Made It In

Regardless of whether top bunk is illegal, it is against Werner company policy. Also, if his hygiene is that bad, you need to report it.

Just know that most trainers there are not like that.

Ken, being with a trainer is tough, I don't care how you cut it - very few people look back on their time with a trainer as a special time of satisfaction, and the ones that do are fortunate indeed.

I am the last person who wants you to be unsafe, so I can't criticize you for that, but before you get on the phone with Werner on Monday I want to give you a few things to think about. I say these things quite often, so at the risk of repeating myself and sounding like a bore I beg your indulgence for a few moments.

During training it is your responsibility to prove yourself to the company, don't approach the whole training time looking for them to prove something to you. This is not the time to be trying to determine if they are going to treat you right or not, it is the time to show them what you are made of and usually that involves putting up with some difficulties. If you feel the need for a different trainer, explain what the problem is and see if they agree with you - they may get you back on the road with someone else, or they may have already decided that you are too much trouble.

Here's the deal: for the most part, new drivers come into this with totally skewed expectations of how the training should go, in fact many times they think they know better than the well established trucking companies who have been doing this for generations. It's going to boil down to how badly you want to do this. I suffered a terrible trainer, but I thought I was on my last shot at getting into this career so I took everything he tried to break me down with and showed him which one of us was the better man. In the end the guys in the suits at the office who upgraded me to a solo driver told me they knew I was tough enough for the job, because most of the people who went out with this trainer never made it past the first two weeks. They actually knew how hard it was to go out with this guy, and yet they kept using him as a trainer! That is why I say it boils down to how badly you want this. This business is performance based, everything about it is based on performance. The guys who are producers will rise to the top, and your training time is used as a measuring device to see if you are likely to be that type of person who can handle adversity and difficulty (a standard feature of every truck drivers daily encounters) and come out as a victor.

From a young age I was taught by my dad that winning had a simple formula behind it. I don't think this philosophy was original to him, and his ideas probably came from somebody like Vince Lombardi, or a host of others of that generation. He taught me that "Winners simply are willing to do what losers are not." If you take that approach to your training, you will do what it takes to get through it and move on to the next step in the game. You've probably heard it said that you can't steal second base while you've still got your foot on first. You've got to focus on the prize, not on how difficult it is to get off first base. There is an idea that I worked hard on teaching my children, and that is that when you allow the tyranny of the urgent to compromise your decision making process it corrupts the outcome.

Training is a short time, it may be compromised by a trainer who is not exactly stellar, but the main point of it is to get you to the point where they can put you into a truck as a solo driver. You are not going to be an expert after your training - as a matter of fact you are barely going to be scratching the surface of how to be successful at this job when you reach your one year anniversary. Do what it takes to get yourself moving around those bases, it's still a long stretch before you reach home plate. If a little thing like learning to sleep in a moving truck is making you jump ship then there are going to be a lot of challenges ahead of you. Make up your mind if you want this or not. If you do want to proceed, then do the things that the losers are unwilling to do - that is how you come out a winner.

Old School, I could have not said that better. Heck I probably could not have said it that well to begin with.

Ken, you are lucky, you have a trainer. I did not have one and was just thrown to the wolves. Because of this I refused to get my tanker and doubles endorsement until I thought I was ready. I went the next spring and got them. Now I move D8 dozers, 336 excavators and 100+ foot long bridge beams on multi axle and steerable trailers.

You can do anything for a short period of time and that is exactly what training is unless you drag it out.