1st Week Done!

Hey! Things are going well.

Today was the last day of the 2nd week. All week was backing on the range, practicing pretrip inspections and most of us are doing really well and applying ourselves. Couple of the guys are a little lazy, sitting on the bench laughing and smoking, not participating as much as they should be but so it goes.

Backing has been great, there is a new Trainer at the academy, very cool guy, decent guy, commends us on things we do correctly and provides constructive criticism in a great tone and manner when it's needed. He's vocalized how he feels as he watches all of us that are participating and helping each other. He seems genuinely happy when we accomplish the task at hand, work together and succeed and he's just a genuine dude. Gonna be a great trainer.

1 more week to go! The itinerary is continue pretrip, backing exercises, and road training before our testing week, excited it's getting closer and I'm confident in my backing, confident in my pretrip, and starting to feel confident on the road portion.

Overall it's been a great experience, enjoying most everything thus far and the managers have been awesome.

The recruiter I had. His name was Scott. He's called every week and sent messages through driver Pulse, he keeps asking if I have any questions, anything I need done. Making sure training is going well, and he makes sure I know how to get ahold of him if I have any questions I need answered. Surprising that a recruiter is involved as much as he is, as no other student can even get ahold of their recruiters. Happy with him. He's also I great dude.

1 thing I kind of complain about, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to complain but it's been hard to adjust to:

The on road portion, the trainer continues to demand the signals for turns, he says things like: "you are going to be making a right turn at the stop sign, put on your turn signal". Thing is, he makes us do it, before we've passed or cleared all potential right turns we can make. Meaning I have yet to get to, and clear an intersection, before I would then travel almost another block to make the turn. Several times cars, and other trucks have what I assumed seen the signal, turned either in front the same direction, or to their left thus impacting my travel pretty badly at times, and then he gets mad they do that. Often times we must signal more than 300-500 yards in advance. When I try to bring it up, he says "hold that thought" then proceeds to go on about, slow down, look for this in the turn etc. Then says sorry we can't talk and answer questions we only have a limited time on the road and he needs to teach not engage in conversation. He also was filling out paperwork, and got mad I didn't check my mirror on a right hand turn, in the yard lot, when I checked the mirror twice, left an excessive amount of room during the turn, the other student said I checked my mirror too, he then said "well you need to be watching it through the entirety of the turn. I just said ok, im sorry and submitted but it was very frustrating as we had another student ahead of us mess up a right hand turn and hit a pole so I've tried to be very aware and check that mirror as much as I can. But I just say I'm sorry and let it be. 1 more week til testing and hopefully the mentor stage will be good.

It's been fun to see everyone progress and gain confidence, a couple guys i really enjoy training with, made some friends I think I'll be in touch with after we get out on our own. Swift has been awesome, office guys have been great and friendly. Looking forward to the rest of the journey!

Ask the question, and any others like it, when you have time not performing any specific task, like walking to and from somewhere. Wait until you and he are at a point where there is not a reason to push away the question. There are no dumb questions, except the ones not asked. Be courteously assertive in asking until you get a clear and direct answer.

Top Gun was brought up and explained to us. There are more guys in this class, the Memphis class, Phoenix and Texas class then the amount they let do it and they said instructors make the call on who gets to do it so we'll see if they let me participate in it. Trying to do my best to stand out in a positive way so I'll update as soon as I find out!