Conditional Job Offer.

Congratulations! [?] is proud to extend you a conditional offer of employment as a driver associate.

Finally got the confirmation email of my conditional job offer. In order to become fully employed by the company, I need to jump through several hoops. I've already managed some of them: hair follicle drug screen, DOT physical - using my recent DOT physical from CDL school a few months ago, and background checks for the states of Texas, Alaska, West Virginia, and Ohio. I am scheduled to attend orientation from 8/3 - 8/9 in Pennsylvania. I will get some local drive time, train in virtual simulators, review electronic logging, practice trip planning, and take a road test which will include coupling/uncoupling a trailer, pre-trip inspection, and a 15-20 minute drive through town to ensure I am a safe enough driver to be allowed to go back out on the road for 4-6 weeks with an actual trainer again - for real this time.

Anyway, I'm excited to be almost employed again. I'm also excited that my pay during orientation and over-the-road training will be double what it was with the previous company. I might actually be able to survive on that. Possibly pay all of my bills rather than prioritizing by due date and amount. I'll also be entitled to mileage to and from orientation. They're even going to feed me twice a day. The less I have to worry about, the better off I'll be. I will have a roommate during orientation. I don't mind that so much. It's only a week. I've dealt with worse for longer, afterall. Besides, I'll be too busy learning to be bothered too much with anything else. It's a few hours a day and then a night of sleeping. No big deal.

After orientation, I drive home and enjoy up to a week of home time before starting out on my next over-the-road adventure. This trainer will not act in the capacity of a teammate. He will not be sleeping while I'm driving and yelling unhelpful bullshit through a closed privacy curtain at me. He won't be driving while I'm trying to sleep or just keep myself from being hurled out of my bunk after a sudden hard brake. He will not be driving at all, actually. I will be driving the entire time and he will be awake and engaged with what I'm doing and where we are at all times. He will be actively assisting me with improving my driving and giving me actual real-time feedback. He's there simply to watch and instruct me. That's fine. I prefer that method. I'll actually get some practice docking and possibly performing 45 degree backing - which I had never seen or done until I arrived at orientation in Dallas for the last company and was expected to perform the manuever for my final test. It took several attempts. I was not happy and the instructors were not impressed, but what do you expect when I've never even seen the manuever much less attempted it? I can parallel park a semi like nobody's business, but that's because I've done it hundreds of times now. I barely managed the 45 degree backing insanity. I would like to practice that more than once before attempting it in a real world situation. I don't think it's very safe to turn someone loose after successfully performing a backing manuever once and only after numerous attempts.

Anticipate another travel map shortly. I have added the link on the menu bar. It's all the way at the bottom. Right now, it's fairly plain and only houses the previous travel map. But, that'll change soon enough. Also, I removed the "currently stuck in..." app. It was a decent idea, but I couldn't edit or update it while on the road, so... Forget it. Besides, after being stuck in Dallas for two weeks, no where else really compares or even bothers me. Maybe I'll set up a slide show or something to replace it.

I'm excited about the additional and proper training, but I'm even more excited about the job that'll be waiting for me afterward. I'll be driving for six days and home for two. I could have elected to work five days and be off for two, but then my days home would always be Tuesday and Wednesday. I remember what it was like to never have a weekend off for years. I'd rather have days off that rotate through the week and allow me to occasionally indulge in having a semi-normal social calendar. Also, I make more money with this schedule sine I'm working an additional ten days over the other option.

The distribution center is 1.5 hours from me but that's not a bad drive if you only make it twice a week - or once roundtrip. I'll load up at the distribution center and unload a little at each store until I'm finally empty. Then I'll head back and reload and take it out to another trail of stores. Once I've done it for a few months, I should know all the different rotations and store locations and routes. It'll get easier with time. I'll have benefits after 90 days and a raise after 6 months - barring any accidents, of course. This is a dedicated route, not a regional route - a mistake I made in a previous post. Dedicated routes are highly covetted. You make serious money and are home every week. I'm really, really lucky to get this. I know that and I fully appreciate it.

Again, Congratulations!

Truck it.

