county job retraining site. I forget what it was named, but my local facility was on Central Parkway in downtown Cincinnati. Here I was informed that I potentially could apply for and be granted retraining benefits. I came in one morning to review the list of available retraining opportunities. I could choose from any number of industries, all with potentially high future demand in terms of job openings. Nursing was one option, apprenticing in other fields such as HVAC and welding were others. Truck driving was among the available options for retraining. So I jumped on this option.
Next, I was given an aptitude test. The retraining facility was pretty stingy with its money, I thought. You had to jump through hoops. One such hoop was an aptitude test. The test measured one's mathematical, comprehension and verbal abilities, among others. I'd always done well in school, I could write well, and math was an easy subject in school for me, albeit twenty five to thirty years ago. It was like riding a bike... it all came back to me. The purpose of the aptitude was to award the retraining dollars to those most likely to succeed in their chosen profession of retraining.I guess they didn't want to hand that training money over to just anyone. In a way, I kind of felt like I deserved it. I mean, I had worked all my life, paid taxes almost since the day I was cast out from the womb. So, if the government was going to help me get back on my feet after all the taxes I'd paid in since taking my first breath of polluted air, so be it. Sign me up!
Aside from the aptitude, I had to perform other paperwork, such as completing questionnaires, surveys, and goal-setting agendas. I had to explain why I thought I was a good match for being retrained as a truck driver. All hoops to jump through. And necessary ones, because they were the ones who were going to foot the bill for my retraining!
After a few weeks of jumping through hoops, I was informed that I'd been granted to enter into a retraining program. There were a couple local truck driver training courses close to me. I chose one called Napier, located north of Cincinnati in Fairfield.
Tuition for the five-week course was around $5,000. But, I wasn't footing the bill. I'd already done all the pre-qualification beforehand. It was all arranged. All I had to do was show up for the five-week course and pass my state-administered CDL testing.
The five-week course consisted of two weeks of in-class instruction, which was boring as hell. Two weeks of classroom followed by three weeks of parking lot maneuvers/ on-the-road maneuvers. I began classes in February, and classroom instruction was first. There was a constant rotation of students coming and going. While my group was going through the classroom, the class ahead of ours had progressed to on-the-road training. After our classroom instruction, we advanced to on-the-road, and the next cycle of trainees began their classroom ordeal. It really was a CDL-mill type of arrangement.
After the two weeks of classroom is when I took my state-administered written test. I went to Batavia, Ohio, on a Saturday morning and was placed at a computer which fed me questions. There were questions relating to basic truck operation, air brakes, and since I was also interested in endorsements, I completed sections on tankers and haz-mat. I was the first one in my class to complete and pass the written part of the exam.
Next was three weeks of parking lot maneuvers and local over-the-road real world driving. The parking lot maneuvers were pretty mundane and basic. Straight line backing, offset backing, parallel parking and 90 degree backing. I thought the straight line backing was the easiest, and was surprised later to discover it was the part of the state exam that people seemed to fail most. The first thing we did before we started maneuvers was to recite our pre-trips. We had to know and identify various parts of the engine, braking system and so on and so forth, what to look for, leaks, worn hoses and belts and so on. "As I approach the truck, I'm looking for leaks and leans. Puddles forming under the truck which might be indicative of an oil or coolant leak. Checking the light lenses for damage, making sure the bulbs are all lit, and the windshield for cracks and damage. Next I check the exhaust for leaks, rust and damage. Pop the hood and inside the engine compartment I'll be checking the oil level, coolant, oil pump, water pump, steering assembly, yadda, yadda, yadda." And all that was from memory!
So three weeks of maneuvers in this fenced-off parking lot under the supervision of other retired truck drivers. Groups of two and three were pulled out of the maneuvers periodically and thrown in to a sleeper cab to do over-the-road instruction. First we circled the lot getting used to double clutching and shifting through gears one - five or six.
When they felt we were ready, we hooked up to a junky 48' dry van which looked so decrepit I wondered how on earth it had ever passed a road-worthiness exam. With a newbie in the driver seat, the seasoned driver/trainer in the passenger, and two other newbie onlookers in the sleeper looking over the driver's shoulder, we set out for the open road. We stayed predominantly on local streets at first, then graduated to thoroughfares and short segments of open highway soon thereafter. One newbie would drive for half an hour, then we'd pull in to a parking lot somewhere and switch out.
