How To Get Over Bad Experiences?

Hi all I've been reading forums on here of a while but i am new to posting on here. I have been a driver in the past with two other company's both of which i have had a bad experience with. I love being a trucker but the experiences have made me leave then industry twice. I am about to get back into it in about 2 weeks with Melton trucking lines. this will be my first flatbed driving job so any advise on that will be helpful but the question i have is how do i get over the bad experiences with my last companies so i wont let it effect my experience with Melton. any advise is welcome.

the question i have is how do i get over the bad experiences with my last companies so i wont let it effect my experience with Melton. any advise is welcome.

Brandon, welcome to our forum!

I like your question. It shows you really want to do this and you want to make sure you don't repeat past mistakes. I have been helping new drivers for a good many years now, and I am just going to be real honest with you. I have no idea what your problems were because you didn't share anything with us, but very seldom have I come across a problem like what you allude to as actually being the fault of the company. That tells me you are bound to run into the same issues.

If you seriously want to be successful at this, you probably need to face these problems and figure out why they were happening. If you want to tell us some more information I'll bet we can really be helpful to you.

Okay so with my first company I was over the road for a while about 4 months and I requested some home time for a weekend. It got denied and when I called my ds about it he said that we need you to keep running for now we are short on driver's. I under stood and I kept going for another month. I requested again and this time my ds called me and said I will let you know when I can get you back home. So I waited a couple more weeks then I called him and said I really need to get out of the truck and see my family so please let me come home and he said no. So I left. The next company when they sent me out with a trainer who was a completely rude person I put up with it until he called me a retard. I requested a new trainer and they said no. So the second one is more my fault.

Brandon, you are really a brand new driver. You didn't stay very long at either company you worked for. That tells me that you didn't really get to the point where you understood how things worked. I can't understand how you got denied home time. I believe you, but I also know if you had requested it properly there would be no reason your driver manager could deny it after you'd been on the road for that long. Always communicate with your Qualcomm. Don't rely on phone calls. They leave no paper trail.

Those are just some rookie problems that you had, and you were already fed up because you had been on the road too long without a break. You can easily remedy that type situation from happening again. Trucking is really tricky to break into as a rookie. You are still wearing that rookie badge. I hope you will hang around with us and learn how to get things done properly.

There are some great drivers here who will gladly answer any questions you come up with. So, don't be shy.

Congratulations on your new flat bed gig. I hope you are up for some work. It is going to be really hot in some parts of the country as you start your career. You will be doing a lot of tarping at Melton. I know because I am a flat bed driver. I wish you the best!

Don't even worry about what happened in the past. You are starting over again, and what happened then has no bearing on what is about to take place. Melton is a great flat bed operation. You are in good hands.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. When I recently started looking for a driving job again after a 2 year absence, I had to ask for a longer time out on the road. My family responsibilities are very minimum so I don't need regular home time. The companies I talked with offered home time every week or two weeks. I had to ask the recruiter if I was allowed to stay out indefinitely and every recruiter told me I could if I wanted to, but most drivers want to get home on a regular basis. In the interest of attracting and retaining drivers, I think regular home time has become the standard policy.

I really don't know what to tell you, I divorced my bad experiences.

I hope you got thicker skin. There are rude people everywhere. Some people will call you names. Your emotions are in your control only.

Thanks for the replies all. Your right I can only leave what happened in the past and move on. Get thicker skin and deal with it. I was told by the recruiter today that I would be out with a trainer for 3 weeks to refresh myself with driving and learn how to secure a load. So any advice for the flatbeders for someone about to get in to it. My last job I had to secure furniture to make deliveries and I injoyed doing it. I know this is way different but I believe that I will injoy it too.

Brandon, we have some great courses on load securement in our High Road CDL Training Program. Check them out.

We also have this awesome conversation that is well over 100 pages long about Flatbed Variety. Take the time to go through it. You will learn a lot, and you are bound to enjoy all the many pictures of different types of flatbed loads.