Here it is. This is literally everywhere my first adventure in trucking took me. You can zoom in and out. Scroll around by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the world where you want it to go. You can even switch between various map modes. Wicked cool, I know. Also, if you look very closely just to the west of Alberquerque you will see a black dot where there's absolutely nothing - until you zoom in about five or seven times. That's the casino we frequented on our trips back and forth between Los Angeles and Amarillo. We probably spent an entire 48 hours there altogether. Also, if you look just northeast of Dallas you'll notice a marker in the middle of nowhere and a line deadending there. That's how far away they let me go on my first solo trip before sucking me back into the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Cruel. Very cruel.

I'm going to work on getting a supplemental page going to house this map permenantly and also to give me somewhere to put the next one. Oh... foreshadowing. Anticipate that! The link will eventually be placed somewhere on that menu bar on the right somewhere.

Appropriately apathetic.

I've been fairly calm considering that I walked away from the only job I've had in the last nine months after being employed again for not even two. I should be completely freaking out right now, but I'm not.

It was a horrible job. That's a conservative assessment, by the way.

I finished filling out an application with another company - a company that has just recently decided to expand into the region I live in. They need truck drivers, experienced or not. They are currently looking for someone for a regional position which I have now set my sights on. Basically, I'll be driving a constant route (or cycling through a few constant routes) within a 250 mile radius of a distribution center. If I get the job, of course. They really need local drivers so they're attaching signing bonuses and offering tuition reimbursements for these regional jobs normally reserved for someone with at least three years of over-the-road driving experience. Lucky me, I don't have to wait. It's a rare coincidence in my favor and I'm thrilled. I could use the luck reversal.

I returned home Sunday after spending a few incredibly relaxing days in Arkansas with family. It did wonders for my mental health which could have been most accurately described as homicidal previous to arriving in Arkansas. I did not enjoy the two weeks I was trapped in purgatory - more commonly referred to as the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I have no plans of ever returning there, which means I inevitably will at some point. Again. I filled out the application on Monday morning and received a call today from the same recruiter I've been speaking to since before I even realized I was hopelessly stranded in Texas. I have a phone interview tomorrow. It's not a real interview, apparently. It's just to review the information I provided and allow them to collect additional information about my current situation and possibly fitting me into a orientation/training schedule.

The word "orientation" sends cold shivers down my back now. That's lovely. I will now probably always associate that word with my recent experience/experiment in Dallas. It will linger in my subconcious and strike without warning like a latent hypnotic suggestion to start burning everything around me. "Orientation?! Oh, hell no. We're not doing that. I will burn this motherfucker down!!! You won't take me alive!" Hopefully not, but I know how crazy I truly am and can imagine exactly that sort of impulse overwhelming me.

I also have a contingency plan. I filled out an application for a night audit position for a local hotel. It would be nice to get back into something more mathematically oriented (Apparently, even the very word 'orient' in any form provokes an involuntary shudder from me now. Awesome. People are going to think I have Parkinson's when I go to my next orientation.) and closer to home. It would, of course, be a shame to waste my CDL. Which is why this is the back-up plan and not the actual plan, but it's not a bad option. I really enjoyed my time working in the hospitality industry. I also enjoyed working alone at night and not really having to deal with tourists and their bullshit, while still working in the hospitality industry. I believe my recent experience in management and improved mastery of daily financial statements will be an asset to me in this position. But, they haven't called me yet. So, we'll see. It may prove to be a completely moot point by tomorrow afternoon anyway, but I'd rather have an unnecessary fall-back option than not.

I also have to visit my family since they figured out that I'm home now. That should be entertaining. I'll post that experience on the other page.

One more thing, they haven't called to find out where the hell I am yet or why I haven't returned to work. I'm thinking they probably never will. I'm glad we're mutually apathetic about my continued employment. It seems appropriate.

"There's gonna be a second civil war."

"In America, you mean?"
"Oh yes. Probably in the next 4-8 years."
"Why do you believe that?"
"Texas is going to succeed from the nation."
"Why would Texas do that?"
"Obama. If he gets re-elected, it will happen. Might happen anyway."
"Where did you say you were from again?"
"Arkansas. Don't worry, Yankee. You can come hide out with me and the old man. We like you, even if you are one of them."
"Well, thank you. That's a generous offer. Do you think the South might win this time?"
"Hell yes. We've got sockpiles of weapons the North is not aware of. Also, this time isn't gonna be as clean and nice as the last one. Not that I'm implying the last one was clean and nice, because it damn sure wasn't. But, we've got all these terrible weapons and technology this time around. It's going to be a crazy mess. Awful and bloody."
"Wow. That would definitely be a horrible tragedy."

