February 11, 2012

Today is Saturday and I have not written a blog post this week. Mostly, that's because I have been just completely whipped when I get home after class. To be honest, we were told that the second week would be the most stressful but merely being told did not prepare me for what I experienced. The good thing is it ended well, albeit with a final city drive in 4 inches of newly-fallen snow. That, of course, made the drive quite, um, "interesting," to say the least, but it ended without incident. So what did we do to make the week so stressful?

It's not so much what we did, because we did the same tasks we've done for the week. But two events stand out - beside the 90 degree alley dock that continues to whip my butt - that made being there use a wee bit unpleasant. We have four students in my class: a young 20-Something whose Dad is a career truck driver, a Hispanic male, an Egyptian male, and me. Just that mix of cultural and age differences has made for a wonderfully diverse mix of opinions and behaviors, but two of them went off on each other this week. I won't say which two because I don't think airing that kind of stuff is appropriate, but I will tell you one of them has been consistently late for our early morning classroom session from 7:00 - 8:00 a.m. and has a habit of leaving early, even though we are to be there until 5:00 p.m. He has a somewhat superior attitude and does not take positive criticism very well, even when he does not perform the maneuvers in the prescribed way, as we all have done.

Well, the two of them got into it and if it weren't for one of the other students, there would have been a physical fight, but the other one did take one of the two away from the area and it calmed down...after a while.

The second unpleasant experience involved one of the two original "combatants" and me. It was quite cold on Thursday, though not snowing, and when it was my turn to drive, the fellow jumped in the right side of the cab, where it was warm. He said, "That is how we're going to do it now. One rides while one drives." I was not going to have that on my session and told him to leave or I would not drive. He refused many times, stayed in the truck, and I finally shut it down, got out, and went to the office to file a complaint. About mid-day on Friday, the company owner came to me and said he had received the complaint and would deal with the other student. He said he had a "heart-to-heart" chat with him about the first incident and would do so again.

That kind of experience did not help reduce my stress, I can tell you that. OR my performance, which just seemed to go downhill after that, making that day not so good.

Anyway, next week is geared toward fine-tuning our tasks in preparation for the state testers beginning Wednesday and for being exposed to some experiences we won't be tested on but might have to perform in the field, like the blind-side parallel park, the mere thought of which scares me to death! You know how hard it is to parallel park a car? Well, imagine doing that with a 60-foot commercial motor vehicle using only mirrors to "find" the curb on that side. Oh, boy....

Hopefully, the next time I write I will have good news about being the holder of a Commercial Drivers License. Then, of course, comes the matter of picking a suitable OTR trucking company to work for. I have narrowed the list to six, but picking The One will be difficult.

Thanks for reading, my dear reader. You have no idea how much it helps me, knowing that someone is reading my words.