Failed Rookie?

Hello, I need some advice (and maybe some tough love). This is a bit long, I tried to break it up the best I could.

I've had a lot of issues at my current company. I'm a rookie so I've been doing my best to grin, bare it and ride it out so I can get at least a year under my belt.. It's really been coming to a head recently to the point I've been concerned for a lot of reasons, relating to safety as well as legality. So I've been really debating leaving which isn't ideal but probably needed. Anyway..

The advice portion; Part of my concern is the lack of rest time I am getting. I know the dangers of this which is why I have fought so hard on this. Even more I have noticed myself making mistakes I normally don't. Unfortunately 2 of those mistakes were me hitting something. (Minor damage in both incidents, both in our yard). These are still 100% on me, and unfortunately probably is going to cost my job.

I've mainly been looking at training companies anyway. But I guess the advice I'm seeking is what companies (if any) not only are training/second chance but that I'm not going to be put back into a constant fight about running when I am not fit for duty. My training was with my current company.

I know it's our responsibility to know if we are not fit for duty, but I also don't feel like it should be such a fight with a company if this is disclosed. Or if there is a valid safety concern with equipment etc.

I love trucking so much already, but not enough to feel I am risking putting myself or others in danger. If I'm just done/doomed then so be it. I've filled out the training applications with fingers crossed and my head bowed.. but are these things something to expect most everywhere?

So you have had "issues" with your current company - as a rookie. In reality, the company has settled procedures and ways to operate that differ from your rookie ideas. Get with the program and do more than grin and bare it. Continue your learning and understand how your trucking career will work. Please let on as to which company has hired you. There may be some active and experienced members here who can fill you in on that companies "culture" and ways.

"Safety and legality"? Trucking regulations are designed for safety of the general public, the driver and the rig. So as a newbie, what are the issues? Please be specific, and we can pass on the tough love without making you feel more embarrassed than you are.

You mention "two mistakes" in "minor" hits in the yard (are there others that aren't "recorded"?). Well, any "minor hit" is an indication that you aren't careful in driving in close quarters. Too many even minor bumps can get you your walking papers. If your company offers Close Quarter training, ask to take it.

Here's a secret about "training" or "starter" companies: like the Easter Bunny, it's true: they do not exist. Every truck driving company out there is out to make money, not create drivers for other companies. If you still have your job, stick with them for more than a year. The actual differences from Trucking Company A and Company B are small and are rarely worth losing your calendar seniority over.

Finally, what is your "constant fight about running when I am not fit for duty"? By regulation you have ten hours off between shifts, and you can't drive or be on duty more than 70 hours in eight days. What do you do on your time off? I hope you are mainly catching up on sleep.

Give us more detail, RoadKat and we can give you more detailed advice.

I’ve read the post twice and still don’t know what to say, since everything is pretty vague.

What I will say is all rookies struggle. Many come into this industry without a clue as to what they just got into. Carriers advertising many times makes it look like a paid tourist position.

Also most large carriers not only have high turnover rates for drivers, but dispatchers as well.

To OP, lets break down things by line item and we’ll do our best to help you out.

This is my guess... the OP is not sleeping due to long waits at customers. Being woken up several times to move to dock, pay lumpers, get bills.. while creeping around the yard to not trip the clock. Therefore, to dispatch, it appears as he got a 10hr break when it was spent working in "off duty" status. So he gets dispatched and is exhausted.

Am I close?

It takes months for newbies to get used to the flipped schedules. It takes a year to be able to trip plan and become great at time management. If this is your problem, how can we help?

Prime never pushed me to drive when tired. They would have repowered the load first. Smaller companies don't always have that option, and therefore put their freight contracts at risk if drivers delay.

Im guessing along the lines of what Kearsey said as well. Unless the company is pushing you to somehow run illegally, which is very doubtful, its almost impossible to run without sleeping enough, its the very purpose of our hours of service regulations. But what does often happen is that most people are totally unprepared for the lifestyle of trucking.

Its often said that trucking runs 24/7. Like many sayings in the industry, its both true and not true. The truckers are expected to deliver and pick up virtually any time, any day, anywhere. But the great majority of shippers, especially smaller ones dont operate that way, they are only open certain hours, and you can only pick up at certain times, coupled with totally erratic waiting times. Add in times and pauses due to weather and mechanical issues, it makes for a maddening soup of inefficiency and disfunctionality that we have to wade through on the daily.