We started off talking about how children these days are out of control because they lack discipline and how the parents won't discipline their children anymore because of the government intervening. We compared and contrasted how things were when we were growing up and how they are now. We explored how things might naturally progress in this manner and what the possible outcomes might be. Then, it moved to national examples of how parents are already killing their children and vice versa. Most of which was somehow associated to the Mexican border being open and the cartel drug traffic coming into this country. This naturally lead to how some states are requiring both English and Spanish be taught to children starting as early as kindergarten. This lead to a sweeping world view of how bad things are getting and how we're on the verge of another world war - are already involved in wars which will be swallowed into the all out impending global war - because of the ever-present nuclear threat from North Korea, our coninued occupation in the Middle East, and a worldwide general hate of all things American. But even in the midst of all that chaos and horror, the real danger is already here. It's us. It's the US.

I really enjoy talking to people like this. I love watching how their minds work and how they rationalize their outrageous beliefs - the more outrageous and fanatical, the better. I find it asolutely fascinating how a conversation about wanting to go home to see your children can digress into an apocalypse.

Perhaps you should call me Jobe.

I think I'm losing my mind.

Let's review how my situation has continued to evolve/devolve:

They gave me a key to a truck in Ohio, but then it took them another day to find me a ride up there to it. That ride-along with another driver fell through after waiting an entire day for the guy to show up. He had been rerouted and no one notified anyone about it.

Next they tried to put me on a bus. When they bought the ticket, they failed to specify which departure time so the bus filled up and I got bumped to the next day.

Then they magically found a truck here for me. I inspected it and found only a few problems with it: missing step on the catwalk, dirty mattress, and fuel on E. It took only a few hours to order the step and replace it. They have a stockpile of new mattresses so that was even easier to replace. The fuel situation would be addressed once I was dispatched.

I was fairly optimistic at this point.

The first time I spoke to my dispatcher, after I had filled out the work order for the truck, amplified this. He seemed delighted to have a new driver and ensured me that he would find a way to get me home once the truck was ready to go. Very exciting, indeed. I just had to call him back when it was ready.

When I called him back, he had no idea who I was. I had to explain for a few minutes who I was and remind him of our previous conversation. Once he remembered me, he said he would start looking for a load heading toward Ohio.

7 hours passed.

It was incredily hot and even with the critically low fuel level, I decided to start the truck and run the a/c at full power for a few minutes - just long enough to cool it down enough for me to sleep and not rotisserie myself. The truck, however, would not start.

Fortunately, I was still at the terminal with a 24/7 maintenance shop and not stranded somewhere less convenient. I filled out a new work order and called for a shuttle to the hotel. Thankfully, I am not expected to sleep in a truck that isn't running and the hotel is paid by the company.

A cynic might wonder about the timing of that mechanical mishap.

I returned today to find the truck still not quite ready, but not before receiving a call/voicemail explaining why I had not been dispatched. My electronic logging system had not been properly set up yet. Why they couldn't have rectified that during the seven hours I sat in the truck waiting is simply beyond my comprehension. But, so many things about this company are. Unfortunately, I'm not permitted to be in or around the truck since it is physically inside the shop now. So, since that department only had a half day today and won't be in again until Monday, it will have to wait until Monday.

Meanwhile, I called my dispatcher to update him on the situation. He couldn't be bothered to care. It is probably possible for him to still dispatch me before the electronic log system is operational - which would simply require me to use paper logs in the meantime - and I would gladly embrace that happening, but I'm sincerely skeptical he will be bothered much y letting me sit here and wait until I can use the electronic logs. On that note, I'm not sure it would bother him if I remained stranded in Dallas indefinitely.