The entire point of all this dog and pony show was to prep us for the state exam. I'd already taken and passed the written portion earlier. Next I was getting prepped for the next part: the driving and maneuvers portion of the exam.
Every class had those who didn't pass one state exam or the other. If an exam wasn't passed, the student had to wait a week to take that portion again. This was to give the student a week to review and freshen up before the next go. So, as we had a limited number of trucks with which to use for practicing, we had to divvy up the available time between those who hadn't taken the exams with those who had, but failed. One gentleman had attempted to take the exams ten or fifteen times. We called him "gramps", as he was an older fellow. I don't think he was seriously looking for work. I think he was just doing it for shits and giggles, for something to do to get out of the house. I think he thought it would be as easy as passing the exams, then looking for some local job somewhere.
After the three weeks of behind-the-wheel training, I took the next part of the test. The next part consisted of three sub-sections: the pre-trip, maneuvers, and the driving.
For the pre-trip, we had thirty minutes to recite from memory everything we'd check all over the truck. I passed that portion nearly flawlessly, scoring a 99 out of 100. I think I forgot to mention a U-bolt or something. I forget the minimum passing score, but, it was all just fluff anyways. The examiner knows after listening to the newbie's spiel after just five or six minutes whether he's got it all together or not. My examiner was only half-heartedly making check marks on his checklist, and I caught him looking off in other directions, bored out of his mind. I should have said, "Look, I know this shit, and I can tell you know I know it, so what do you say we just move on to the maneuvers?" But I didn't. I went through the whole spiel, taking up the full thirty minutes. When I was about out of breath, I said, "I don't think I forgot anything, but since I have a few more minutes, I'll just go back and see if I forgot anything..." The examiner wanted no part of that torture. "Don't even bother. You got a 99. Let's go do some maneuvers." Suited me just fine.
We'd been trained on the Napier fenced-in parking lot to do four maneuvers. The state exam would consist of three. Two were givens. One was a wild card. Straight line backing was a given. Everyone had to do it. Offset backing was also a requirement. We just didn't know whether it would be an offset to the right or to the left. And for the finale, either parallel or a 90 degree backing, sometimes called an alley.
The examiner told us what we were to do, and we we did it. Once we completed a maneuver, we were to blow the truck horn, indicating our completion. First I did straight line backing. Did it, piece of cake. Next I had to do offset. I think mine was offset to the left. Did that as well. Blew the horn. Next I was told I had to move the truck to another part of the exam area to do part three of the maneuvers: parallel parking. Well, since this was a timed exam, as had been the pre-trip, I floored it and flew through the gears to get over to where the parallel parking cones were set up. I didn't want to waste time poking along when I knew I'd need every minute to jockey the POS truck in to the parallel slot.
I have no clue how I did it, but somehow I wiggled the thing in to the parallel slot in the allotted time. Any portion of the truck outside the confines of the cones justified failure. Hitting a cone defined failure. Somehow I managed to pull this one off.
Two down, one to go. Next up was the driving.
The same examiner went with me as had been with me all along. We both hopped in, and he told me to turn this way, go that way, go two blocks and make a left, and so on.
Well, I failed. I misjudged a corner and hit a curb. I was amazed that I'd made it as far as I had. I thought I'd get hung up on one of the maneuvers. But, it was the driving that held me back. And as such, the driving was all I had to do on my next go around the following week.
I didn't feel so bad having failed, because so, too, did just about everyone else in my class. One guy in my class passed the pre-trip and maneuvers, as had I, and failed his driving. He didn't even make it out of the parking lot. The entrance to the CDL exam facility was on a slight incline. He kept stalling the truck at the stop sign and never made it out on to the street! LOL
Anyways, in the following week, I went back to Napier to brush up on my driving. I went out a couple times in the practice semi, complete with the 48' jalopy trailer from hell. I was pumped. I was ready. A week after my abysmal failure the first time around, I passed my second, as did the guy who didn't even make it out of the parking lot.