The tools for dealing with this mess are learning how to bend your circadium rythm and sleep schedule, become efficient and effective with your truck and clocks, and becoming a master of trip planning. These all take time to develop. A company is not going to bend to your sleep schedule, its your job to thread the needle through and learn how to improvise, adapt and overcome. This process takes time, but given the nature of our job, you dont have much of that luxury.

In regards to hitting things in your yard. Youre a rookie. Its probably in all reality that you just dont have very good spatial reasoning skills and inherent abilities to judge distances. Not everyone does. In fact, most people lack the basic hand eye coordination to drive vehicles this large, let alone back them up. Over time, they build skills based on the abilities they do have. Keep in mind, abilities are innate, while skills are learned behaviors. Again, it takes time to develop skills, even more so if your abilities are lacking. One must use tools to combat the deficiency in ability.

Self honesty in assessing your abilities and skills goes a long way. It doesnt mean that you are not capable of driving successfully, just that you have to work a bit harder and use tools to help yourself in areas that are tough for you. If it sounds like im ripping on you, Im not. Ive earned every mile ive driven and square inch of a race track ive ran on. I was the slowest racer in my class when I started and I was the worst driver in my class when it came to backing, I over analyzed every little movement and really tripped myself up all the time. Where everyone else could simply back it in to a hole, I would spend a month of Sundays trying to calculate the exact angles and eventually frustrate myself to the point screaming. But I used every tool I could, including our beloved GOAL to avoid hitting anything...ever. Failure is not an option. I practiced and practiced until it was fluid and repeated results. Make no mistake, this career is about high performance driving.

If the company is forcing hik to run 8/2 splits, i can see this being a problem too..

We need to remember, most normal workers get 12 to 15 hours between work times. We get 10. This causes new people to be extremely tired.

And being someone who knocked an axle off a trailer at 30 days solo, i sympathize. At least this guy isn't blaming someone for cutting him.off or such.

One of.my issues with these stupid cameras is that i got myself into a bunch of situatiions Prime never needed to know about... had thdy known i parked on gravel.and started sinking... would i jave been fired? I got out... but would the camera have tripped? My Walmart friend forgot to lock his tandems while in a tornado & hail. Ran around and did his pretrip then jumped in and roll a but through the yard. Tandems slammed... and guess what? Camera triggered and he was brought into safety. They threatened him with a "step" aka demerit. 3 in a year and you get fired.

People male mistakes and adjusting sleep can be a real problem and cause even more.

My suggestion... put it in writing. When you didnt sleep, tell dispatch in writing ASAP. "Just a heads up, couldnt sleep at customer. Going to need to stop for a 3 hour nap" or something like that. They wont argue with you in writing cause it documents it. If an accident occures you know those messages will be brought to court.

To add my two cents, at Schneider, our trips are regularly setup for us to have, at minimum, 10 hours off. I regularly can take 12, 14, even up to 16 hours off in between shifts and still make my appointments on time or well ahead of schedule. It’s all about doing a good trip plan and understanding how to run your trips. I am averaging about 2,300 miles a week solo as well.

We have a very strict “Captain of your ship” / Stop work authority culture. And they are very good to us (to me personally anyways) about working with me regarding ANY issues I have with no negative reaction or retaliation against it. If I messaged my leader and said I was feeling tired and fatigued and needed my current assignment pulled so I could catch up on sleep, they wouldn’t even question it. The response would be “no problem, let us know when you feel safe to roll again and we’ll give you a new load.” Additionally, if I said I needed an appointment time pushed because I needed a little extra sleep (or for any other reason beyond my control, especially safety related) they’d simply ask my new ETA and then notify the customer. And that would be the end of it. Safety above all else. They’d much rather deal with a load getting there a day late than calling a wrecker to drag you out of a ditch.