I checked in with the shop and have some good news. The fuel gauge was not working, so I might have some fuel afterall. Which means I will be able to run the a/c if the truck is completely fixed when I check back with them in four hours. The bad news is that if my truck is fixed, I will be expected to sleep in it and will probably spend the next 48 hours in it waiting to set up my electronic log on Monday and then finally get dispatched somewhere.

I simply could not be more excited right now. I'm really hoping it's not fixed and I'll get another night in a hotel to enjoy. That's the best possible scenario for me at this point.

Mobile home.

I have three closets (two with shelves for storage) that all have mesh doors to keep my stuff from flying all over the damn place. I have another one without doors which I believe is where the fridge is meant to go. I have a new mattress for my single bunk that I haven't even opened and removed the plastic yet. And I also have a little bit of humor left from the previous owner. The sticker translates to "No lot lizards." which is a polite way of saying "No whores." It took me a minute to figure it out. I just sat here scratching my head and wondering "What the hell is that ugly thing and why would anyone put a sticker like that on the dash on their truck so they'd have to look right at it all day?!"

Now, I'm just waiting for a dispatch home. I'm seated on the truck, so no more hotel for me. That's only a good thing if I start driving soon.

You can never go home again.

Tomorrow will be Day 8 of my Orientation Purgatory. As if I need another reason to look for another job. It took two weeks to get to Dallas in the first place, even though I should have gone to Ohio for orientation. But, getting me back to Ohio proved too much of a challenge for dispatch, so I was brought here instead. I shouldn't be surprised that it has become this impossible task to get me out of here and back home again. You simply can't get there from here, apparently.

Just imagine what it will be like when I'm actually out on the road and request some home time. If it takes 8 freaking days to maybe get me a ride or bus ticket home from orientation...

By the way, if they are for some reason still unable to accomplish procurring me a way home by tomorrow afternoon, I'll be here until Monday. It's that simple. What a lovely proposal. That would bring my Orientation Purgatory to Day 11 if it were to happen.

Orientation is supposed to be a two day process.

This is a testament to incompetence. This is a metaphor for my entire "training" experience. This is a preview of my future with this company.

I haven't actually done anything since Tuesday morning. Here's my typical day:

0600 Wake-up
0630 Continental breakfast begins
0715 Shuttle leaves for terminal
0730 Orientation begins
1230 Lunch
1300 Orientation resumes
1600 Shuttle departs for hotel

Since I've been assigned a truck and I'm just waiting for a ride back home, I don't do anything at all for the 8.5 hours that I spend at the terminal during orientation other than eat lunch after the first five pointless, boring hours and roam around the dock when sitting quietly in the media room overwhelms me with boredom for the remaining four pointless, boring hours. I'm not allowed to be in the classroom with the new arrivals because I might distract them. So, I'm in the room with the computers until they kick me out of there so the new arrivals can use them for learning. If wasn't for the shuttle rides or food, I wouldn't do anything at all. It looks alot more interesting on paper.

I wouldn't be nearly as frustrated if people who arrived after me didn't keep leaving before me. I counteract this frustration by telling the new arrivals how long I've been here and by warning them of their own possible impending doom of joining me in orientation purgatory...

"...forever and ever and ever."

Captain Cut-Throat speaking.

"I see that you started to fill out an online application, but did not complete it."
"Yes, that's because I don't have any of the necessary information with me. I'm not at home at the moment. I'm actually at orientation for [redacted]."
"Not going so well or have you decided not to apply with us afterall?"
"The former."
"Do you know when you should expect to be back home?"
"Hopefully by the end of this week at the absolute latest."
"Well, I'll note that you're away from home for your OTR training and will complete the application process when you return. Once you do so, we'll be able to set you up with a phone interview."
"That would be fine. I look forward to it. Will that be with you or someone else?"
"It will be with me. You're in my hiring region."
"Excellent. I'd hate to think all this rapport would go to waste."
"Noted. Can I ask what made you decide to apply with us?"
"Only if I can tell you something entirely absurd but true."
"Alright."
"Orange has always been my favorite color."
"Are you serious?"
"Absolutely. You must admit that the color of your fleet is incredibly eye-catching. That's what caught my attention initially. Couple that with all the ad spots on XM radio and I thought I better take a look at what you have to offer."
"That's unusual. I don't think anyone has ever given that reason before."
"Well, I'm probably unusual myself. More than probably to be honest."
"Obviously."