Both of us immediately got our passing papers and went to the local DMV to get our actual CDLs processed. We were both so excited that we both forgot to call Napier and let the secretary, Carla, know that we'd passed, because she had paperwork she had to type up and process. This other driver and I had a celebratory lunch at Burger King, then back to Napier to grab our belongings. We were home free. We got a lecturing from Carla because we hadn't called to let her know we'd both passed.
Next, it was taking a couple weeks off to recuperate, and then off to our trucking jobs. I'd chosen Roehl, based in Marshfeld, Wisconsin. I chose Roehl for a number of reasons. I liked their presentation when their recruiter came to Napier. I was impressed with their commitment to safety. I was also impressed with their pay plan, and a few other factors.
So, CDL school was over. Five weeks of training for a single purpose: to prep us for getting the CDL. One guy in my class had a list of driving infractions as long as my arm. I didn't think he had a prayer of getting hired on anywhere. Never did find out what happened to him. He even brought in a list of his infractions, for whatever reason. I think he felt it necessary to show the recruiters, "Well, these two will drop off my record in six months, this one will drop off in eight, the next three will drop off a year from now..."
I asked if I could take a peek at what a bad boy he'd been. I glanced at it for a moment and said humorously, as if I were reading the verbiage at the bottom of the printout, "Page six of twleve..." Hell, I thought it was funny.
So, it was off to Roehl. Roehl (pronounced 'rail') had arranged for me to pick up a car rental, and drive from Cincinnati to their headquarters, a 10-hour drive from Cincinnati.
Upon arrival in Marshfield, Wi, I found the hotel and collapsed. I was beat. The next morning was roll call at the hotel, followed by driving to the local airport to return the rentals, then bussed to the company headquarters a few miles from the hotel. At Roehl, there was a boring classroom event, called Roehl Way, where the company mission and operating principals were put forth. Next it was off to another building for biometrics and things. A couple nurses were called in to take our vitals and to measure our performances. Heart rates, breathing rates, lung capacity, lifting ability, muscle coordination, flexibility and all sorts of other metrics were measured. Apparently they wanted to see if we had the physical requirements to operate a truck.
We stayed in Marshfield a day or two, and were divvy-ed up further in to smaller groups, each paired with a group trainer. There were two other newbies in my group, plus our trainer. We had almost no tractor trailer experience whatsoever, yet we all piled in to a tractor trailer and took turns driving the 100 miles to Roehl's newest facility in Appleton, Wi.
There we stayed for three or four days, learning new maneuvers at the facility lot there, as well as taking turns driving around Appleton. I remember the motel we stayed at there was a piss-poor excuse for a motel. The floors were plywood, if that tells you anything.
In Appleton, we were further paired up with individual trainers. By this point I'd been in Wisconsin for about a week. I was paired up with an oddball trucker trainer who was a complete ass. He lived in Green Bay, and commuted to Appleton to train drivers. He was younger than I by about fifteen years. A know-it-all. And a guy whose every comment, every thought, every notion, every breath, and every pore exuded trucking. That's all he talked about. I dreamed about slitting my wrists all the time.
He loaded up his truck with his shit and took the bottom bunk of the sleeper. I loaded all my shit in the top. Then we grabbed an empty trailer and we were off. I started out driving. We'd been assigned a pick up at the Gerber baby food plant in Fremont, Mi. It was quite windy the morning we left Appleton, and I was struggling to control the empty semi as we headed south along the lake toward Chicago.
Chicago traffic was a bitch, which held us up. He didn't feel I was adequate to negotiate the Chicago traffic, so he took the helm through that mess. We were routed through the Roehl terminal in Gary, In., but we were running late. My trainer didn't want to stop and refuel in Gary, as our trip computer had instructed. About six times this ass had to repeat to me, "Yeah, it'll be better if we bypass Gary and refuel somewhere else, because they will want to do an inspection on the truck at fill-up, and we don't have time time." Telling me once is enough. Two is justified to make sure I understood. But six times? Are you kidding me? I could tell it was going to be a long two weeks with this ass in the passenger seat acting like his pompous superior ass.
