Friend Not Liking Paid Training/Question

Paying for school wouldn't change anything about this scenario. Going into orientation with your CDL doesn't guarantee you a job.

If you go in with no experience you still have to go through a training period and you still have to pass a company test that is usually a little more stringent than the DMV.

At FedEx freight, I was allowed one DMV test. If I failed it, I had to pay for a second one out of pocket and hope that I could find a second one that had a close date because if not, I was done. I didn't know that going in, but they made it very clear before I tested. I even had to sign documents saying I understood this.

You win some, you lose some, I disagree with the rule of that company, its good to provide free training but that punishment is not fair, some hard rules are better to maintain the employers behavior's do you?

Companies look for certain things when people are training like progression. If you're not a certain skill level within a certain amount of time, they move on. The trainer let's corporate know how the students are doing. They're not going to lie and risk their livelihood or the safety of the public for anybody.

We don't know how long his friend was in the training process, so you can't call it unfair. They have an expectation of how long it's going to take to get you up to speed before you get there. If you're not showing that you can keep up, it's time to move on.

My friend is exceeding and I'm not just saying that because why lie? this happened at the end of the first week (the turn.) That's just not fair but I know what's up. There's some nosy students in that class that stand around corners and listen. Now that some people have left for home reasons or whatever, they are cherry picking well before training is complete. I won't go this route, I'll go to a paid school.

One error in the hours they've already put in

this happened at the end of the first week (the turn.)

All the hours is a week?

My friend is exceeding and I'm not just saying that because why lie

How do you know? Are you there? You don't even have a CDL , yet you know whether someone is exceeding or not?

I call BS on this whole story. Nobody is getting sent home after 1 week for not taking a turn wide enough.

She's ending week two right now pre-testing and finding out soon if she got the axe or not.

I’m gonna agree that it sounds a little suspect but I’m not there so I don’t know the facts of her situation. In regards to your question about learning a manual transmission, I absolutely think you should. Granted, the majority of the larger carriers are going to auto shift but all those carriers combined only make up roughly 10% of the industry. I happen to work in a part of the industry where if you aren’t competent with a manual, you’ll never make it. My honest opinion is that being stuck with the auto endorsement, limits certain possibilities a might find themselves interested in.

I know but the school charges 1500.00 more which is fine but it's ALL simulator. All tractors there are auto.

Ok I have followed along and kept quiet. First of all I taught simulators to LE and was a consultant to one of the major simulator companies for several years. Yes they have big rig sim’s also. No company is using sim’s for testing. Isn’t possible. Sim’s are used to teach and evaluate thought process. That is it.

The issue of one mess up in the first week, probably not either. If they charge more for testing in a manual and only have auto’s, then they are renting manual trucks to test in.

There is more to the story. I don’t mean to be harsh, but something is missing here.

PJ,

There's two separate situations running here. My friend is in paid training (on all manuals) the other story is I'm considering going to a school and not paid training. The school only has a manual simulator only and charge 1,500 extra to train on it. I'm trying to decide what to do. Most everyone here says go manual, but I've also heard that the industry is headed to all manual anyways. So what to do???

Eric, you’ve been given advice on what to do re: training on a manual, by experienced drivers. The problem is, it’s not the advice you want to hear. Here’s some more advice: you should re-think this school you’re considering. Not because it’s private, but because the training on manuals is all simulator. That’s a terribly inadequate way to learn to drive a manual truck. Which you should do, for reasons already mentioned.

I'm realizing that. What does it say about a school that uses a simulator??? they are long established but you have to drive a manual on the road.

Eric, you’ve been given advice on what to do re: training on a manual, by experienced drivers. The problem is, it’s not the advice you want to hear. Here’s some more advice: you should re-think this school you’re considering. Not because it’s private, but because the training on manuals is all simulator. That’s a terribly inadequate way to learn to drive a manual truck. Which you should do, for reasons already mentioned.