By Rick & Christine.

I was green with envy as I watched our fellow classmates pull out of the yard in their brand spanking new Freightliner Century Class trucks. Out of the 18 new hires we were attending orientation with, 14 of them were experienced drivers that had simply switched companies. Now we sat there, watching them all drive away to restart the life on the road that Christine and I have been dreaming about for the last six months. 
 

By July 1^st, we too should be living the life of a long-haul truck driver. About time! Of course we will be with a trainer for the first four weeks, and we certainly won’t be assigned a brand new truck, but hey, everyone has to pay their dues.

Our first week here in the northwest has certainly been filled with its ups and downs.

THE UPS:

• The trucks drive like a dream and have virtually every option available. 500-600 h.p. engines, tilt and telescoping steering wheel, air-ride seats with adjustable lumbar, jake brakes, anti-lock brakes, traction control, CD player, you name it! 
• Christine and I both did very well on our driving test with the company (MUCH better than the other rookie husband and wife team we are training with… I know, that’s mean, but it still made us feel good!) 
• We have a company van all to ourselves most of the time that we can use at our convenience. 
• We have the weekend off and are spending it lounging around the hotel room watching baseball games! Cubbies lost again though, but I am used to that. 

• Our cell phone was stolen on our very first day here. We had to get a police report so that ATT would take off the charges that the thief incurred. The cops didn’t show up until after midnight and we had to be up at 5:00am for class. 
• Our company was less than accurate about their pay scale. We were told we would get paid 42 cents per mile. At orientation they informed us that they actually pay 34 cents per mile plus 8 cents per mile for expenses. While this does work out to 42 cents per mile, it hurts you come tax time. Basically, it will cost us about 2 cents per mile in net pay when all is said and done. Even if we knew this we would have still come to work for this company, but it does piss me off that they were not straightforward about it. 
• The paperwork has been insane! Everyday 10 more people come in to talk to you. They all say that THEIR department is the most important and if you only remember one thing, remember this! We have probably signed 30 different forms and collected several hundred that we are supposed to keep for reference. I think they forgot that we live in a TRUCK! 

Rick

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