Letter from a Recent Truck Driver Training Graduate

In early January I received an email with the subject line that read with the carrier’s names about a “Trainer from Hell”.

The training carrier is one that has been written about many times before but this email was not from the female student but rather her dedicated friend who was communicating with her by cell phone while she was in training.

The Woman told me her friend was a self-confident person who was not easily rattled but she had seem such a dramatic change in her she began investigating truck driver training and found our site to contact me.

I posted briefly about the student on the Facebook ‘Like” page called “Real Women Truckers” and while 99% of the drivers were rooting for this female to stick it out on the night her trainer refused to take her to the carrier’s home terminal to test out, the 1% troll attack from a WIT member made it clear that little has changed for Women who seek sisterhood when they are mistreated at their training carrier, this particular one, a WIT sponsor.

I was proud to see those who stuck up for the female student as she was attacked by this other female with no basis or background information.

The female student is a bit older than most Women entering trucking and she felt that this information should be omitted but I disagree. If you can drive, you can drive…

Respect your elders!

When I received a follow up email yesterday written by the female student about her progress I wanted to share it because it provides valuable insight about continued poor communication for truck driver students to seek action to get off a trainers truck who behaves in an unprofessional manner and the continued need for the “Underground Help Network” we have tried to create to get these females to not quit but rather fight back and keep driving.

I want to share:

“Letter from a Recent Truck Driver Training Graduate”

 “Hi Desiree,

I hope all is well with you. I finally got home time and wanted to type a clearer picture of my training experience with my two trainers at (Training Carrier whose name starts with a “C”)

Again, thank you so much for your support during this very traumatic event for me. I don’t know what l would have done without your support and Josie’s. (Her friend who contacted me)

The first trainer I had would yell in my ear at night to go faster, faster, even though l was going 60 or 64, he wanted me to go 67 at all times, even when approaching road work. I was just getting used to driving this monster truck and was being cautious to get used to the night driving and reaction time needed while driving a truck.

He would say continually “You are not going to be a truck driver! You should go back to driving a taxi.”

This trainer told me he was going on his 3^rd month of no home time. So he was already mad and wanted to shorten his training with me. He said “If you don’t get it in 10 days then you’ll never get it.”  Even though we were told we would get 29 days to train.

He said he only trained people that caught on quick. He just wanted to get home. The whole time I was with him he was looking for another job.

He would play recordings of foul comedy that was offensive and he laughed out loud while I was trying to sleep. After 3 days of that, I asked him not to play it because it was offensive to me. He didn’t play it again, but if looks could kill, l would be dead! After I would drive my shift and l was rather proud that I drove so long and safely. He never once gave a positive comment, only criticism. If I stayed up front after my shift, it was only to be continually criticized and told I should get out of trucking. He would keep saying, “It’s not for everybody, you should go back to what you were doing before”.

I finally got tired of his negativity, yelling and not talking to me like I was an equal. I would just go back into the bunk area and close the curtains feeling very trapped and depressed while he talked to his friends and even would text them while he drove.

He actually passed a double trailer in the dark on a two lane road after having several close calls when he pulled over to pass each time, I thought we were going to get nailed! He would continually get on the CB and get into arguments with other truckers. He was extremely OCD too.

I’m pretty neat myself, but he was so extreme I thought I was going to choke on all of his cleaning products in that small cab.

He would of course expect me to sterilize the truck after I had driven. I finally told my recruiter to let me out of there. I had to go to a hotel to wait for another trainer. I would call dispatch everyday and nothing turned up for two weeks.

Finally, after sending a message and phone call to safety about my experience with the trainer and asking for another one, I got a call the next day to say they had a trainer for me.

I was to take a bus to Oklahoma City to meet him. The second trainer seemed nice enough at first and then as time went on itgot worse and worse. His Mother lived in Oklahoma City and he lived in Ohio. He would be taking a lot of home time while I would stay in a hotel or in the truck while he would visit with his family. I was driving pretty steady at 65 MPH now as I was confident that the highways were not there to hurt me, but rather were designed and marked to protect me. Even with a giant semi.

My night vision was improving the longer I drove. I was gaining confidence. He would sit in the front seat chain smoking and play these mind games with me. He would yell at me and say “why did you slow down?” I would say “because there is a police car with his lights on in front of me”, or “the speed limit is 55 now”. His answers would be “ignore the speed limits, just keep your speed, and go as fast as the other trucks”. (Who were traveling much faster and did not have a governed engine) I told him “It’s my CDL” and I wasn’t going to lose it because of him.

He got angry if I let any cars into the lane. He encouraged me to purposely cut them off.