I'm not at all impressed with my experience thus far with my current employer. The training process has been entirely laughable. That would be bad enough without all the damn lies.

Oh, yes. These mother truckers lied. They lied alot. They lied about everything. They continue to lie, too. They smile and lie directly to my face.

Now I know how people feel when I do it. The difference is clear, however. When I do that, it's usually because I don't fucking like you or give a damn how you feel or react. More often than not, it's a reflex and a direct result of being asking an entirely stupid question in the first place. Or, again, I just don't fucking like you. That's your fault, by the way. You should probably work on that if you happen to be one of those people. You're probably not if you're reading this, though. I must admit that I'm incredibly evasive as a standard of practice. I'm a fairly mysterious and secretive individual. I don't like to share, either. Blogging being the obvious exception to those rules. Anyway, enough diverting.

Those mother truckers lie. I don't owe them a damn thing. I feel no allegiance, loyalty, or obligation to these people. I actually feel nothing at all except for relief that I'll be free of them soon - although not soon enough.

Here's the plan:

1. Jump on a truck tomorrow morning with a driver taking a load to Michigan. He will divert his course only about 100 miles to drop me off at the terminal near my house. I will then check in with the terminal manager, find my truck somewhere on the lot, use the key I have already been given to gain access to said truck, perform a complete vehicle inspection on the truck to assess what maintenance must be performed and what physical damage pre-exists to avoid later being held responsible and asked to pay for repairs, fax that inspection back to this terminal, fill out a work order for any maintenance necessary, call my sister, and get a ride home.
2. Complete my online application. It's not for an OTR position. It's actually for a dedicated run. That might actually be better for me, anyway. 6 days out/2 days home is a much better trade off than 1 day at home for every 7 days out. Also, I'm not wild about having to team up with some random person for six months and only make half the pay rate I was originally quoted when I applied. Liars.
3. Complete my phone interview.
4. Enjoy my home time and wait for a call back.
5. Decide what to do from there. Although, if they call, I already know what I'm going to do. I'd be doing it right now if they weren't going to insist on taking all the proper steps.

I've done alot of research during my (now) 7 days of orientation. My current employer has a lot of bad reviews from previous employees. I've also spoken to some current employees at the terminal who are apparently just two short words from being previous employees themselves. "I quit" is the polite version of that scenario. This new company... haven't really found anyone who has anything terrible to say about them. Also, their training program is amazing. They use freaking simulators to put trainees into dangerous, crazy situations without putting them or anyone else into danger. Also, their in-cab technology is actually this generation: gps (trucker friendly version which avoids routing under low clearance over-passes and other dangerous scenarios like that), wireless internet, electronic logging, blahblahblah. Yeah, it's awesome. Their paid orientation pays $200 more than my current orientation. They also offer tuition reimbursement which I'll need when I fail to honor my year of service contract with my current employer. Signing bonus, too, which will help me recover from being unemployed forever and making barely enough money to survive on during my extensive training and orientation process.

Why am I doing this? Why the hell wouldn't I?

This hasn't all been a waste. I did obtain my CDL through a school I wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise but now can through completely different methods. I also got to drive all over this country for five weeks without having to pay for fuel and got paid (extremely poorly) to do so. I will never forget my time with Mickey. I will also never forget to stay as far away from Texas as possible in August. It was an experience, just not the experience I wanted. If things had been different... Well, who cares? It was exactly what it was.

Now it's over. Nearly over, anyway.

I would be sleeping right now, but I'm not allowed to drive at all while riding along with this driver headed to Michigan. Which means I get to spend roughly 36 hours in the sleeper berth of the truck while he drives the thousand miles to take me home. Due to hours of service restrictions, it will take him that long to drive it himself. So, I'll be sleeping alot. I probably won't sleep for two days once I finally get home. I don't mind not driving, though. I wouldn't necessarily want some other random trucker - much less a completely new one straight out of orientation - driving my truck. I can get away with that because I'm talking about myself.

