Profile For Chris Z.

Hey, all!

Sorry, as I'm sure you all know, week one is a doozy. I haven't had the time to pop in and respond to anything at all yet. I started Monday, we did class room training all day. Tuesday some class work then out on the training ground moving the truck and learning to **** and going over the pre trip inspection one time. I've never driven a manual car or truck before, just my motorcycle. So the plus side there is I understood shifting, and didn't have a lot of the bad habits learned from driving a manual car that needed breaking at least, lol. Day three we were moving the truck around and hooked up to a trailer (we're driving around a dry van right now, need to find a flatbed to get hooked up next week), and started driving that around the training yard. Day four we already went out on the road, the instructor drove the tractor and trailer to an industrial park where we had to drive on the road, look out for turns and stop signs and other cars shifting, turns and off tracking etc, and do a couple laps. Then on day five we went out on the road from the Roehl yard, on the highway, onto a Main Street with 104795840 traffic lights and cars (talk about getting your shifting down quick) and kept through all of that to do a little country driving, through construction work on the road, etc. A whole lot happened day five.

Our instructor is Will, he said most classes they just have the new hires out there moving the truck around the yard on day five, not out doing as much as we were driving in public and on the roads/highways already. He also told us the next group coming in next week has to do the 4 week program we are all doing, in 3 weeks. I'm not sure why but it's the same program and all of the same expectations etc but they're trying to see if they can condense it into a three week program, which makes me think maybe our class is being accelerated a little bit for testing purposes also.

I didn't apply for a specific division at first, I wanted to do flatbed anyhow so it worked out perfectly for me. My roommate here wanted to do dry van, but he said the recruiter told him that they were only looking for flatbed at this time and that after 6mo he could change his division.

Him and I have stayed about 2 hours every day after 10hrs of classes to go over all of the pretrip inspection and get it locked in. We were there for 4 hours today after a half day of classroom training. I can get all the way through the engine compartment, drivers side door, gas tank etc and the back of the tractor. Coupling, suspension, tires, etc. I know most of the van inspection but it's nailing down the vocabulary precisely for that and really perfecting the in cab inspection now, too (we just did it for the first time yesterday ourselves, so it's coming along quick). We'll be back out there practicing tomorrow and Memorial Day even though there's no classes the next two days. It's a lot to take in, but I'm really enjoying it!!

They said they’ll have me on the National flatbed team when I officially start, which I’m really looking forward to! 11-14 days out and 3 days back, based out of Knoxville where I live.

On Monday the 18th I'll be starting with Roehl training out of Gary Indiana, time for a new adventure! Is anyone else going to be up there training also?