Trucker Lesson No.1 - Sit on your ass and wait.

Wednesday started out to be a good day. I had orientation in the AM, and then after lunch, we took some tests and I passed orientation. It wasn't hard, a lot of it was paperwork and basic stuff, so it wasn't too difficult. About 2 PM, the lady who manages us trainees during our 6 weeks came up and told about 3/4 of us that she had mentors for us and that we should stick around while the others went home and waited until more mentors showed up. I got to stay as my mentor was here in the terminal. Once I was placed into the system, I met my mentor, Chris, and we headed to the truck. That's when things stated to go downhill in the wrong gear.....

Chris drives a 2009 Volvo tractor. I loaded my crap in the truck and we prepared to head west with a load. Except for one little minor thing....

The passenger side seatbelt and it's lack of length. Most specifically, it's inability to fit over my fat ass! We decided to check out some other Volvos to see if it was me, or whether it was his truck. Turns out, it was his truck! The other three trucks we tried didn't fit and another mentor tried ours and confirmed it was too short.

We checked with the shop and they told us they had another seatbelt in stock, so we could get it replaced and get on down the road. Good right? Nope.

We got in the shop right away and about 2 hours later, our truck was ready to go, so I got in and checked it. Nope. Not happening. My mentor looked at the belt and discovered that it hadn't been replaced at all! Now, I should tell you that the belts are neon green (Conrail Zito Yellow) so that they can tell that the driver/passenger are wearing their seatbelts. Strangely enough, the driver side belt was now black. Hmmm... Even though we wrote "Passenger Side" on the work order, they replaced the driver side belt. Ugh...

See what I mean about Downhill? It gets worse.

Thursday morning, they ordered a new belt from the Volvo dealer, which had to be ordered so here we sit on Friday, still waiting. The new belt SHOULD be here today and SHOULD be installed by 4PM if everything goes well and hopefully we'll get a load out of here.

The thing that really sucks is the fact that even though I'm getting paid for training, my mentor isn't getting paid at all. Nothing. Nada, Zero. This close to Christmas, that's not a good thing. I actually have the utmost respect for my mentor as he could have very easily dropped me as a student and gone out with another or gone solo and he didn't, so brownie points awarded.

I'll post again when something happens, but until then, we're just relaxing in the terminal.
Russ

Ps. It's getting icy in lots of places now. Drive carefully!