Comments By Matthew W.

PackRat and Matthew, thank you gentleman!

I told my wife yesterday feels awesome to be in a truck by myself, but weird at the same time, like I stole it...very surreal.

Truck # 11386 if you see me out there Matthew, say hi!

Cheers, Kelly

Absolutely, did you get yourself a Pete or Freightliner? I'm currently riding, around in a Pete myself, it's an alright truck. Got a few bugs with it, my biggest annoyance is the lack of space in comparison to freightliners. Something I've gotten used to, just means I cuddle more junk on my bunk then I would in a freightliner.

I think for the most part it's been said here already, just GOAL and don't care. You'll get better with more practice. If you get a load like my current one you can always spend your time doing some backing practice to help improve yourself quicker. I will say this, my worst backing experience so far as far as crookedness was at a receiver that had just built there new warehouse. No lines on the ground yet so literally all I had was the door behind me to try and gauge if I was straight or not. Just meant I had to do a few extra goals to get it in there right for them. I still suck at backing, but I am getting better with every day I do it. It's all about practice and thinking through what you are doing and why you are doing it.

I don't know about manual mode, but do you know about hill start assist? Newer autos have that and what it does is hold your breaks set when you release the break petal for a few seconds before releasing them. Its I,tended to keep the truck from rolling backwards when starting on a hill, but also has the negative affect of making impatient drivers buck the truck because they are applying fuel before the breaks release. Try giving the truck another second before starting your backing maneuver. Or if yoy can't wait there is a switch on your dash to shut it off. It looks like a truck going up an incline with a corcle and line through it.

Pretty new truck, congrats and hope she does you well during the break in process.

Congrats Kelly, glad to see you made it through training. Look forward to seeing your truck out on the road.

I have heard of people never going OTR and still getting a job local, you might be able to land a local job if you are persistent enough. Also, as Army said, you kinda let the whole training go stale on you waiting so long, that might shoot you in the foot. It's not impossible to overcome though, just need to get off the fence and start walking good sir. :)

I have read research where Melatonin can cause false positives also.

I take 10 mg melatonin if I can’t sleep. Though I have found driving 10 hours eliminates that issue for me. :)

Your body produces Melatonin naturally, I find it hard to believe that it would throw up a false positive given it's a naturally produced chemical in your body. Be careful about letting people blow smoke up your tail pipe via the internet. However, I agree with others stated here, talk with your potential company. Let them know what you do take, and make sure when you go in for the **** test that you let THEM know as well. This should prevent you from having any false positives.

Trying trying to get some information or a female perspective from Jim Palmer. I have wanted to go to the school since they opened. What I'm trying to find out is the requirements. I have a really squeaky clean record both criminal and driving. I have all my paperwork ready. I am really ready to take my permit test again. (Did this once before at another company). Going back three years I only had one small employment gap. And that was because we were moving out of state. I am 46 married with no kids. And I am so ready to do this! Any direction I should go should I just call them.

Day 3 04/03/2019

Van picked us up at 7am. This morning. So funny to arrive at 7:10 and still be sitting here an hour later... but it'll only be 20 minutes more. Haha. Ok, more time to review pretrip.

We signed our CDL school contract. Simply put, the cost is $3500 and at no time will $ be deducted from your pay. At 6 months $1750 is forgiven. At 12 months the remaining $1750 is forgiven. So stick around for a year and no cost to you. Even if you were to leave after 6 months, you'll only pay 1/2. Really very fair and one of the best agreements out there in my opinion, and a more than fair price for training when compared to others.

Overall so far, I am impressed. I like the small feel making it more personalized, you are you and not a number. Everyone is very friendly and encouraging.

The Wilson's (Father and son) we are told are very approachable and we are encouraged to stop in and say hi if they are here as they like to know there drivers.

More later as the day progresses.

About 1pm Darwin took us out for a pre-trip run through then into the truck to pull forward and straight back, then out to a 45 degree angle to back. Also had a student pull out to show the angle you'll want to take a picture of in your mind for the 90 degree back. I did all right as he helped me and wow, what a thrill! Oh yeah, the 2 students that had to still pass their permit test did it. We are still a group of 5.

And that concluded our day. Tomorrow out on the roads driving Cheers!

