Profile For scorchednuts

It makes me feel like less of a dumbass knowing I'm not the only one who screws up. Thanks for the stories and words of encouragement guys.

Here are a few things I managed to accomplish in just one week on my own, in case anyone else needed a confidence boost:

1. Started to take off with a freshly hooked trailer with the landing gear still down. Obviously didn't get more than about 10 feet before I could feel and hear problems.

2. Upon realizing said mistake, in a flustered state, left tractor in gear and brake not set, started to climb out to raise the gear, tractor started rolling with me standing on the steps.

3. Picking up a load in a CA border town. Blindly followed GPS, ignoring sign that said "last USA exit" ended up stuck in the line to enter Mexico. Had to sheepishly explain myself to CBP and received an overly embarrassing flashing lights escort to get turned back around.

4. In city traffic in the LA suburbs, forgot the cardinal rule of not proceeding thru an intersection until you can fit, thereby spending a light cycle with my 53 foot trailer blocking 6 lanes of traffic. You can imagine the vitriol hurled in my direction.

All that said, I'm having a blast, starting to get my sea legs I think in week 2.

I was talking about the switch to actually power it on. I figured it out. There is a power on button inside the fridge that only responds after you hold it down for like 5 seconds, not when you just press it.

I was just assigned a truck and I'm trying to get to know it. There is no manual that I've found. There is a fridge installed, but the inside controls don't respond, and I can't find any kind of on switch either in the cab or the bunk. Anyone know? Thanks

Thanks for the guidance everyone. Turns out it's moot anyway. They called me this morning and told me I'm set up for Top Gun on Monday, and then lined up with a trainer for the following Monday. I'm just gonna sit back and relax the rest of this week.

I really appreciate the advice. This is a great community that I hope to be part of for years to come.

Hi folks.

I just finished all the onboarding and DQP (driver qual process) with Knight. They just told me it might be 2 weeks before I can get a spot in their top gun program and then be paired with a trainer.

I can't really afford to sit around on my butt for 2 weeks. I'm sure I could find some short-term labor or something, but why not put this shiny new CDL to work if possible?

Has anyone ever done temp driving work? Got any tips or leads in or around the Salt Lake City area?

Definitely out of the SLC metro area. I live in a pretty rural area up near the Idaho border.

The job I took is with the ports division. It's a dedicated run from SLC to Long Beach, two round trips a week and home on the weekends. Here's a link to it.

https://driveknight.com/job/dedicated-ports-truck-driving-job-salt-lake-city-ut-65000-year-home-weekends/

There's definitely no problem parking the truck at my place if they will allow it. I really hope I don't need to try to find a weekly ride from my house to Salt Lake, but I will if I have to.

By the way Davy, I just wanna say I dig all of your posts. I liked your training diary and also your weekly logs. You're one of the big reasons I wanted to work for Knight in the first place.

Thanks man. As for the nickname, I got it many many years ago. It stems from an incident involving a bonfire, nudity, and a lot of whiskey.

Thanks for the welcome. I'm already getting the sense from my interactions so far that this is going to be a good, well-run company to drive for.

I'm really hoping that they will work with me on the taking the truck home thing. I don't really have the extra car that can just sit at the terminal for weeks on end, and even though she will do it, I hate making my wife go 150 miles round trip just to take me to / pick me up from work.

Spoiler alert - - you're already being tracked and surveilled. I'm sure Google, Facebook, et al. have already dissected and sold off pretty much all of my identity.

At least get a cool, entertaining service out of it. It may be AI generated, but I kind of doubt that it's AI voiced, because Costner is part of the ownership team and voices some of the items. If he's not AI voiced, the other celebrities probably aren't.

As far as targeted advertising, why does that bother anyone? We're all children of capitalism. We're going to buy things and consume products. Hell, we wouldn't have jobs if products didn't need to be sold to people and hauled around. We've been deluged with advertising since we were kids with a bowl of cereal in front of the Saturday morning cartoons. As long as I'm going to have to look at advertising, it might as well be stuff that interests me.

Hey guys. I have what is probably a dumb question.

I finished school and took my final test a couple days ago, including the road test in a freakin' snow storm. :)

I'd already been talking with a recruiter from Knight and accepted a position this morning.

I live about 75 miles from the Salt Lake City terminal. When I go home, am I allowed to drive my truck home, or do I need to get picked up at the terminal or leave a car sitting there?

I see rigs sitting in people's driveways sometimes. Are those just owner operators?