I just realized that in two days I'll be back in a place where everyone won't be refering to me as a yankee. I barely remember what that's like now. I was the only one in orientation. I thought I might have a week off from all the yankee jokes here. I was seriously wrong about that.

"Where are you from? You have an accent."
"No, I don't."
"Yeah, you sure do. New Jersey or New York is my guess. Boston, maybe."
"Those are my choices? Really? I don't think so."
"Your attitude says a little different."
"What are you even talking about? Oh, ok. I see. I'm from Ohio. We have corn and the rock and roll hall of fame. It's probably the least bitchy of the northern states, trust me. It's like Iowa only... we have music. I don't know. We're nice people and we don't have accents."
"Well... I'll have to take your word for that, yankee."
"There it is. Awesome. I knew that was coming. I'm going to get that tattooed somewhere."

Everybody's got jokes, too. They insisted I must have some southerner jokes. I seriously don't and I told them that. They didn't believe that either. I honestly don't really spend a whole lot of my time thinking about what's down here. That's not me being a snob, either. Which, I am sometimes. I've just never been south before this. I hadn't expected all the hostility. I didn't have any hostility toward any of the southern states previous to this. I still don't. I'm greatly annoyed by them now. I've learned to speak as little as possible to not make a complete spectacle of myself while I'm down here. It's not always possible, but it definitely helps when it is.

Gut en haben! Speaking of which, I got trouble for that as well. I was filling out the information for my insurance beneficiary. Naturally, I chose my sister. The woman who was in charge of ensuring we filled out all of our paperwork correctly stopped in front of me and pointed at the blank I had just filled in.

"Is that German?"
"Yes, it is."
"Aha. It all makes sense now. Ok, then."
"Wait... What... Nevermind. I don't... I don't even want to know."
"I knew he had an accent." chimed the guy who thought I was from Boston.
"I really don't. I just want to go home."

Almost there. What a long road it has been to simply end up back where I started and a little worse for the wear. But, I do have a plan for that.

Panty Drawer.

"Hello. There's... This drawer in my room is full of panties."

Before I get into that, let's review the last couple of days. Mickey dropped me off in Dallas for my company orientation on Friday morning. We actually arrived the night before, but we slept in the truck and I collected an additional day of training pay - his idea and not a bad one. Since we arrived fairly late into the night on Thursday, they simply would have sent me to the hotel anyway. It would have been nice to go to the hotel simply to be able to shower since we'd been in some really backwoods areas for about a week or so up to that point and I was feeling somewhat like what I imagine a bodega would feel like if it was self-aware. I probably spent twenty to thirty minutes in the shower that night. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be able to shower without making a substantial fuel purchase or leaving an obscene cash towel deposit.

The room was absolutely amazing and, since the orientation center is closed over the weekends, I thoroughly enjoyed my two days off duty. The first of which I spent sleeping for the most part. It's been a month since I've slept in a bed that wasn't bolted into a moving vehicle. Also, the bed in my hotel room is easily three times the size of my bunk and it has five times as many pillows. So, yes, I slept nearly a day in it.

On Sunday I actually inspected the room a little more thoroughly. That's when I made the discovery. The previous tenants had left without their knickers/under garments/sexy underwear.

I thought about calling the front desk and then I thought about the ridiculous statement I'd have to actually make when I did so. I was slightly more concerned about having to actually explain the situation than I was about the situation. So, I closed the drawer and have been ignoring the problem ever since. It's not like I needed to unpack. I've been living out of my luggage for a month now. Besides, all my clothes were dirty anyway. I'd have to do laundry - which I did - before I would have been able to put them into the drawers. Then I'd just have to take them back out every day in case I finished my orientation and they sent me off somewhere directly from the school and at the moment. Which they kept saying might happen, but hasn't yet.

The room is incredibly nice except for that unusual problem. I have to say that I'm blessed with magnificent luck in getting hotel rooms with something completely absurd and off about them.