Give them a call, or ask some questions here. I am not sure exactly what you are looking for with "From a female perspective." I can tell you however that I see women go through our training here at Wil-Trans all the time with no issues. That doesn't necessarily make the company right for you, you need to do the research to make sure that the company you go to meets your own personal criteria. However I will say this, these guys do try and sort out bad picks, given that you are married they will want to talk with your husband as well to make sure he will be able to handle being separated from you for long periods of time. Remember you will be gone for a minimum of 30 days before you can return home and see your husband so they will want to make sure that BOTH of you are ok with this and ready to deal with it. OTR trucking is hard on relationships, I hope you keep that in mind in your journey. I am not trying to scare you away, I just want to make sure you're aware of everything here. Anyhow, feel free to ask away on questions you may have, I'll be happy to do my best to answer. However I haven't been to Jim Palmers terminal, nor did I go through their training, I went to Wil-Trans' terminal and training course so there may be some questions specific to Jim Palmer I can't answer.

Awesome, glad to see you're still around and still enjoying the job. Also very glad to see you're taking the right attitude. Stuff happens in this industry, you just have to roll with it and keep doing the best you can.

Happy Birthday fellow trucker!

I'm curious, what did you end up using to get rid of the odor?

Sounds like I found my new 34 spot.

Companies like Prime and my own company order a set number of trucks each week. This is not a freeze, its just basic supply and demand. They know averaging out over the year about how many they need per week and they bring in that many. You just so happen to be in a peak period where the demand is higher than average. Sit tight and youll get your due. Although, I have to agree with Packrat. Leaseing is bad, but feel free to learn that for yourself, I wont try and talk you out of it.

Come to think of it, I think it was coffee grounds I heard too. Sorry about that.

I was told to spread rice along the floor and run on high air for an hour. Then wash it out. The rice absorbs the odor. Ive not had this problem so I cant confirm the fix from experience.

I should also say, form routines. Take the dog out to pee, then give them water back in the truck. I feed my dog half her food I, the am, the other half at night around the same time every day. So I can expect her digestive cycle to produce piles twice a day near the feeding times. This helps to track when its time to get them outside to do their business, and the routine helps them learn when to take care of it. Also my pup pretty much jumps up out of her sleep whenever I set brakes, she knows this is when we het out and do our business outside.

A lot of times repeatedly negative behavior is a sign the dog isnt getting enough attention or interaction with you. If dogs arent getting their required attention they will seek it, even if they get negative attention its better than no attention. Id suggests trying to find more time to work with the dog. Teach him/her verbal commands is a good way to interact with your dog with good positive results. And in the case of potty issues take a few more pit stops with the pup and be very positive when they go outside. Treats and pets as and right after they finish doing their business works wonders. Remember dogs live in the moment, so you need to reward immediately for good behavior and discourage immediately when you see bad behavior. If you take too long you will reward/punish the wrong thing and confuse your dog.

Prime does. Rainy has her cat, Goofball, as her co-pilot for several years.

OK, cats should be more suitable to truck life than dogs, due to their smaller size, inability to bark, and being able to poop and pee in a litter box. (If you like that by-product in your confined space.) So, if companies allow pets, I can't understand why they wouldn't allow cats. Maybe cats cause some sort of problem at CAT scales.

Just a little history about cats. The first tennis racquets were woven with cat gut. Look it up, it's true. They were called 'racquets' because it makes a lot of racket when you try to take the guts out of a cat.

I've had drivers say when they got their truck one of the cabinets reeked of cat ****. I'd imagine this is a decent reason to consider not allowing them on trucks, although really it's the owner not the cats fault. It is up to the owner to take care of their pets properly.

Obviously timing plays a part as well in air horn use. I don't blow it at 2 in the morning, however 8 at night, sure. People are using it to alert other drivers before they hit something, what's one more toot?

Every company has Negative Nancys as the old name calling goes. Don't be that guy, or facilitate that type of behavior. A lot of times those guys are the future X employees at the company because they expect much and deliver little to earn it. Myself I have a pretty simple philosophy on work, always be a company man. By being a company man and making the company you work for profitable you secure your own pay check, so only a fool would behave differently. Company men don't talk bad about their employers, they get to work and make some money. If you reach a point where you can't be a company man for your employer, it's time to move on and find a new job. Don't sit there and stew about a job you dislike or a employer you can't perform for. You just make yourself miserable and generally end up getting fired with a bad reputation to go with it, that you then have to work through to get a new job.