My Nightmare!

Infidel- Did you take a picture of the mattress/sheets?

You'd be doing a good service to the company if you would send a picture to the boss of the Dispatcher's boss. Also enclose what you have written here. The Safety Manager and the owner or CEO should also receive this. If the company Management is competent, they will be grateful to you.

If this doesn't cause them to take action... well... enough said.

I know the bottom line is you need to put this behind you, and move on. GOOD LUCK!

You handled the situation with grace. However, having education in the medical field, and studying about blood born pathogens and all that other "good" stuff, there's no way in hell that I would have stayed with that trainer, right from the start. Your health is important, and having blood stains and open bleeding sores is a HUGE safety issue. Nevermind the bottles of urine "rolling around". That's disgusting. Also, you were there to learn trucking, you are NOT a nurse. So for him to ask you to help him with his bleeding sores, NO! This is outside of your scope of practice. And him going for such long periods of time without sleep is just not safe. Nothing about this trainer is safe!!!

I Just want to give a, "Right On Target", shout out to Brett for his response to Infidel.

Now, I'm new to this forum, and so far I have enjoyed almost every post I have read, BUT I was starting to think that Mr. Brett was a little to company side, with some of his replies to new drivers, with real life complaints.

Luckily for me, as I have grown older, 54 now, I have learned to keep my big pie hole shut and not Judge people too quickly. Now I have over 20 years of local driving and I did not attend any driving academy. So, I will judge issues of local truck driving, but I'll take the wait and see attitude when it comes to OTR driving or Driving Academies.

It turns out, I was best to wait before making any comments. Then Mr. Brett said just about everything I was thinking of in my skull. Well it was great to find out that Mr. Brett truly tries to remain unbiased and give out honest, truthful, helpful commentary.

I mean this is "TRUCKING TRUTH". Thanks again for this forum....

Infidel - thanks for posting your experience, you've just enlightened me to asking more questions to my prospective employer: What is the selection process for matching a Trainer with a Trainee? First available Trainer? Is there a "matching" process you use?

I consider myself in pretty good health. Under no circumstances will I put my health in jeopardy. If the trainer can't keep the truck and sleeper berth clean then it makes me wonder how "professional" of a driver he is.

Like how Danial B. performs his pre-Trainee research, and if you read some of his past posts he's professional, organized and keeps his habitat "clean".

Thanks everyone for the validation. It helps. I'm not sure honestly if I will go back and try again. I feel that the experience I had colored everything I saw while trucking as bad! So at the moment I have a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing. But we will see. I will take my time to think it through.

Brett I don't think I will go back to that same company. Their training is very long, which at first was a positive to me. Now I'm more than a bit gun shy and want a faster path. There seems to be a split in this company between the old school people (the ones that were with the original company) and the new crew from the company that recently bought it. The new crew seems more inflexible. There is a yard for a large company here locally. I was thinking of going there and talking with some one personally and kind of explain my situation. I want to ask if they have a trainer locally and could I meet them. So to get a feel for them. What do you guys think about that idea?

Also I was wondering about your opinions on running teams when training? I remember reading somewhere to not do this. As I stated before I felt as if I was mostly being used to get my trainer miles. And not as much to train me. But that's my opinion. Should I be more open minded about this possibility? I certainly don't want too, but if I had to...

Thanks in advance for any help! And Brett thanks for the confidence man!

Infidel- Did you take a picture of the mattress/sheets?

You'd be doing a good service to the company if you would send a picture to the boss of the Dispatcher's boss. Also enclose what you have written here. The Safety Manager and the owner or CEO should also receive this. If the company Management is competent, they will be grateful to you.

If this doesn't cause them to take action... well... enough said.

I know the bottom line is you need to put this behind you, and move on. GOOD LUCK!

No I didn't. I thought about it. But never did. Through all this I still felt bad for they guy. It cant feel good to go around like that all the time. And I'm sure it contributed to his attitude. I honestly had a hard time telling people at the office the whole truth. I did but I didn't tell everyone I talked with everything. Its a small company kinda place. Everyone knows everyone. But the message is out now. So hopefully it is addressed.

One of the first things that struck me about the post is that, even though the school pushed Werner, Infidel went with a "lesser known" company, that was owned by a bigger company. Maybe the school pushed Werner 'cause they had a lot of students go there with good feedback.

Certainly it sounds like you handled the situation well. But I've got to say my experience (and I only speak for mine) was, to use TruckingTruth for much of my research and I spoke with various recruiters by phone. I also believe that one of the things you've got to look for is consistency of information. By that I mean; does the information on a company's website jibe with what the recruiter tells you? Is the info on TruckingTruth consistent with the company website and/or recruiter? Also, I looked for a company that was big enough they were concerned about their reputation.

Another thing that strikes me is there could have been a sense of smaller company means better attention to detail and killer cents per mile. My opinion; anytime cents per mile is much higher than the big boys, there's a reason. I could be wrong about this, but as Brett has said a million times, if there was one company paying better and a better company all-around, everybody would be driving for them.

I say; go for a bigger company, one which knows their training drivers could cost them a lawsuit and therefore, has strict guidelines for their training drivers.

I'll bet there's a great opportunity out there you'll do well with.

Good luck!

One of the first things that struck me about the post is that, even though the school pushed Werner, Infidel went with a "lesser known" company, that was owned by a bigger company. Maybe the school pushed Werner 'cause they had a lot of students go there with good feedback.

Certainly it sounds like you handled the situation well. But I've got to say my experience (and I only speak for mine) was, to use TruckingTruth for much of my research and I spoke with various recruiters by phone. I also believe that one of the things you've got to look for is consistency of information. By that I mean; does the information on a company's website jibe with what the recruiter tells you? Is the info on TruckingTruth consistent with the company website and/or recruiter? Also, I looked for a company that was big enough they were concerned about their reputation.

Another thing that strikes me is there could have been a sense of smaller company means better attention to detail and killer cents per mile. My opinion; anytime cents per mile is much higher than the big boys, there's a reason. I could be wrong about this, but as Brett has said a million times, if there was one company paying better and a better company all-around, everybody would be driving for them.

I say; go for a bigger company, one which knows their training drivers could cost them a lawsuit and therefore, has strict guidelines for their training drivers.

I'll bet there's a great opportunity out there you'll do well with.

Good luck!

Well I found all kinds of negative stuff about Werner. Found a lot of positive too. But it wasnt just cpm that drew me. It was a large part. But also equipment, pet policy, CSA score and general patience with my endless questions. And I like working for smaller companies generally. I had no idea they were owned by another company til I got there. They are small but if you have been driving for a while you would know the company. I knew what the main offset for the high cpm was before I left. It was their terrible healthcare plan. But my wife sells health insurance so we had that covered.

I think going with a larger company is a good idea. And I may go that route next. And thank you!