Orientation

Day 1 (Saturday)
We left home at 0530 Saturday morning to head for Dallas in the rental car Schneider set up for me. We ended up at the hotel around 1230. It took forever to get the car unloaded... I brought everything that I could think of that I'd need in the truck because once I get a truck I want to be able to go out and not have to go back by the house anytime soon. After we got unloaded I took the rental car to the airport to drop it off per my instructions from SNI. From there a cab picked me up and took me to the OC for my pre-hire physical. To be honest, this was the part that worried me about orientation. I was never in great shape, but I did play lots of sports when I was a little younger. Now I'm in the worst shape I've ever been in. I get out of breath easily so I was scared that my heartrate would get too high. But, I never came real close to hitting my limit. And after seeing some of the people that were able to pass I realize that I never had anything to worry about. After the physical I was told to be back in the same room at 0700 the next day so I went back to the hotel to call it a night.

Day 2 (Sunday)
I was the classroom at 0700 and the whole day wasn't very eventful. We were told that we'd be there until Wednesday sometime. Then, we'd be assigned driver #'s and trucks and hit the road. At this point I can't even really remember what all we went over in this first day of class. We were thrown a lot of info and all of it didn't stick. I remember talking about logging, qualcomm, safety... all the regular stuff.

Day 3 (Monday)
We did a few hours in the classroom and then all went out for driving tests. I was pretty nervous about this also. I got hired on as an experienced driver, but it's been since 2003 that I was an OTR driver. I drove tractor/trailers on and off for a while after... mostly daycabs. So it had been a while since I was behind the wheel of one of these big boys. I was also worried because I hadn't looked over the whole list of items to check for a pre-trip since I got my CDL in '03. But I was worried about nothing. It all came back to me when I got behind the wheel and we weren't even questioned about pre-trips. Good to go.

Day 4 (Tuesday)
Today was a lot more class. Went over macro 18's and trip planning a lot. I believe we took a Haz Mat test that day also. We heard a lot more of the same stuff.

Day 5 (Wednesday)
It was a shorter day today. We went over the benefits that are available for company drivers. My instructor convinced me to take advantage of the 401k plan. Seems like a pretty good deal and you only have to stay 3 years to be vested. We went over to the simulators which was pretty fun. I'd been looking forward to that the whole time. You do a simulation of a jacknife and blowing a steer. I did really well on those so the guy controlling it raised the ice level to the maximum and kept turning the wind on and off. Then, he put me in a jacknife so that it was impossible to keep on the road. I went into a wall and flipped over. He told me that was my parting gift. After that, we went back to class to finish up some paperwork and get assigned driver #'s and trucks. Finally we got our free boots and that was that.

We were told in the beginning that we may be assigned a truck that was located elsewhere. I was hoping and praying that mine would be in Dallas so I could get rolling asap, but it turns out that mine is in West Memphis, AR. So my instructor set me up with another rental car and I'm headed that way. As a matter of fact, I'm writing this as we're en route. We just passed a big brown sign that says "Birthplace of Bill Clinton" on I-30 by exit 30. My girlfriend is driving so I'd have a chance to sit down and write this. I believe I'm going to take a nap so I'll be ok in case I get lucky and get a load early tomorrow.

I'm expecting us to arrive in West Memphis at around 0100 so we're going to get a room and rest. I'm actually glad I get to pick my truck up there so I'll have a chance to meet my DBL. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get a truck that's in halfway decent shape. I'll report how it goes back here.