Comments By Patricia R.

Ok day 1 is over. We had classroom time for the rest of the day. I know I'm going to get a lot of crap for stating this on here but I went with the automatic transmission training. Let me explain why....

I will be doing my otr 180 hours of training in an automatic. They have ppl training that have only been driving 4 to 6 months. I'm not saying anything negative about it, but I would rather train on what I'm going to be driving everyday just in case...

I talked over the pros and cons with my step dad. He owns a couple semi trucks and he said the whole industry will be switched over to automatic within the next 5 years. I will be with this company for at least a year. He said he would teach me and let me test with a stick if I needed to after my year is up.

Lastly... this is day 1 of school (which is a tuesday) we are expected to be ready for our actual cdl test by Monday or Tuesday which is 5 or 6 days away. I don't feel like that's enough time to learn how to drive a stick shift semi truck, pre trip and backing.

Tomorrow we spend time driving the trucks. I will update when I get time.

We started this morning at 6am...ish. We filled out a million forms, got drug tested, watched a sexual harassment video and took a quiz about federal regulations that was about 30 questions long. They allow you to use the book for the test and let u retake it if u didn't pass.

I was told by my recruiter there would be a hair folicle test, but apparently that is only if your urine sample is suspicous. I hope no one was dumb enough to take drugs before they came to school and then try to mask it....SMH.

There are about 30 people in my class which seems pretty big. We were told that they are taking volunteers to train in automatic trucks as they have switched their fleet to 90% automatic and will be 100% there by april.... I am torn about this. I imagine it's way easier to learn to drive on an automatic however I feel like it's a waste of my time to be here if I have that restriction on my license. I will update more after lunch time. So far everything is great!!

School starts tomorrow at 6am. Today I took the shuttle to walmart to get food and stuff to do laundry. There is a laundry room on site. The shuttle goes to walmart every hour on the hour. Not much to report other than a walmart trip and waiting to start school :)

I would also like to point out that I read every review I could get my hands on about their school and company. There were a lot of negative comments about various things related to the facility. I have found most of those comments to be untrue.

I have spoken to 4 other females here and it looks like I will most likely have to go out with a male trainer. They are very short on trainers. If I wait for a female I will probably be stuck here for awhile which means I'm not getting paid. I don't care who I go out to train with so it's not an issue for me, but if your female and are not comfortable with a male trainer you might want to look at other options.

Are you in a hotel or a CRE facility?

Cr england facility

Are you in a hotel or a CRE facility?

I am at the CR England facility

I got picked up from the airport today by a CR England shuttle. When I arrived I was led to a "hotel check in" desk where they assigned me a room and bunk bed. This facility is pretty cool!! There is a work out room, movie theater, a game room with pool tables, a restaurant, and essentially a gas station miny mart. There are several tv rooms downstairs. There are seperate living rooms for men and women upstairs where the dorms are. There are 2 kitchenettes upstairs which consist of fridges, microwaves and vending machines.

To answer your question big Scott. .. yes I did get my permit and physical taken care of before I even started applying to companies. I'm not sure why I ended up in utah as I live in Mobile, Al and there were training facilities that were closer.

I will update more in a bit

I'm flying to salt lake city on 1/1 to start school with CR England. I am super excited to be starting a new career. I will update as much as possible while I am there and also what each phase of training is like once I get hired on. According to the information I was provided there are 4 phases to go through during your 1st 6 months with the company. I chose this company because it only has a 9 month commitment. As long as you stay the whole 9 months you are not required to pay money back for your training.

Another reason I chose this company is because my recruiter was knowledgeable. He answered every question I asked or called me back if he didn't know the answer when I asked a question . I spoke with at least 7 other company recruiters and most of them didn't want to answer questions or had a general attitude that they couldn't care less if I went with their company or not. Wish me luck!!

Swift said no. :/

He's unsupervised on parole. He has permission from his parole officer to peruse this career choice and travel out of state. He is not a sex offender and his charges were not drug related.

I spoke with Swift. I gave the recruiter all of the details and it sounds like we have a chance with them. I will update when I get an answer to help anyone else out having a similar struggle.

A lot of companies are looking for 5-7 years from release to consider it.

Doing 10 years means it was something pretty serious I'll wager. Hopefully not something of the nature that would preclude getting a hire AT ALL.

He's not on any type of "supervised release" (parole/probation) where he has to report? He's not an RSO (Registered Sex Offender)? - though we've heard of them getting hired too.

Best of luck - please do keep us posted.

Rick

He's unsupervised on parole. He has permission from his parole officer to peruse this career choice and travel out of state. He is not a sex offender and his charges were not drug related.

I spoke with Swift. I gave the recruiter all of the details and it sounds like we have a chance with them. I will update when I get an answer to help anyone else out having a similar struggle.

A lot of companies are looking for 5-7 years from release to consider it.

Doing 10 years means it was something pretty serious I'll wager. Hopefully not something of the nature that would preclude getting a hire AT ALL.

He's not on any type of "supervised release" (parole/probation) where he has to report? He's not an RSO (Registered Sex Offender)? - though we've heard of them getting hired too.

Best of luck - please do keep us posted.

Rick