My Journey With Prime In Pittston

I could not find much for what training is like at Prime's terminal in Pittston so I'm going to write about my journey here.

Background Applied to Prime about a week before my CDL test. Recruiter called me a day or 2 after and said she could get me into Pittston in early January. Week later I passed my CDL test and had my recruiter run my reports (MVR, Background Check, etc). As for getting here, you have 2 options: Option 1 is to take a greyhound bus at Prime's expense or option 2 which is fly/drive/Amtrak here at mostly your own expense (Prime will pay you .10 cpm if you don't take a greyhound). I chose to fly here since I never flew before and a greyhound would have been a 25 hour trip. Would like to have driven but my car would be stuck here while I'm on the road with a trainer.

Day 0 Flew into Wilkes-Barre Airport and called the shuttle at around 4:30 pm. He picked me up in 5 minutes. He had to run around and pick up some other folks as well so I didn't get to the hotel until around 6. We stopped at the terminal and a fellow driver gave me a brief tour of it and what to expect these next few days. Got back to the hotel, mentioned that I'm Prime and got my room key along with a bunch of paperwork that needs to be filled out for the first day. This is basically the online application but in paper form. Don't lie/cheat/hide information on it because they do another background check on you here and you can get sent home if they find something you didn't tell them about. If you told your recruiter everything, then I wouldn't worry, just put it all on the form again. Walked to McDonalds (there are a few restaurants within walking distance and a TGI Fridays is connected to the hotel) to eat.

Day 1

Orientation starts @ 7 am, shuttle leaves at 6:30-6:45 am. DONT BE LATE. There is a breakfast in the hotel to grab a bite beforehand. Get to the terminal and you'll be given a tour of the terminal and they will explain what to expect for the first day. Special note, my orientation is a bit different since it started on Wednesday so we only get 3 days instead of 4 or 5. You'll be told to fill out that packet of paperwork if you haven't already. You'll be given some additional forms for tax withholding as well. Immediately following this you'll go get drug tested. I don't need to say this but don't do drugs or you'll go home at your own expense. Afterwards the class will be split, half will get shuttled to Concentra to take the DOT Physical and the other half will stick around to do the computer based training. If you temporarily fail the physical they'll give you another chance to pass the next day. If you still fail, they'll send you home for a minimum of 30 days until you get the health issue fixed.

They said they were going to do face to face interviews today but that never happened. I'm not sure it will happen or if they just got postponed for another day.

Get back to the terminal and you'll probably want to take lunch at this point. The terminal has a cafeteria and your lunch and dinner are provided for free up to a maximum of $7.25 for each meal. After lunch you'll do your computer based training (lots of videos about company procedures) and possibly do a basic skills test on the simulator. Afterwards do more CBTs. Day ends around 4:30 or so. Grab dinner before you leave.

I got assigned a fleet manager and a trainer as well today. That was day numero Uno for me in Pittston.

Question for you, Did you get to pick where you were going to train or did they just tell you. I live in NC and ive been basing all my study on the MO state exam assuming that's where I would go lol since I was dumb enough not to consider other possible training areas in different states.

Question for you, Did you get to pick where you were going to train or did they just tell you. I live in NC and ive been basing all my study on the MO state exam assuming that's where I would go lol since I was dumb enough not to consider other possible training areas in different states.

If you have your CDL already I believe you get sent to Pittston or Salt Lake. If you dont have a CDL, you're going to Springfield for the PSD program.

Thank you.

Day 2 Not much to say here. Finished the CBT's today. Everyone finished the skills test on the simulator. More people got assigned a trainer. In the afternoon we had a class about refueling and why the trucks are governed slow. Also had a class about benefits. Benefits seem pretty good but expensive. Tomorrow we're expecting to get our ID badges and officially be employees. Some of us may head out with trainers as well.

