Melton Truck Lines Orientation Feb 2017

Hello all.. I didnt have the time or energy to do a detailed day by day diary like i did with my cdl school but I will provide an update as tomorrow is the end of orientation. Here are some highlights of what I witnessed & learned over the last 8 days.

1. Melton cares more about quality than quantity. My orientation group started with 22. 14 of us are left. 3 went home for refusal to drug test or testing positive, 1 had something on his background that he thought wouldn't come up, 1 was sent home because he couldn't grasp how to do a correct log book even after some help, 1 habitually slept in class & instructors decided he wasn't going to work out, 1 decided that flatbedding wasn't for them after day 1 of load securement practice & another couldn't pass the 30 second balance test. 4 of those left have to redo Melton's driving test tomorrow (im good :) )so we may lose a couple more on the last day.

2. You have to really want to do flatbedding to work for Melton. They take load securement very seriously & melton standards are more rigorous than the d.o.t's.....this equals a lot of work....i don't blame them though especially after the gruesome videos we were subjected to showing different results from failed load securement & failure to follow safety procedures during this as well...We got to see stuff that was a lot more graphic than i was expecting.

3. Tarping sucks way more than I had imagined..but I still want to master it...i am just hopeful that it will become less & less of a mountain of a task the more i do it.

I will hopefully be assigned to a road trainer within the next day or 2 ,i have no idea where i will be a couple days from now...that is a feeling i will have to start getting used to but it's exciting!

My first few tarp loads took me 2-3 hours. I got faster each time and of course some loads are easier than others to tarp. After a while I got pretty fast. I would see if I could finish before the other drivers beside me for fun.

You'll find out that flatbed drivers will often help fold your tarps. I had a tanker driver help me fold my tarps once, I said "that's the first time a driver helped me who wasn't a flatbed driver." He told me he used to do flatbed.

Melton sounds like a great company, good luck out there!

I don't feel so bad knowing that.

That was about where I was at on my 1st couple of practices & i thought that wad just extraordinarily slow. I'll get more practice tomorrow. I'm already hooked up with my road trainer & we are picking up a tarp load 1st thing in the morning.

My first few tarp loads took me 2-3 hours. I got faster each time and of course some loads are easier than others to tarp. After a while I got pretty fast. I would see if I could finish before the other drivers beside me for fun.

You'll find out that flatbed drivers will often help fold your tarps. I had a tanker driver help me fold my tarps once, I said "that's the first time a driver helped me who wasn't a flatbed driver." He told me he used to do flatbed.

Melton sounds like a great company, good luck out there!