He was so melodramatic. Everything was a huge ordeal to him. Trucking was so much his life that he was shocked to see that the Ohio turnpike had recently raised its speed limit to 70 mph, I think. He was so impressed that he took a picture of one of the speed limit signs to post on his facebook wall, being the incredible trucking news that it was. I mean, if there was no picture on facebook, who would believe him? <Rolls eyes>
So for two weeks I rode with this moron. Once we made a delivery to Menards in Wisconsin. He acted like Menards was equivalent to the second coming. He needed a fan for his house, I think, and we roamed around the store looking for them as we were being unloaded. Not finding what he wanted, he about blew a gasket. I asked him, "Why not settle for this model? It's basically like the one you're looking for." "No, can't take that one, 'cause it's a display model." LOL Are you kidding me? Most stores would try to sell you a piece of cat shit if they thought they could make a buck off you! Of course they would sell a floor model.
So we take it up to the counter, and the clerk begins to ring it up. So I said, "And take 25% off because it's a floor model, with no box or literature." My driver trainer looked at me as if he he'd just caught me screwing the neighbor's dog or something! I just held my hands up and walked away. Fine. You pay full price for thing. I don't give two shits. I was just trying to save you a couple bucks (which I did- about $4).
He may have been younger, and a better truck driver than I, but he didn't know shit about how the world worked outside of truck driving.
So that's how it went for the two weeks I was in training with this fool. Two weeks go by and I am assigned my own truck. My trainer dropped me off at the Roehl terminal in Gary, In., and there I waited a couple days for the maintenance staff there to take care of all the PM on a sleeper to which I'd been assigned. Upon handing me the keys to one, I loaded up all my junk, grabbed a loaded trailer from the trailer yard and hauled it to Roehl's drop yard just north of Cincinnati, in Sharonville. I dropped the trailer, parked the truck, and I was off for a week.
After being off for a week, I hauled ass back to the truck, loaded up, and began my two-week OTR cycle. Two weeks out, one week at home. That was my life for a year until I couldn't do it any longer. Actually, I could, but my goal was to drop OTR and work in to something local.
And that is basically how I got my start. Pretty exciting stuff, huh?
Since I lost my former job and was in temporary unemployment, that entitled me to enroll in job retraining. I went to the local county job retraining site. I forget what it was named, but my local facility was on Central Parkway in downtown Cincinnati. Here I was informed that I potentially could apply for and be granted retraining benefits. I came in one morning to review the list of available retraining opportunities. I could choose from any number of industries, all with potentially high future demand in terms of job openings. Nursing was one option, apprenticing in other fields such as HVAC and welding were others. Truck driving was among the available options for retraining. So I jumped on this option.
Next, I was given an aptitude test. The retraining facility was pretty stingy with its money, I thought. You had to jump through hoops. One such hoop was an aptitude test. The test measured one's mathematical, comprehension and verbal abilities, among others. I'd always done well in school, I could write well, and math was an easy subject in school for me, albeit twenty five to thirty years ago. It was like riding a bike... it all came back to me. The purpose of the aptitude was to award the retraining dollars to those most likely to succeed in their chosen profession of retraining.I guess they didn't want to hand that training money over to just anyone. In a way, I kind of felt like I deserved it. I mean, I had worked all my life, paid taxes almost since the day I was cast out from the womb. So, if the government was going to help me get back on my feet after all the taxes I'd paid in since taking my first breath of polluted air, so be it. Sign me up!
Aside from the aptitude, I had to perform other paperwork, such as completing questionnaires, surveys, and goal-setting agendas. I had to explain why I thought I was a good match for being retrained as a truck driver. All hoops to jump through. And necessary ones, because they were the ones who were going to foot the bill for my retraining!
After a few weeks of jumping through hoops, I was informed that I'd been granted to enter into a retraining program. There were a couple local truck driver training courses close to me. I chose one called Napier, located north of Cincinnati in Fairfield.
Tuition for the five-week course was around $5,000. But, I wasn't footing the bill. I'd already done all the pre-qualification beforehand. It was all arranged. All I had to do was show up for the five-week course and pass my state-administered CDL testing.
The five-week course consisted of two weeks of in-class instruction, which was boring as hell. Two weeks of classroom followed by three weeks of parking lot maneuvers/ on-the-road maneuvers. I began classes in February, and classroom instruction was first. There was a constant rotation of students coming and going. While my group was going through the classroom, the class ahead of ours had progressed to on-the-road training. After our classroom instruction, we advanced to on-the-road, and the next cycle of trainees began their classroom ordeal. It really was a CDL-mill type of arrangement.
