My Second Week In Training With Conway

Thursday and Friday of the first week consisted of dock work from 6:00am to 10:00am, lunch at 10:30, and driving practice either on the road or on the skills course, from 11:00-4:00.

Monday was to be the same. I started the day as usual, working alongside an experienced dock worker/driver/trainer at 6:00am. My kids know not to call me when I'm either driving or operating machinery unless it's an emergency. At 8:30 I felt my phone buzz on my hip but I didn't answer it, as I was on a forklift. A few minutes later I was sweeping out a trailer and my phone buzzed again. This time I answered it because it was one of my sons. My oldest, who's had a long-term illness for the past 10 years was already on an ambulance. After extensive care and three operations, the issue was supposed to be resolved by now and he was at the tail-end of a 3-year process of getting off all of his medications. Long story, but I had to leave and meet him at the hospital. My daughter, the youngest, who had handled the whole episode, including administering first-aid and calling 911, was riding in the back of the ambulance with him. Long story but Conway was really good to me that day. I ran to my supervisor and told her I had to leave. They all said don't worry about it, call us later, just go.

Tuesday, was planned and worked the same way: dock work in the morning, some classroom training, and driving practice in the afternoon. It was cool because we got a lot of training and practice on the logbook. Our trainer made it extremely clear to us that we had to keep up with our logbooks on a daily basis because as we were told, dispatch will push the limits on our hours and we have to know how many hours we have available, based on the 70-hour limit. If they want to send us on a run that may take 14 hours but we only have 10 hours available, it's our responsibility to let them know that on any given day, before we leave the terminal , so they can find someone else to drive because if we go over on our hours because we weren't up to date on our logbooks, we're still the ones responsible for that mistake. It's also a way to avoid being pushed too long and taken advantage of.

Wednesday, I road all day with a different trainer and learned how he did his city run. It took about 45 minutes to do our pre-trip (average time for most drivers) and get prepared for all our deliveries and we were off with a double of 2 28-foot pups. It was generally a good day but I noticed that this driver, although he was very good at driving, was very slow once we got to each delivery. It seemed like we were spending a lot of time at each stop when we could have been moving a bit faster. We drove both trailers to his area, dropped one of them plus the gear, in the yard of one of Con-way's client's and drove around delivering from that trailer. Once it was empty, we drove back to the other trailer, switched them and delivered again. We had no pick-ups that day, so we went back to the other trailer, hitched them both and I got to drive the set back to the terminal.

Thursday was more classroom training and then driving practice. We were then told that we were going to start driving with other trainers the following week, week 3. I was to go on city runs with one trainer all week and my classmate was to go on night line-hauls. Week 4 we'd switch. And oh, by the way, you have your hazmat and doubles-triples right? No, I didn't. My trainer freaked. I was supposed to have them done, he said. According to my recruiter/supervisor, I only needed to have the hazmat finger-printing and background check started. As long as I had the process started, I was ok. That is what she told me the week before my first day. My trainer was upset with this misunderstanding, went and talked to my supervisor and then sent me off to the DMV to take my tests. On my way out, I asked my supervisor when I would be paid the $3,000 bonus I was offered when I was recruited by Con-way. She told me that Con-way was retracting that offer and the bonus was no longer happening.

Holy-crud! The new employee honeymoon just ended, 1.5 weeks into the program. I passed my hazmat and doubles-triples (thanks to the High Road Training Materials).

Friday, half-way through the day, I was told I was to make up for lost time due to my son's illness and time lost for having had to leave to take my tests, so without prior notice, I ended up having to work on the dock until 10:00pm. I had to call my kids and arrange for them to pick up pizzas for dinner (not cheap) and let them know I wouldn't be home till late. My first paycheck wasn't coming until the following Tuesday.

Needless to say, it was a rough week. I also received a strike against me for time missed at work, to go take those endorsements, even though my supervisor had said all I needed was to have the investigation started. (yeah, she also said I was going to get a $3,000 signing bonus, too)

-mountain girl

First off, sorry to hear about your son. I hope everything is OK. Also sorry to hear about the inconsistency w/ the company in regarding to the 'retracting' of the bonus offer and then a strike on your performance, that's lame.

Are you going to be on a consistent night shift schedule when you're done training MG? I'll be on night shift linehaul from here on out w/ my company. Were you hired as a L/H driver, or something like a combo L/H / city driver?

Congrats on making it thus far. Your hard work will pay off my friend.

Thanks for the support. My son's okay. He's a bit shaken by the most recent episode and trying to get his confidence back, as he hadn't had an emergent episode in a year and a half. It's not entirely surprising that this major paradigm shift in my life-style has caused him a set-back.

In my first year, as I've been told, I will work either city deliveries in the day-time or line-haul (either at night or during the day). For my first year, I will be on the "extraboard" which means I'll be on-call to work whenever they want me to or whenever they need me to fill the gaps. Each week will probably be one or the other because after each shift there will have to be 10-hour period of no contact where they have to leave me alone and not contact me, before they can call me back in. Once they do call me every day, I will have 2 hours to come in, thereby providing the 12-hour break from the last shift.

Most likely, I will be working night-time line-haul, which would be fine with me because it's just drop and hook , whereas day-time city deliveries include a lot of unloading and loading of freight and nearly impossible delivery and pick-up times. Also, Con-way Freight pays hourly for city drivers because they're within a 150-mile radius of the terminal but the line-haulers get paid by the mile because they are leaving that radius.

Yep, pretty much what goes on w/ my company in regard to the pay structure and schedule of L/H vs P&D. Although I will be doing strictly L/H. Our combo drivers do L/H or city, but I don't believe they are on a swing shift. I couldn't imagine being on a swing shift. You have my respect.

Drop and hooks and L/H is the best! During my mandatory week of P&D training I found that I didn't like all the stopping and going. I like the driving and then just drops and hooks - no handling the freight, no dealing w/ shippers and receivers or waiting at docks.

Drop and hooks and L/H is the best! During my mandatory week of P&D training I found that I didn't like all the stopping and going. I like the driving and then just drops and hooks - no handling the freight, no dealing w/ shippers and receivers or waiting at docks.

-6 string rhythm

I totally agree. P&D is a pain, I think. I'll do it because I'll have to but I'm sure I'll like the drops and hooks because I came here to drive, not load and unload for everybody.

-mountain girl

MG glad to hear your son is recovering. Family is always the most important. I find it very odd they retracted your signon bonus like that . What ressons, not excuses did they give . I would be doing some more checking in a very proffessional and tactiful way about that as well as the point for the misunderstanding on your endorsements. If they hired you that way then they should honor it. Just my thoughts. I learned early on that sometimes there are misunderstandings and they can be easily cleared up once the right people get involved.

All the best wishes for your son!

Mountain Girl....wasn't anything about the bonuses or endorsement requirements in writing? And out of curiosity, why didn't you get the endorsements before you started training if you knew you had to have them for the job at some point?

To be honest, both of these problems should have been avoided. They're the kind of things that really stress out new drivers and we talk about them all the time here at TruckingTruth. We always tell people to get their permit and endorsements before they start their training and make sure you get everything in writing if it's something important. Fortunately it will all work out fine though.

You have a ton on your plate right now and you're kickin *ss so keep at it! We're pullin for ya!

Sorry to hear about your son MG, but if he's half as tough as you he should pull though.

That was a tough week for ya but you keep pushin forward. You got this.