Comments By Daniel M.

Congratulations!

Thank you sir, I'm very excited!

OK, man! last week went by so quick! as the weeks go by you realize how fast pace it gets. week 3 I did alley dock in the same pattern as week 1 and 2. pretrip from 8 to 9:30. alley dock till 11:30 static fifth wheel till 12:00. lunch till 1:00. alley dock till five, with a 15 min break at 3:00. one of the days they took us out on the highway and on the main road each about 45 minutes .

thats what the whole third week looked like.

this week I'm doing mostly alley dock and then a day before I test which will be on Friday ill be bouncing around between the alley dock and offset. you need to have your mind in the game for this or you'll do bad and they'll send you home.

Daniel M. !

I've been WAITING for you to post again, oh WOW! Sure DOES go fast, eh? Sounds like YOU are doing great, glad to hear. So, do they really send people home often? Then again, many training companies sure do, if someone's mind isn't in the game. How 'IS' their turnover rate down yonder ?!?!?

Wow, Friday you test! That's awesome, too. Tom & I will sure send luck & good vibes your way; let us know how it goes, man.

Always sending best wishes; you got this!

~ Anne & Tom ~

ps: If you see Clay, please tell him Anne says hi; appreciate it &

Sorry it took so long to get back here. My phone broke among other things. Yeah time does fly for sure! It seems like 40-50% of people that start on day one get sent home for one reason or another. A lot of drug tests showing up and quite a few get sent home because the instructors feel they "aren't betting it" (backing up a flat bed trailer) the flat beds tend to have a slow response time when you turn the steering wheel. Which makes it tricky, along the fact that a lot of people have had no experience backing up any small trailer let alone a 53 ft one. I do believe it mostly comes down to the person though. If you really want to pass and you give your undivided attention, I think you'll pass. It did seem like a LOT of people were just there to make a career change thinking it would be easy peasy.

So I passed! Monday Tuesday they had me on the alley dock. Wednesday Thursday they had me bounce back and forth between alley dock and offset, and they did take me out on the road one Last time, 3 in total. Test day friday at 9am the examiner Robert was a great guy! very patient and calm . He was really nice and did not stress me out at all he will try to calm you if you seem nervous too. The test lasted about 1 1/2 hours and then I tore out the blue pages in my log book and gave em to the instructor Ken and then I went back to the little orientation building (the one you go to the first day) and was told I'd have some videos to watch and papers to sign and that's it! They give you mon-wed to watch your orientation videos go to the dmv, get your cdl and then I'll be going back Thursday (well Wednesday night to the hotel) .

OK, man! last week went by so quick! as the weeks go by you realize how fast pace it gets. week 3 I did alley dock in the same pattern as week 1 and 2. pretrip from 8 to 9:30. alley dock till 11:30 static fifth wheel till 12:00. lunch till 1:00. alley dock till five, with a 15 min break at 3:00. one of the days they took us out on the highway and on the main road each about 45 minutes .

thats what the whole third week looked like.

this week I'm doing mostly alley dock and then a day before I test which will be on Friday ill be bouncing around between the alley dock and offset. you need to have your mind in the game for this or you'll do bad and they'll send you home.

Thank you Thomas, Anne and tom.

Yes pack rat, I agree with you.

so Tuesday was the same as Monday, a pre trip in the morning then straight to the pad to practice offset. lunch for an hour every day from 12 to 1 then back at it till 4:50 or so, head back in the class room for logging for the day and ride the van back to the hotel, expect to make it there at about 5:30 or so. Wednesday was interesting half way through the day one of the instructors called my last guy back and sent him home and now I'm the last survivor of my group. and I also got to drive the truck for the first time! they took me to what they call an "industrial park" a small grid of roads around a bunch of huge warehouses. they did that giving each guy about the an hour if driving to give him a feel of the truck and trailer turning around corners at intersections and the roads were really slow not much traffic so it was great. Thursday they put one of the newer guys in my truck and we'd go back and forth, me doing the offset then him doing the straight back but I still got a lot of extra practice in. they also took us to their alternate pad to practice because the fourth weekers were testing. Friday, pretrip in the morning offset till lunch then after lunch the instructor came to me and said "Daniel, your in for a real treat. since you're the last in your group and your doing good on the offset I'm going to move you to the alley dock to practice with Josh and scott(2 guys on week three doing alley dock)" im so excited!! I was getting the offset well and was ready to move on. I practice that the rest of the day and go home for the weekend.

Awesome thanks for posting! good luck!

Agreed!

Monday week 2. they moved our group to the offset right after watching a pretrip video and one of the guys in our group got sent home, the drug test came back and I guess he tested positive for drugs... so now there's 2 of us left and we're getting the hang of the offset so far its an excellent experience

Thanks Anne!

so the last three days of the week were all very similar. we wait for the van at 7:30am, arrive at the training center at around 8 go inside the school building (its like a small mobile home) and the instructor (Lawrence Jones) he comes in and gives us an idea of what the day will be like. cracks the whip a bit to keep everyone focused, which I personally like, then we get started on watching the pre trip video again for a little over an hour. we go over to an alternate pad to drive the trucks the 4 week students are testing for there cdl. we the 1 weekers practice backing up the truck in a straight line the rest of the day while the 2 weekers practice on the offset backing and the 3 weekers on the 90 degree ally dock. you get a lot of time to practice and I love it it doesn't feel rushed. I'm back home for the weekend and I'll be back at the hotel Sunday night. they have a sign in sheet where you can pit down what days you will be at the hotel, some guys do sun-sat, I just do MON-Fri since I live an hour away.

Cool, thanks for sharing!