After the two weeks of classroom is when I took my state-administered written test. I went to Batavia, Ohio, on a Saturday morning and was placed at a computer which fed me questions. There were questions relating to basic truck operation, air brakes, and since I was also interested in endorsements, I completed sections on tankers and haz-mat. I was the first one in my class to complete and pass the written part of the exam.
Next was three weeks of parking lot maneuvers and local over-the-road real world driving. The parking lot maneuvers were pretty mundane and basic. Straight line backing, offset backing, parallel parking and 90 degree backing. I thought the straight line backing was the easiest, and was surprised later to discover it was the part of the state exam that people seemed to fail most. The first thing we did before we started maneuvers was to recite our pre-trips. We had to know and identify various parts of the engine, braking system and so on and so forth, what to look for, leaks, worn hoses and belts and so on. "As I approach the truck, I'm looking for leaks and leans. Puddles forming under the truck which might be indicative of an oil or coolant leak. Checking the light lenses for damage, making sure the bulbs are all lit, and the windshield for cracks and damage. Next I check the exhaust for leaks, rust and damage. Pop the hood and inside the engine compartment I'll be checking the oil level, coolant, oil pump, water pump, steering assembly, yadda, yadda, yadda." And all that was from memory!
So three weeks of maneuvers in this fenced-off parking lot under the supervision of other retired truck drivers. Groups of two and three were pulled out of the maneuvers periodically and thrown in to a sleeper cab to do over-the-road instruction. First we circled the lot getting used to double clutching and shifting through gears one - five or six.
When they felt we were ready, we hooked up to a junky 48' dry van which looked so decrepit I wondered how on earth it had ever passed a road-worthiness exam. With a newbie in the driver seat, the seasoned driver/trainer in the passenger, and two other newbie onlookers in the sleeper looking over the driver's shoulder, we set out for the open road. We stayed predominantly on local streets at first, then graduated to thoroughfares and short segments of open highway soon thereafter. One newbie would drive for half an hour, then we'd pull in to a parking lot somewhere and switch out.
The entire point of all this dog and pony show was to prep us for the state exam. I'd already taken and passed the written portion earlier. Next I was getting prepped for the next part: the driving and maneuvers portion of the exam.
Every class had those who didn't pass one state exam or the other. If an exam wasn't passed, the student had to wait a week to take that portion again. This was to give the student a week to review and freshen up before the next go. So, as we had a limited number of trucks with which to use for practicing, we had to divvy up the available time between those who hadn't taken the exams with those who had, but failed. One gentleman had attempted to take the exams ten or fifteen times. We called him "gramps", as he was an older fellow. I don't think he was seriously looking for work. I think he was just doing it for shits and giggles, for something to do to get out of the house. I think he thought it would be as easy as passing the exams, then looking for some local job somewhere.
After the three weeks of behind-the-wheel training, I took the next part of the test. The next part consisted of three sub-sections: the pre-trip, maneuvers, and the driving.
For the pre-trip, we had thirty minutes to recite from memory everything we'd check all over the truck. I passed that portion nearly flawlessly, scoring a 99 out of 100. I think I forgot to mention a U-bolt or something. I forget the minimum passing score, but, it was all just fluff anyways. The examiner knows after listening to the newbie's spiel after just five or six minutes whether he's got it all together or not. My examiner was only half-heartedly making check marks on his checklist, and I caught him looking off in other directions, bored out of his mind. I should have said, "Look, I know this shit, and I can tell you know I know it, so what do you say we just move on to the maneuvers?" But I didn't. I went through the whole spiel, taking up the full thirty minutes. When I was about out of breath, I said, "I don't think I forgot anything, but since I have a few more minutes, I'll just go back and see if I forgot anything..." The examiner wanted no part of that torture. "Don't even bother. You got a 99. Let's go do some maneuvers." Suited me just fine.
We'd been trained on the Napier fenced-in parking lot to do four maneuvers. The state exam would consist of three. Two were givens. One was a wild card. Straight line backing was a given. Everyone had to do it. Offset backing was also a requirement. We just didn't know whether it would be an offset to the right or to the left. And for the finale, either parallel or a 90 degree backing, sometimes called an alley.