Monday was good and bad. The road test instructor passed everyone and the backing manuever instructor failed everyone. It was, for all of us, the first time we'd been in or tried to drive an actual automatic. It was incredibly awkward for everyone. It's difficult to understand if you've never driven a truck before, but I'll try to explain it regardless. The automatic transmission for a semi is not like the automatic transmission for a personal vehicle. It can be put into nuetral, drive, or reverse - much like a personal vehicle - but it still operates in the same way as a standard transimission without the operator doing any of the shifting. Confusing, I know. It basically shifts for you. So, in order for the truck to move at a speed of 35mph, the automatic transmission must climb gradually to the proper gear by shifting up six times. This process is sluggish. I can actually shift up to seventh gear faster than the automatic. For one thing, I can start in third gear and shift into fourth then fifth in only a few seconds. The automatic always starts in first. Even with double clutching and flipping the splitter switch before continuing to shift up two more gears from fifth while steadily building speed, I can manually shift faster than the automatic will decide to shift for me. Another thing about the automatic transmission I don't like is the removal of the clutch. The clutch can actually act like a brake without depleting the air pressure reserves for the air brakes. It's very useful during turning manuevers to slightly reduce speed and allow for better control. I coast alot, actually. While turning, approaching a stop light or sign, moving into position at the fuel pump, being weighed while in motion at weigh stations. Alot. We weren't allowed to coast in school, but it's incredibly useful and I do it all the time now. Besides all that, manual transmission is what I know. It's what I've been learning and using for three months now. Then, suddenly, they throw this at me and expect me to just know what the hell I'm doing and do tricks on top of that. I did better than I thought I would when I was told only moments before being expected to do exactly that. It's not awful, but it is awkward. I think it will be very useful when traveling in areas with congested traffic or through towns with frequent traffic stops. The process of down shifting with a standard transmission is a little involved and complicated. I won't explain that for you. You're just going to have to trust me. The automatic can be switched to a type of standard transmission where you simply push in the little selector switch and then more the selector up or down depending on which way you want to shift instead of moving it left or right to select one of the three automatic settings. That's much easier than down shifting with a manual transmission, which I still won't explain.

I reached for the gear shift multiple times on Monday during my short drive through town. The road instructor slapped my hand every time.

"What are you reaching for, man?"
"Oh. Um. Nothing."
"Well, then stop doing it."
"I'm trying."

It's weird. I'll get used to it, but it'll take more than a day. If I even get a truck with an automatic transmission, that is. Apparently, the company phased out 10 speed manual transmission a few years ago, but now they're converting back. So, there's that to consider. I could get a truck with either system. I could drive either. I'm not sure I really have a preference at the moment. I have more experience with manual so I'm biased, but I can see some of the potential of the automatic. It'd definitely make things alot easier not having to shift ever. I don't know.

I completed orientation today. I have been upgraded to a first seat driver. They don't have a truck for me yet. They are actually sending two other guys who were upgraded today to North Carolina to get trucks there. Both of their trucks will have 10 speed manual transmissions. The rest of us, four including myself, are just waiting for trucks. In the meantime, we're staying in the hotel until they figure something out.

It seems to me that if you don't have any available trucks, you should probably stop hiring and training drivers you don't need. Or, if it happens to be a production problem, make the damn trucks faster so that all the drivers you hired and trained will actually be able to perform their new job function.

Seriously, I don't understand. Not that I'm really complaining, because I could stay in this hotel room for another week. I absolutely love it. I have wifi. What else do I really need?

I also have an entire drawer full of someone's unmentionables. I don't know how to feel about that.

Four days. (Three months ago)

Four days until I take a four hour car ride to spend the next four weeks learning a new trade only to spend the four weeks after that paired up with a trainer for hands-on, real-world experience. I want to be excited about this and I sort of am. I'm also a little terrified. I really need this to work out. I need something to work out, anyway, so it might as well be this.



I'm incredibly brave and stupid for doing this. I know it takes equal amounts of those character traits to allow someone to just suddenly decide to abandon one career path for a completely new one - one I have absolutely no experience or working knowledge of, even. Well, I have been studying a little so that's not entirely true. The things I can tell you about air pressure, aerodynamics, fuel efficiency, evasive maneuvers, and general automechanics would blow your damn mind considering I didn't care enough about any of that to know even the most basic elements of those topics two weeks ago. I simply absorb and regurgitate information like this, but only if it interests me and I care to do so. Since this might be my life for awhile, I might as well be competent and excessively knowledgeable.