I have found that open and constant communication is absolutely KEY and paramount on virtually everything I do. It’s not taken as a bother and goes a long way with my leader and our dispatchers. Don’t be that person who just shuts down and is late because you didn’t bother to tell anyone. Sometimes, there’s a negative cloud surrounding the mega carriers but I feel completely heard and feel like my leaders always have my back, especially when it comes to any kind of safety concerns whether it be equipment related or, as it pertains to this post, concerns over fatigue from lack of sleep. Remember, don’t believe everything you read online about these companies because often times, they’re just personal grievances that were that person’s fault and don’t represent the actual company culture as a whole.

I echo all of the comments above as well. Most companies are roughly the same. Don’t give up your current seniority to start over somewhere else because it might not be any different. Remember, same job, same industry, different name on the truck. If you’re hitting stuff in the yard as a rookie, you need to be looking at what you can do better. I always say, everyday out here is a learning day. I’m constantly learning and improving at my skills. Anyone who says they’re a perfect truck driver would be lying. But you can be good. And a vast majority of members on here are probably great! Learn from mistakes, own them, learn the truck and how it handles, how the trailer tracks when backing (learn the differences between the tandem position and how that changes how the trailer tracks). You definitely take more accountability than a lot of posts on here from new drivers who think everything that is their fault is someone else’s. Keep on trucking!

First off, wow thank you to everyone who's taken the time to reply!

It is a larger LTL company, I don't want to be more specific as I've been told they take their "social media" policy seriously and not trying to find out the hard way. Especially since my concerns are things that are in regards to their equipment etc being questionable/definitely illegal. Now I know rookies are labeled as being more 'gung ho', a lot of which I feel is just figuring out our own process etc.

Trucking regulations are designed for safety of the general public, the driver and the rig.

100% and this is where I personally feel obligated to put my foot down.. If there is something that I know is possible of becoming a risk I can't in good conscience run that equipment. I know some drivers run it if it rolls. It feels like there is a big culture of "we don't usually get pulled into scales".

We also run hazmat , and it's a mess. Things incorrectly placarded, questionable paperwork etc.

I absolutely agree on the close quarters, it is not a training we offer but I've been doing as much of my own education and then applying it. Plus a lot of GOAL of course.

As for being fit for duty, I'm legally off for my ten. But we also are "on call" essentially so we get called with our time to come in; while on our 10. My sleep definitely gets broken because of this.. as I know others does. Plus the time traveling back and forth every day. Most days we get exactly or not much more than our 10 off, which starts dwindling quickly when that includes even a short commute. I usually spend my 10 getting as much sleep as I can, trying to eat well get a shower etc. I've always had a pretty flexible circadian rhythm, and I can usually get myself to sleep where I need to. We run day cabs/home nightly, so sleeping while we are out isn't exactly an option. But I also think some of it is creeping into the territory Kearsey mentioned, in yard move but maybe I need to look deeper at it.

And trip planning and time management is something I feel I've gotten better at, until every once in awhile I get a reminder. It's something I'm actively trying to work on/open to advice on, as I feel like it's as much of a habit and mindset as it is a practice. It's something I don't really feel time is allotted for, so I find myself trying to utilize either my own time or multi tasking it. Some of our routes are very tight time wise, to the point too much 'dilly dallying' will result in you getting stuck(running out of clock).

And Davy, honestly I really appreciate this response, especially hearing your own experience. I'm definitely an 'over analyzer' myself, I just try to channel it to good things (trip planning!) vs tearing into myself.

Self honesty in assessing your abilities and skills goes a long way. It doesnt mean that you are not capable of driving successfully, just that you have to work a bit harder and use tools to help yourself in areas that are tough for you.

I feel like this summed up what I needed to hear/ have confirmed.

My suggestion... put it in writing.

I've started utilizing this a lot more (should have been already). Especially in situations I've pulled over to rest, or for safety reasons. I've gotten a 'talking to' for pulling over due to weather. They have a habit of sending drivers out in weather most companies shut down in/NOAA is advising no travel. They threaten drivers with points and write ups for not running.

We have a very strict “Captain of your ship” / Stop work authority culture.

Safety above all else.

This is what I would really rather have..

I really am trying to have accountability, do my best to listen/learn and communicate as needed. I know rookie blues/struggles are a thing so I'm trying to take an honest look and separate those from other things as needed. Again thank you so much to all who have replied and anyone who's read all of this also =)