The examiner told us what we were to do, and we we did it. Once we completed a maneuver, we were to blow the truck horn, indicating our completion. First I did straight line backing. Did it, piece of cake. Next I had to do offset. I think mine was offset to the left. Did that as well. Blew the horn. Next I was told I had to move the truck to another part of the exam area to do part three of the maneuvers: parallel parking. Well, since this was a timed exam, as had been the pre-trip, I floored it and flew through the gears to get over to where the parallel parking cones were set up. I didn't want to waste time poking along when I knew I'd need every minute to jockey the POS truck in to the parallel slot.
I have no clue how I did it, but somehow I wiggled the thing in to the parallel slot in the allotted time. Any portion of the truck outside the confines of the cones justified failure. Hitting a cone defined failure. Somehow I managed to pull this one off.
Two down, one to go. Next up was the driving.
The same examiner went with me as had been with me all along. We both hopped in, and he told me to turn this way, go that way, go two blocks and make a left, and so on.
Well, I failed. I misjudged a corner and hit a curb. I was amazed that I'd made it as far as I had. I thought I'd get hung up on one of the maneuvers. But, it was the driving that held me back. And as such, the driving was all I had to do on my next go around the following week.
I didn't feel so bad having failed, because so, too, did just about everyone else in my class. One guy in my class passed the pre-trip and maneuvers, as had I, and failed his driving. He didn't even make it out of the parking lot. The entrance to the CDL exam facility was on a slight incline. He kept stalling the truck at the stop sign and never made it out on to the street! LOL
Anyways, in the following week, I went back to Napier to brush up on my driving. I went out a couple times in the practice semi, complete with the 48' jalopy trailer from hell. I was pumped. I was ready. A week after my abysmal failure the first time around, I passed my second, as did the guy who didn't even make it out of the parking lot.
Both of us immediately got our passing papers and went to the local DMV to get our actual CDLs processed. We were both so excited that we both forgot to call Napier and let the secretary, Carla, know that we'd passed, because she had paperwork she had to type up and process. This other driver and I had a celebratory lunch at Burger King, then back to Napier to grab our belongings. We were home free. We got a lecturing from Carla because we hadn't called to let her know we'd both passed.
Next, it was taking a couple weeks off to recuperate, and then off to our trucking jobs. I'd chosen Roehl, based in Marshfeld, Wisconsin. I chose Roehl for a number of reasons. I liked their presentation when their recruiter came to Napier. I was impressed with their commitment to safety. I was also impressed with their pay plan, and a few other factors.
So, CDL school was over. Five weeks of training for a single purpose: to prep us for getting the CDL. One guy in my class had a list of driving infractions as long as my arm. I didn't think he had a prayer of getting hired on anywhere. Never did find out what happened to him. He even brought in a list of his infractions, for whatever reason. I think he felt it necessary to show the recruiters, "Well, these two will drop off my record in six months, this one will drop off in eight, the next three will drop off a year from now..."
I asked if I could take a peek at what a bad boy he'd been. I glanced at it for a moment and said humorously, as if I were reading the verbiage at the bottom of the printout, "Page six of twleve..." Hell, I thought it was funny.
So, it was off to Roehl. Roehl (pronounced 'rail') had arranged for me to pick up a car rental, and drive from Cincinnati to their headquarters, a 10-hour drive from Cincinnati.
Upon arrival in Marshfield, Wi, I found the hotel and collapsed. I was beat. The next morning was roll call at the hotel, followed by driving to the local airport to return the rentals, then bussed to the company headquarters a few miles from the hotel. At Roehl, there was a boring classroom event, called Roehl Way, where the company mission and operating principals were put forth. Next it was off to another building for biometrics and things. A couple nurses were called in to take our vitals and to measure our performances. Heart rates, breathing rates, lung capacity, lifting ability, muscle coordination, flexibility and all sorts of other metrics were measured. Apparently they wanted to see if we had the physical requirements to operate a truck.