He also would say “You’ll never make it; you’re never going to make it as a truck driver.” He would say “do you have a learning problem. I don’t think your brain works right”. He would say he had a girlfriend that was a psychiatrist and she told him about some mental tests he could give me to see if I had mental issues.

Then he would say, “Why do you dress like that? You wear grandma clothes and you should get another wallet that one is stupid.”  Most of the time he would say; “You can’t dress like that; you have to dress like a boy.” I would tell him that my dress was not his concern and he would not like it if I criticized his dress. (She writes: l meant to say his fat ass with his crack always showing! Which it was)

 He’d point out some girl that looked homeless and dirty and said

“You have to dress like that.”

While I would be driving and feeling good about myself he would sit up front light another cigarette and get on the phone with his Mother and friends while he yelled and belittled me as I was in the driver seat. He would go into his 20 minute speech of cutting down everything I did and saying how I was never going to make it, making fun of everything I did while his friends were listening.

He told me the dispatchers laughed at me and they knew he was yelling at me and they approved of it.

When my shift was over l would go in the back and close the curtain. He would say, why don’t you sit up front?  If I had, it would be just to go through his “you’re not going to make it” speech, so l would stay in the back and feel trapped and depressed.

He would keep saying he would take me to be tested over and over but he would never do it. I would get excited and tell my co-driver that I would be testing out soon. I told him l would be ready by a certain date and it would keep getting extended.

Weeks went by, I would continually call the dispatcher and he would keep assuring me that I was going to test soon but it never happened.

I had been stuck with him longer than I should have been with no positive interaction only him being in control.  He knew l had worked so hard to get to this position in my trucking career. He knew how bad I wanted to be a trucker and not give up like so many other people have done who got stuck with such bad trainers. I could feel my resistance and strength wearing off.

I am really a very strong person and have never been in an internment camp before but I could feel that I was giving up. Not a good sign.

I finally had some friends contact the safety department at the carrier who were able to get ahold of some upper management because he would listen to everything I did and I did not have any privacy. Then I got encouraging calls from you which really helped.

My dispatcher said I was going to go to the home terminal to “test out” the following day and for me to tell the trainer that they would get me a bus to southern California after that so I could start driving with my co-driver.

When my trainer got back in the truck I told him what the dispatcher said that after we dropped our load he was supposed to drop me off at our home terminal which we were close to so that I could take my test.

He yelled at me “YOU FUCKING BITCH WHORE! I’m not taking you there. I have to get home to a funeral.” I said “EXCUSE ME, WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?” He ignored me and said he would not take me to the home terminal, and called the dispatcher. He refused to let me use the Qualcomm to contact the dispatcher myself so I go to out of the truck and called him to tell him what happened. He said “tell him to drop you off at the nearest hotel in the town you’re in”. The dispatcher told me he would get me a bus after my test to take to southern California to meet my co-driver. I told the trainer but he refused to take me to a hotel. He just parked and went to sleep.

I had all my luggage packed and put it on the front seat while I got out to call a cab. When l got back to the truck my luggage was put back up on top of the bunk. I said “why did you move my luggage?” He said “because you can’t go anywhere lf you do you’ll be abandoning the truck and you’ll get fired”. I got my luggage and put it outside on the ground and told him I have verbal assurance from the weekend dispatch that I was not abandoning the truck. I told the dispatcher that I didn’t feel safe with him and needed to get off the truck. I left and when the taxi came I took off to a hotel. I paid $500.00 to fly back to southern California because a 2 ½ day bus trip was not something I was willing to endure after that. I tested out fine and arrived to California and have been driving with my co-driver since mid-January.

I am so happy now and really enjoy driving which is what it

should have been like in the first place. I have spoken to many students who have the same complaints both men and women. Something must be done about the quality of these trainers and the mind games they play on us who have spent so much money and time to fulfill this dream.

I met a group of trainers at the California terminal who were testing to be trainers and they all seemed like very nice, motivated normal people. At what point do they turn into these control freaks who like to destroy people’s lives? Most of all why are these people still allowed to train new students? Students trust these trainers to treat them with respect and encourage them.

I’m sure I have forgotten a lot of stuff as it’s been awhile. I’ve tried to block out a lot of the negativity so it won’t interfere with my present driving but again, thank you Desiree for your support and the work you are doing to help future students from going through this nightmare.”

I was really glad that this student “bucked up” and was able to see she was not alone in this horribly managed system that is truck driver training.

Oddly, I had a rash of complaints from female’s students during December 2011 and into January 2012 and the same 3 carriers that start with a “C” and use the “team business” model to use students to run cheap freight.

The barriers between students communicating to effective layers of management outside the training fleets continues and so does our underground network of drivers who are trying to help students fight back to have the job they invested in.