In hind sight for those that have finished their training stint with a company trainer, especially ones that you considered to be a bad trainer. What were the warning signs that you saw?

For example:
Big chunks of fiberglass missing on the truck
Trim on the inside or out held on by duct tape
Used condoms in the trash bag
Trainer never calls me when he says they will, I have to call them.

 

He doesn't run you as a team, but you have to share the bottom bunk because his love doll takes up the top.

You discover a wig and ladies clothes in his size. When asked about it his only reply is a smile and 'times can be tough out on the road'.

XM Radio? Check. Constantly on 'Polka Party' station? Also a check.

Drives without pants.

You make a game of counting the empty Nyquel bottles scattered around the cab.

See him use a baby wipe, then stuffs it back in the box. Says he always 'uses 'em twice'.

Thinks 'showers are for pussies'.

Does #1 and #2 by the catwalk.

 

1) Smokes.

2) Has a ponytail and is male. Long hair is ok.

It's okay for females to have ponytails.

3) Asks you to or suggests cutting corners.

 

Thats about all I know.....never went with another trainer after that, and I only stayed with him for 5 days. Got out of his truck, and refused to get back in. This was with Schneider. But that's another short story.

 

The number 1 sign of a bad trainer is you never see him awake :lol:

 

You might have a bad trainer if:

• You get a speeding ticket going down a hill on your VERY FIRST day down a real hill with a real load on, less than 10 miles away from the yard, and he sits there chewing gum and saying "Wow, I can't believe the cop wrote that" instead of, I don't know, helping avoid the whole situation in the first place or something
• He spends the entire trip telling you about how great Willis Shaw Express is, and how he's going over to Willis Shaw because the pay here sucks, and the benefits here suck, and the boss here sucks, and everything about here sucks
• He tells you how much YOU suck, every five minutes. "Wow, I can't believe they let you out of school. When we was in JB Hunt school, they made us do [blah blah blah]."
• He takes you 30 miles out of route to drive you through a really nasty slum in Philly where people try to climb up on the truck, and he sits there laughing at how stupid you are for now knowing enough about Philly to avoid this area, even though you had previously never been out of your home state in your entire life, and grew up in a small town
• You go into a place in a really slummy part of Wilmington, DE where you have to pull across two sets of railroad tracks to back in. You're a little freaked out about avoiding hitting this pole while you're dicking around on the tracks, so you want to get off the tracks ASAP, and he's standing there yakking with the consignee, not looking at you, making c'mon back, c'mon back motions, and then he motions STOP :!: :!: :!: after you just backed through the side of the building in your hurry to get off the tracks
• He tells you "you won't get anything done if you baby this shit" and shows you how to cut corners and sling the freight around rough, which gets you yelled at by the next customer when he sees you doing exactly what your trainer just told you to do (the ONLY time in my entire career a customer ever called in to complain about me, the ONLY one)
• He spends the entire trip home telling you how you can't judge stoplights at night, and you need better glasses, and you suck, and you can't shift gears, and you can't back, and you have no future in trucking, and you're such a piece of crap, and he can't believe you actually graduated, WTF were they thinking, man in JB Hunt school I used to [blah blah blah blah blah]

That guy sucked. I spent the entire trip back trying to figure out what else I might do with a CDL and no experience, after I got fired for backing through that building.

In the end, he got an ass chewing for letting me do that, and I got an ass chewing for being rude to that customer. I never got another ass chewing.

Man that takes me back. I hate that son of a bitch. He lives around here. He quit Willis Shaw, and now he hauls concrete block. I have nothing nice to say to him, so I steer clear of him, so we don't come to words over how he almost wrecked my entire career.

I figured it was all over because I did suck at first. He wasn't telling me anything I didn't know. He just didn't need to constantly rub it in. I turned out OK. I ran like hell with my supertrucker friend, and he made a truck driver out of me for all that.

[Writing another episode like this makes me ponder again on whether I should try to write my trucking memoirs. People keep telling me I'm not old enough to write my memoirs yet, but when I think back on the past 10 years, it feels like that movie "Big Fish."]

 

I can give signs of a good trainer since that is all I have to go on.

1. he calls you before he picks you up and tells you what to expect and asks if you have any ?'s
2. he lays down ground rules for the truck that are for both of you.
3. he doesnt yell and stays calm in every situation.
4. he takes the time to study what you are doing wrong and try to give you pointers on how to correct it.


my trainer was very good at training. he actually had a plan and would do set up situations to teach with. he did just throw it all on you but progressively built on each thing as I learned. at one point I was having trouble down shifting so he planed a route that would take me through all these little towns with a million stop lights. the whole he stayed calm and talked me through the shifts.

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
What using anal lube to grease the 5th wheel????????

 

Picks his/her nose and eats it.... :shock: :shock: :x :x

takes a shower once a month, but reverses underwear every five days.... :shock: :shock: :x :x

thinks he/she is always right....even when they're dead wrong.... :shock: :shock: :? :?

can't string more than three words together properly to form a coherent sentence....and usually two of the words are foul.... :shock: :shock: :? :? :x

brags about being a "trainer" for CRE, and a few others... :shock: :shock: :? :P :x

teeth are green....if he/she has any.... :shock: :shock: :x :x ops: :P

 

Welll my experience with a trainer is the factual side of things.

1. Makes illegal u-turns on highways and calls them "turn arounds".

2. Wants you to falisfy your logbook to match his illegal logbook

3. Hates white people or vice versa, in this case he hated white people

4.Vanishes for hours at a time when you get to a truck stop

5. Has two cell phones , one for his wife...the other for his girlfriend
but can only use those cell phones when he is driving and typing something on the qualcomm...oh and eating a cheeseburger at the same time.

6. Has phone sex with his girlfriend

7. Has to warn you that he has an extensive collection of porn videos in the truck.

8.Throws his garbage out the window.

All the above is true and btw , he is no longer a trainer.