We stayed in Marshfield a day or two, and were divvy-ed up further in to smaller groups, each paired with a group trainer. There were two other newbies in my group, plus our trainer. We had almost no tractor trailer experience whatsoever, yet we all piled in to a tractor trailer and took turns driving the 100 miles to Roehl's newest facility in Appleton, Wi.
There we stayed for three or four days, learning new maneuvers at the facility lot there, as well as taking turns driving around Appleton. I remember the motel we stayed at there was a piss-poor excuse for a motel. The floors were plywood, if that tells you anything.
In Appleton, we were further paired up with individual trainers. By this point I'd been in Wisconsin for about a week. I was paired up with an oddball trucker trainer who was a complete ass. He lived in Green Bay, and commuted to Appleton to train drivers. He was younger than I by about fifteen years. A know-it-all. And a guy whose every comment, every thought, every notion, every breath, and every pore exuded trucking. That's all he talked about. I dreamed about slitting my wrists all the time.
He loaded up his truck with his shit and took the bottom bunk of the sleeper. I loaded all my shit in the top. Then we grabbed an empty trailer and we were off. I started out driving. We'd been assigned a pick up at the Gerber baby food plant in Fremont, Mi. It was quite windy the morning we left Appleton, and I was struggling to control the empty semi as we headed south along the lake toward Chicago.
Chicago traffic was a bitch, which held us up. He didn't feel I was adequate to negotiate the Chicago traffic, so he took the helm through that mess. We were routed through the Roehl terminal in Gary, In., but we were running late. My trainer didn't want to stop and refuel in Gary, as our trip computer had instructed. About six times this ass had to repeat to me, "Yeah, it'll be better if we bypass Gary and refuel somewhere else, because they will want to do an inspection on the truck at fill-up, and we don't have time time." Telling me once is enough. Two is justified to make sure I understood. But six times? Are you kidding me? I could tell it was going to be a long two weeks with this ass in the passenger seat acting like his pompous superior ass.
He was so melodramatic. Everything was a huge ordeal to him. Trucking was so much his life that he was shocked to see that the Ohio turnpike had recently raised its speed limit to 70 mph, I think. He was so impressed that he took a picture of one of the speed limit signs to post on his facebook wall, being the incredible trucking news that it was. I mean, if there was no picture on facebook, who would believe him? <Rolls eyes>
So for two weeks I rode with this moron. Once we made a delivery to Menards in Wisconsin. He acted like Menards was equivalent to the second coming. He needed a fan for his house, I think, and we roamed around the store looking for them as we were being unloaded. Not finding what he wanted, he about blew a gasket. I asked him, "Why not settle for this model? It's basically like the one you're looking for." "No, can't take that one, 'cause it's a display model." LOL Are you kidding me? Most stores would try to sell you a piece of cat shit if they thought they could make a buck off you! Of course they would sell a floor model.
So we take it up to the counter, and the clerk begins to ring it up. So I said, "And take 25% off because it's a floor model, with no box or literature." My driver trainer looked at me as if he he'd just caught me screwing the neighbor's dog or something! I just held my hands up and walked away. Fine. You pay full price for thing. I don't give two shits. I was just trying to save you a couple bucks (which I did- about $4).
He may have been younger, and a better truck driver than I, but he didn't know shit about how the world worked outside of truck driving.
So that's how it went for the two weeks I was in training with this fool. Two weeks go by and I am assigned my own truck. My trainer dropped me off at the Roehl terminal in Gary, In., and there I waited a couple days for the maintenance staff there to take care of all the PM on a sleeper to which I'd been assigned. Upon handing me the keys to one, I loaded up all my junk, grabbed a loaded trailer from the trailer yard and hauled it to Roehl's drop yard just north of Cincinnati, in Sharonville. I dropped the trailer, parked the truck, and I was off for a week.
After being off for a week, I hauled ass back to the truck, loaded up, and began my two-week OTR cycle. Two weeks out, one week at home. That was my life for a year until I couldn't do it any longer. Actually, I could, but my goal was to drop OTR and work in to something local.
And that is basically how I got my start. Pretty exciting stuff, huh?
Thanks for sharing how you got started at your CDL job. I've been considering getting certified for a while but I wasn't sure if I should take the plunge. After reading your article, I think I'll go for it. http://www.montustaffing.com/elkriver
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