Day 3

Last day of orientation. Few of us (including myself) got cleared so we went to go do some last bit of paperwork, take a photo, and receive our ID Card/Fuel Card/Comdata Card. Following this I made a call to my trainer. He seems pretty cool. Drives a Cascadia 10 speed and is good with hygiene and seems to have his truck pretty decked out from his description. The bad news is he probably won't be here until Sunday. What am I going to do tomorrow?

We had 2 classes today, one on the various safety features on the trucks, including the Qualcomm , the lane departure system, stability control system, and the various systems that can trigger a critical event and get you yelled at by safety. They don't play around when it comes to this and I'm going to have to really watch myself to not trigger one of these events. The next class was one on high value cargo. Pretty interesting that some of the trailers we pull can have cargo valued as much as $30 million.

Orientation was done at this point. It was a half day and we were free to do what we want. Some of the guys were lucky and had trainers arrive today so they hit the road almost immediately after orientation, others are stuck waiting to be assigned a trainer and are here until Monday at the earliest. Few others were waiting to get their trucks. Everyone did get cleared today so we are all employees at Prime now though (and getting paid).

I hung around until 4:30 to grab dinner, bored out of my mind. Didn't want to go back to the hotel. Ironically after we got back to the hotel, a few of us decided to walk to a nearby pizza place and have dinner there instead.

So that's Prime's condensed 3 day version of orientation at the Pittston terminal. I'm not sure how different it would be if we had the 2 extra days orientation normally gets. I will say this, I felt they could have condensed orientation into 2 full days instead of 1 full day and essentially 2 half days but I know they had to wait for people's background checks, references, etc to come back.

So what's next? Tomorrow I'm going back to the terminal to probably do laundry and enjoy free food still. I'm thinking about renting a car tomorrow and driving into NYC since I'll have just about the entire day and I've always wanted to see NYC. We'll have to see.

First day on the road with my trainer.

My trainer was looking for a good load so we didn't head out of the terminal until 2 or so. The load we did get is picking up a loaded trailer from Hershey and taking it to Kentucky. Trainer drove a bit out of Wilkes-Barre before letting me have a go at it. I was very rusty behind the wheel. My shifting was poor and it felt like I forgot how to drive a truck. I drove for maybe 60 miles to the pick up location. We had to drop an empty first before we could pick up our trailer. There was a lot of Prime trucks here.

After we dropped the empty at a dock we went to go check in and find the trailer we needed. Thankfully the trailer was already loaded so we didn't need to wait. Throughout this time my trainer showed me the macros on the Qualcomm we needed to send every step of the way. There are something like 60-70 macros so it's going to take time to remember the ones to use when.

By this point it was starting to get dark and I've never driven a loaded trailer so my trainer finished the day off driving. We spent the night in a TA and I witnessed the horror of how expensive truck stop food is. After maybe 2-3 hours we went to bed. I've never slept in a truck before and we had a reefer so I knew I'd have some trouble sleeping but last night was ridiculous. It's not the reefer that's particularly loud since it only goes on for maybe 5-10 miles, it's the APU that's deafening. I made a mistake of not bringing ear plugs with me and in ear music buds didn't help much. I'm not sure how much sleep I actually got. It was the worst night of sleep I've had in forever though.

Anyway that's it for now.

Terminal:

A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.

Qualcomm:

Omnitracs (a.k.a. Qualcomm) is a satellite-based messaging system with built-in GPS capabilities built by Qualcomm. It has a small computer screen and keyboard and is tied into the truck’s computer. It allows trucking companies to track where the driver is at, monitor the truck, and send and receive messages with the driver – similar to email.

Reefer:

A refrigerated trailer.

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

I just began my TNT training as well. I hear you about sleeping on the truck. I haven't quite adjusted to it yet. But everyone says it gets better.

I just began my TNT training as well. I hear you about sleeping on the truck. I haven't quite adjusted to it yet. But everyone says it gets better.

Earplugs guys...

Also if your trainer has one of those plug-in DC fans, turn it on to create some white noise. It helps. If the do not, buy one at Walmart, about $10. Worth it, plus when solo it helps with air circulation in the bunk. I bought one four years ago, still works!