Comments By Greenhorn88

Day 1 of orientation officially over. Here's a list of what you need to know. First off-pee before you leave the hotel at 0645. You will NOT be going for at least 2-3 hours after that. After you get to the orientation center, across town, you will be finding your seat in the classroom. After that, they split the class into groups of 10 to head out in a van to the place where you take your drug test (pee only) and your physical, which doesn't really differ from the one you took to get your permit at your CDL school. After the physical, you get back on the van and head back to the schoolhouse. From there, you go promptly to the mechanic's bay, where you meet up with TMC's physical therapist and proceed to do their version of physical readiness. You will go through some prolonged squatting exercises, and then move onto the real stuff. First, get down on all fours and crawl under the trailer. Next, go through, one by one, picking up the 40, and the 80lb tarp with proper lifting technique, demonstrated by the therapist. Finally, the hard part. Pick up the 120lb tarp, place it on your shoulder, walk around to the front of the trailer, and place the tarp on the trailer. Then, proceed to climb/clamber/flop your fat self on to the trailer. Next, pick up the tarp again, and shimmy it on top of a steel coil (which for short people, is about 6ft tall). Shimmy around the side of the coil and chains alongside the trailer, and retrieve the tarp from the top of the coil without letting it hit you and take you out. Finally, proceed to the end of the trailer and demonstrate the proper technique to get of the trailer. Proceed back to where the tarp is on the trailer, put it back on your shoulder, walk back to the end of the trailer, and drop the tarp on the ground for the next student. The final portion is probably the easiest, and that's to climb a 20ft ladder about 15ft up and climb back down. Next, back to the classroom to get some hot lunch (only free meal of the day), and then back to the computers to finish up some tests that are all due by thursday of the first week. You will also fill out your direct deposit forms. That wraps up your first day, which should be over by 4pm. Trust me, you will be tired by the end of the first day.

Now, notes of interest for those coming in winter. I came ahead of a blizzard that struck about 5 hours after I arrived at the hotel yesterday. The blizzard is still going strong right now, as far as wind and cold is concerned. Not too much snow, but the wind is the killer. Make sure you have sniffle gear, because winter is cold here in Iowa. The end of the first week into the second week is outside, so hopefully the wind will die down before then, otherwise I will become a human icicle. Well, that's all for today. Hope this helped those interested in TMC.

Officially started my daily blog here for everyone to enjoy. I'll put it all in here, the good, bad , and ugly. Hopefully not too much of the latter, but my hope is to keep running tabs for everyone to learn from.

Today started day 0 of orientation with TMC. Des Moines, Iowa, in the middle of no-where. Tomorrow will be day one festivities to include peeing in a cup and filling out paperwork. I arrived at the hotel, which is owned by TMC, at 130pm. Not too much to report on, but definitely make sure you come with money. My budget didn't allow for it, and it's going to be two weeks before I see my first paycheck, and not much to survive on until then. Lunch is provided daily, everything else is out of pocket. Looks like I'll be eating Ramen daily until I get paid. Hey, it even tastes like poverty, so it'll be great. More to follow for day 1.

So I'm about 3 hours out from the orientation center heading down 80W. I have yet to see a single TMC truck on this route, and their main terminal is based right off of 80W. What gives...

Whooooooooooooo! Done did good! TMC here I come!

Will do!

Today is the day the last 6 months have built up to for me. My MVA test for my official class a license is at 1530. I leave Saturday for Des Moines to attend orientation with TMC. It's about to get real, and I'm impatiently waiting for it to hurry up and get over with so I can start my career. I'm excited, truly. I need to get out of this house and on the road and start building a financial cushion.

Under no circumstances do you ever LEASE anything from a company, especially one that is providing you with a paycheck. You might as well say hey, I love working for free. Why? You're paying for the company's vehicle with your blood, sweat and tears. Once it's paid off, you don't own it. The company still does. That'd be like me leasing my M249 from the Army. Yes, I want to pay money monthly (or weekly) to carry around a 20lb paper weight. Makes no sense, right?

So I'm assuming theres a lot of ladder work for tarping as I don't think anyone is that tall just to "roll it over"

Also, status update. In my class, I'm 3rd out of 40ish students, and the only two I'm behind (by 4 points) are prior truckers who are there for a refresher since they've been out for about 4 years. Woo-hoo, right? Apparently I've made a good impression with the instructor, because he's focusing on giving me more advanced challenges and questions. Anyways, all is good, the more I learn in the class, the easier it'll be behind the wheel. After all, a tractor can't be much harder than an up-armored MRAP OR LMTV with a trailer, right?

I am a veteran and I have very low tolerance for BS. They are very big on being on time to classes and will not hesitate to send someone home for being late to a class.

Thanks Jhayson O., I appreciate your service. What branch were you in? I just got out of the Army last year, it's good to hear a fellow veteran is in the same company I'm looking at. Another veteran I'm friends with is at TMC, which I have a pre-hire for. However, Maverick seems to be G2G in my books, which is why I'm looking at them too. Main questions are 1) is the pay as good as the recruiter made it out to be, and 2) how in the hell do you tarp glass that's pyramid shaped?

To everyone else, thanks for the replies, I appreciate it. Look forward to getting out on the road in Feb when I graduate from my CDL school (240 hours worth ughh, classroom portion is a darn waste and its 10 weeks. Only good part is the route planning portion, which is two weeks long)