Apprentice driver horror stories

I've spent the last few days back in training in Salt Lake City and fortunately passed all my tests. I'm now waiting to be assigned to another driver and head back out on the road. Maybe today. Now that its 3pm, more likely tomorrow.

I was pleasantly surprised to walk into class Monday morning only to join a few of my favorite friends from our classroom time in January.

We had the opportunity to compare notes about our individual 30 day apprentice driving experiences. LOL Wow did I get lucky in having Victor.

Galen and Jay (the two guys with black shirts in the photo) are a couple of fifty-somethings from Colorado Springs who's previous decades in the construction business came to a grinding halt in 2010. They've been buddies for more than a decade and decided to become a driving team before even signing up for the school (which we discovered today means they don't have a Phase-2 trainer. Instead they're heading out with their own truck by themselves!). Their first trainer had anger management issues and was late for nearly every delivery, choosing to waste his time in truck stops rather than driving to the customer. His first response was to yell and swear, in response to everything. He was rude to wait-staff, angry with the people back in the England corporate office, abusive with the people working at the delivery docks, etc.

After three weeks Galen and Jay (who as a team were riding together with this trainer) finally couldn't take it anymore and got switched to another trainer. Fortunately, this guy was just the opposite. He was efficient, always early for deliveries, took time off to visit his favorite restaurants around the country (one of which is a place called Lamberts in Missouri where they literally throw bread rolls at the diners http://www.throwedrolls.com/), and was generally a jolly fellow and an excellent trainer. Galen said they even met the trainer's entire family at a restaurant in Missouri - nine kids. Jay said he gained fifteen pounds over those thirty days of driving all over the country.

At the other end of the spectrum is Zach (the guy between Galen and Jay in the photo) who lost ten pounds with a diet of mostly vegetables and fruit (just like what I've been eating - except for my daily pack of Hostess crumb donettes). Zach is an early-thirties ex-respiratory therapist from Fort Collins, Colorado who recently moved away from the South Dakota with his girlfriend and her two kids to escape her abusive ex-husband. His trainer had worked oil rigs on the Alaskan north slope, trapped crabs in the Bering Strait, skinned cats on construction sites all over America and finally settled on truck driving. Zach said after the abuse he suffered for the first week, he finally blew up at the trainer who then mellowed out and became a really good and helpful trainer. They'd go for runs during their down hours and lift weights in the truck stop parking lot. Though, one week, Zach realized he had 67 hours of drive time while his trainer had less than 20 hours. They made deliveries in twenty three states during his month on the road.