April 14, 2007

Home.  And tired!

Some final notes about the Green Bay experience, then a quick look into the future to see what’s on the horizon.

On Friday morning (4/13/07) we hopped on the bus to the STA, filed in and took our seats for the final exam.  From our original class of 48, there were 27 remaining to take the exam – that’s quite a bit of attrition.  I don’t want to sound cold, but some of those who were gone weren’t missed at all – those were the ones with “baditude.”  There were a few I never really got to know, and there were some that genuinely surprised me.  So it was time for the last thing that scored.

Final exam: 50 questions: multiple choice and True – False.  Ninety minute time limit.  80% minimum passing score.  Two weeks of classes, sims, labs, road time, and backing all coming down to this one relatively minuscule slice of time.  Mess up here, and no graduation.

Ninety minute time limit.  I was done in 20.  The test was not hard, but it wasn’t a cakewalk either. If you had paid attention and done some studying these past two weeks, you would know this stuff.  There’s absolutely no way at all I could have passed it two weeks ago or even one week ago.  As I was wrapping it up it occurred to me that I have absorbed a fair amount of stuff in these last two weeks.

One by one we filed out of the classrooms and either into the lunchroom or outside the building to enjoy the first warm and sunny day we had seen since arriving.  Guys shaking hands, congratulating each other, joking around and watching some backing practice by the group who started a week behind us.  Interesting thought – they were the “underclassmen,” now they’re the Seniors.  Tomorrow when a new group checks in, all nervous and curious, these guys and girls who are backing today will be (and feel) like the wily, seasoned veterans.  So to speak.  Part of the ongoing process at the STA.

We stood around, chatted, waited, those who are smokers, smoked.  We were waiting for the last classmate to finish his test.  I had a bad feeling about this guy.  Not meaning I didn’t like him, quite the opposite.  He is of eastern European descent (Slavic I am guessing by his name and where he lives now).  Quiet guy, when he speaks it is with an accent, keeps mostly to himself, but when you talk to him, he’s rather nice and friendly.  He already has his CDL, he was going through this program to work for Schneider.  He has struggled with the classroom stuff all two weeks and has had to retake several CFLs.  I am not the expert here, but my supposition is that it is a language problem.  In a way that is too bad, because in the few times I have talked with him I had the impression he knew what he was doing.  Yet sometimes the way the questions are asked on the tests might possibly befuddle someone who is not really familiar with the tricky twists and turns of a non-native language.  You know how it is – they sneak a negative term in the wording to make sure you are reading very carefully, or use excessives: ‘always,’ ‘never,’ ‘must’ etc.  

In the end, he didn’t make it.  Got three tries and missed.  He was of a good attitude about it, although I could see the disappointment in his eyes when he got the results of his third attempt, but he didn’t make it an issue.  I think the worst part was that now he was an “outcast.”  While the rest of us (26 graduated) went into classrooms to hear a few speakers talk to us about the next phase of training, to receive our fuel cards and logbooks, to pick up our new workboots and such things, he sat in the lunchroom.  The big, empty lunchroom.  All alone.  Nothing to do but wait.  And wait.  Here it was, not even 10:00 a.m. and he had nothing to do until the bus picked us up at 4:30 p.m.  During lunch I went up to him (hardly anyone else had acknowledged him sitting in there). I asked him how he was doing, he smiled and said fine.  I asked him what was next for him, he answered “Go home and find job.”  He said that he would be allowed to return to the STA in the future; I asked if he might, he shrugged his shoulders and said perhaps, depends on what work he can find.  I shook his hand and gave him a pat on the back and wished him the best.   And the icing on the cake was that he was riding the same bus home as the rest of us.

Just before lunch, I talked to one of the training reps who gave me my CDL test schedule.  I have an appointment for Monday 16th at 1:15 p.m. in Willard, OH.  He reviewed the road course and what things the examiner might be likely to toss my direction so I could make sure to be alert and attentive.  So from my previous post it appears I was wr…  wro… wron…  misinformed   I will be taking my CDL test right away, and THEN go out with a trainer for 1 – 2 weeks.  Wish me well – several of the instructors have told us that Ohio is a tough testing state and in the past several classes, no one from Ohio has passed the CDL on the first try.  I will do my best. 

We were done at 2:30; the bus isn’t scheduled to arrive until 4:30.  After two weeks of jammed and crammed schedules, we were now BORED.  Some of the group had driven their own cars so they took off, and even gave rides to a few who lived along the way and had ridden the bus in.  From approximately 30 who had been on the coach to Green Bay, after attrition and ride sharing, we were now down to 10 for the ride home.

While waiting for the bus, I got a phone call from my T.E. (Training Engineer, the driver who I’ll be riding, driving and learning from out on the road for the next phase).  Seems like a nice guy on the phone, I told him about my CDL appointment and we made arrangements to meet about an hour away from the testing facility on Monday afternoon.  I am to bring a week’s worth of clothes, toiletries, sleeping bag, etc and we’ll go from there.  I am going to call him this weekend for more details before leaving the house Monday morning.   Wow.  It’s really happening now!

The bus arrives, we pile our stuff on and grab a seat.  We are much more talkative than we were on the ride up – we know each other, we have shared this experience and there is a bond of sorts between us now.   Oh, we are also a lot less tense!

I struggle to sleep in the rumbling, lurching bus and it is difficult at best.  We drop a few off at the Gary, IN, OC, take a 15 minute restroom break, then back on board for the next 2 1/2 hours to my stop at the Indy OC.  I finally manage a little shut eye and wake up as we’re pulling in to the OC at 1 a.m.  I shake hands with the remaining four guys on board, wish them well, grab my things and head off to my car.  I stop to fill up with fuel a couple of blocks down the road and settle into a nice drive down I-74.  It’s 3:15 when I stumble into my apartment, wearily drop my bags on the floor and hit the sack. 

….thus ends Part the First.

P.S.  I cannot say for certain whether I will be able to update this in the coming week.  If I can, I will.  If I can’t, I’ll keep as much of a journal as possible and post in one big chunk when I have internet access.  Fair enough?