Comments By Joseph L.

So I requested flatbed during orientation

A tearful goodbye, and a rather fun 5 hour trip from pittsburgh to Pittson, I am officially here and ready to start orientation

Probably would have gotten here faster, but the ice and snow had traffic doing 40 down I80 and 81 and I99.

Thank you. For the replys. I guess my only question would be what the difference to driving flatbed vs refrigerated

So I did a little looking trying to get a idea on what division I should be looking at. Most the posts I saw where years old.

I was originally thinking Tanker, as it pays the most. But post say prime is mainly food grade for tankers, and suggested that a novice drivers should not start there.

They makes me wonder about refrigerated and flatbed trucks. what are turnaround times, pros vs cons? Ext. Basically hoping to get some general knowledge. That will either help me choose or ask more specific questions.

Glad they do. Since I started this path. I've been both watching truck driver and comparing them against what I've learned. As well as changed my own driving habit.

Lost track of the weird or dangerous things I've seen in just a few months. Most common I've seen is going 70 in the 55, on the 376 parkway outside Pittsburgh. Had a semi cut me off after flying up on me in the right hand lane.

My neighbor complains about the bad driving of CDL drivers now adays

Glad they didn’t cause a wreck being idiots. I’ve never had anything that severe happen, thank god.

Coming through Atlanta tuesday evening a WE truck almost took my hood off because he couldn’t read signs I guess or he doesn’t know how to merge. I had to lay on the brakes pretty hard to keep him from running over my right front. I was kinda mad about it, then I got a phone call from my safety dept a couple hours later. They had the footage from my camera and my right hood mirror caught him coming up the right side. They were happy I avoided the collision and said they would be sending the footage to WE. I was kinda shocked they were going to do that. They told me they won’t for everything, but in this case they felt it necessary. So I guess some companies are taking a hard stand to some of this crazy driving.

They did a urine tests. The nurse said that's what they always do for Prime. Don't know if that's country wide though.

I mean can let you know tomorrow after my tests what they used for me.

Sorry for the confusion. My phone keyboard hates me honestly. I've lost count of the number of o that turned to p. N to b or m. Or the number of sentences with b instead of a space that I've had to rewrite.

Thank. My wife is very independent and feels she'll do fine, I'm the one more likely to have problems with the seperation.

Anne, I'm pretty sure he meant "non issue." The "b" and the "n" are way to close to each other on the keyboard!

Ahhhh!!! Thanks, O/S .. I was really wracking my brain ... everytime I think there's something I know, that 'I don't know' .. I wait for one of y'all to educate me!!

Makes sense now.. SMH.. boy do I feel stupid.. asked hubby on the return from work and he said something uncouth .. so you fixed it for me, O/S~!!

Carry on, Joseph .. sooooo sorry!

ps: If this helps, my husband had to 'get legal' .. in 2003. He drove Vactor/Rollofs prior to the rules/regs set forth at that time. Had to go to school for the 160 in '03. Did OTR with USX, Transport America, then teams with FX/LH . . . until he landed a 'regional' with an O/O .. that's better 'left unsaid,' tbh~~!

Our daughter was born in 2000, our son in 2004. Talk about little ones, and preparing the wife person for this 'quantum leap' as it is.. it's tough.. ON EVERYONE. Happy early b'day to your youngest; our 'youngest' turns 17 on the 28th of January! Can't say it's been an 'easy life' .. but sure has worked well, providing for the family. Old School ... share your blog~!

~ Anne ~

Just the post my nervous ass needs before orientation. Lol. /S.

Truthful this is great for new drivers and old. A warning to the first and laugh for the latter

Bump

Wanted to try and do a diaries entry for my training. Maybe it will help other, I think it will help me focus and process as I take this leap.

So back story. July 8th, my second kid was born. Ezra is the youngest with his older brother Everett about to turn four.

Quickly we went from holding in there to Health Insurance increase, dippers, formula, ext. My son starting school. Ext. Money was getting tight again. We new it was coming but with the pandemic option are limited.

Wife wants to be moved into a permit home by the time Everett starts kindergarten, so I start looking again, we had floated the CDL idea before. My brother in law makes good money working for a utility company. But they key to those job OTR experience. So this time I dived in looked for schools, companies and that train you ext. I found these forums which are full of wonderful and helpful people.

I applied for jobs with Prime Inc, Swift and CFI in November. Spoke to recruiter and quickly narrowed it down to Prime Inc. better rates and gaurntees 700 a week as long as I am available to haul during my training. Sounds great.

About that time I was able to get some appointments set up that had been on hold do to covid earliest appointment was end of November.

Slowed plans down but gave me plenty of study time. So I spent a time on the Highroad. Love that program even told my new recruiter they should recommend it.

Aboub29 days before my planned start date I reapply with Prime. Get a new recruiter (turnover) everything is still good to go get my date for the first hurtle. My DOT physical, read on these forums of people having problems so I was worried. Few years ago had a short scare with high blood pressure (or near high blood pressure, few points below the bad levels) . Passed the physical.

Spent two weeks try to get ahold of the DMV as my original recruiter had warned of appointment being needed finally just showed up only to find DMV is purposely ignoring phone calls. get the information on cost...had to renew my non commercial license. Since it had less then six months to go. So 130 or so for everything. Put PTO in for next pay day and went for my permit.

Honestly this is where I hit my first snag. I passed everything but my tanker. I was confused I did not remember half those questions from the Tanker section. Checking Highroad and my state cdl manual. Brought up nothing.

I looked up practice tests online. And sure enough I found the same question I just failed. So I did some searching through my manuals pdf. Found my question in other sections. Frustrating but a easy fix. I showed up the next day and passed my tanker 100 percent on questions answered.

Called the recruiter. Got my official day set, jan 4th. The day before my oldest birthday. 😞. Called my current job HR requesting a leave of absence. Figured safest option. Sadly it was denied. They expected me to use PTO which was no longer front loaded but earned through the year. So submitted my two weeks, they say if I need to come back I'm cleared to. Safety net is nice but I don't plan on needing it.

Through out the wife and I have made plans for taking care of the kids. Video chat via Facebook when possible, ext. I've been doing little things like recording myself reading my son's books. So he can still feel like I'm reading to him. Trying in general to prepare everyone for what's next.

So hear I sit 3 days until my last day of work, 6 days before we celebrate my son's birthday (doing it early) 7 days before I leave for Pittson to start orientation

4 days for drug test, but that's a bob issue for me. This was written out on my phone, so my apologies for any grammar or spelling mistakes I missed