Wow I knew I'd fall behind, it always happens.
Anyway I'm just feeling the need to get some stuff out and on the computer screen so if you don't want to read then feel free to leave this page.
I'll start with back in the summer. This summer, June 2013 to be exact I left my job of driving school bus a week early to start with Transport Training Centers of Canada to get my AZ license to drive Transport Truck. That was great. I learned what I needed to do, and that included learning how to drive standard as I had never done it before in my life, to take my road test August 7th 2013 where I passed and got my License. YAY for me. I totally didn't think I would pass but everyone else felt that I would.
That was great. I had my license so now came the part of finding a job. I was looking for mostly local work, meaning I would be home everyday which would have been great since Alex got the diagnoses of Aspergers Syndrome from a physcologist, well that's what she's figuring anyway. Couldn't find local work. Or at least any local work that people would give a chance to someone just coming out of school. So I went back to driving school bus while talking everything over with Leo about what I was going to do. My biggest fear has always been that I'll pay for the $8000 course and it'll do me no good cause I can't get a job. Well we decided that for the year or so for me to get the experience I'd go to a job that would have me working over the road so after getting my passport and applying for what I needed, I applied to a few places for OTR work. Finally I got an email and phone call from one company who incidently had come into the school to talk to us about working for them. Anyway they told me what I had to do and I did it and I started training with them in November. Everything was going great. I did a weekend full of in class training, then went for a week with a trainer half days while the other half days were spent in the classroom or on the computer doing things. Finally I was paired up with a training engineer to go out and learn about crossing the border and stuff. That was great except for the 2nd day we turned on the heat in the truck and the windshield cracked. If we'd have gotten stopped we would have had a fine. So we took our delivery to Illinois and dropped it off early, because it was thanksgiving for our american friend's, and drove back to the Operating center in Gary Indiana. We went into the shop and told the mechanic about it and he said he would let the glass guy know and he should do it Friday morning cause he was pretty sure the glass guy wasn't going to be in on Thanksgiving. So we were stuck at the OC (operating center) for at least Thursday. Friday come along and apparently the mechanic from Wednesday didn't call it in so we were then told that the mechanic who was on at that time would call the glass guy and hopefully he'd be in that day but he may not come til Monday. Looks like it's gonna be day number two. So we finally find out that yes the glass guy would be in but we weren't sure what time he was coming. The desicion was made that we would stay in a hotel room, paid for by the company, for the Friday night and then leave Saturday if the windshield was fixed. As we were getting in the hotel shuttle the glass guy got there and was fixing the window.
Finally we left at 6 the next morning from the hotel and were able to get a load heading back up here to the great white north. So we do our pretrip and everything and headed out to pick up our load. Unfortunetly we get there and we don't have a pick up number. So once more we had to sit and wait. We had to wait 3 hours before we finally had a number. Thankfully it didn't take long for they loaders to load us and we were finally on our way heading to Canada. By now this is Saturday afternoon and my TE was leaving on Holiday on Wednesday so our days were numbered. We managed to pull into a truck stop in Windsor Ontario after crossing the border Saturday night and that's where we slept in the truck. Sunday it was a trip to Montreal Quebec with a quick stop at another OC in Guelph, our home OC. Finally we make it to Montreal where we dropped our loaded trailer, and then once more we had to wait on a trailer that was to go to GM. Got the trailer over there on the Monday and then got another load to be picked up so we headed to pick up an empty trailer in Laval Quebec and headed to Gatineau Quebec where we got loaded and headed on back to our home OC. Monday night we arrived and stayed in the truck. Tuesday came and I spoke with the trainer who trained me in class, and even asked if I could have more days out with another TE as the guys who had trained with me were getting 10-12 days or so out before they were gonna have to do their road tests. My in class trainer asked how many days we were out and we told him 8 and he said he was fine with that. Trouble was I wasn't. He started me on what they call soft skills stuff and then another trainer came up to me and said we were going to go and do my SQT (skills qualification test) well I told him I wasn't ready so we were able to put it off. To bad we couldn't have put it off a little longer, because I had to do it the next day.
Wednesday I showed up at the OC at 7 to do the SQT. Went out and drove the truck and failed like I knew I would because I wasn't confident in a couple of the skills I was asked to do. So was told that I was going out either right away or in the afternoon with another trainer to do it again. Did they offer me any time to practice? Nope. No time to work on what I had trouble with so I just had to go and do it again after lunch. After lunch came and I failed yet again. Why? Because I still had issues with the same things. So was told I would have to do it the next day. Was I ready? Did I have a chance to work on the issues? Again the answer is a big fat NO so went out with yet another trainer. As we were walking to the truck, the trainer says, "When you pass today this will be your truck" I felt better, felt more confident and just prayed I wasn't asked to do the one thing I knew I couldn't do. Did my prayers come true? Nope I ended up having to do it again. And once again I couldn't do it. So that made number 3 a complete fail as well. When we got back to the OC I was asked how I thought it went. I said I thought it went ok except for one turn and that if I had a couple more days just working on that then I'd be fine and would be able to pass. Was told that he couldn't give me anymore time and that I had failed, but he'd mark me as OK for rehire and that if I went out and got a job with a company that did more local, city deliveries that I could come back, do a road test and they'd rehire me. So that left me unemployed.
So that brings me to today. It's now been 10 days and I've been out applying to other jobs but so far none of them have worked out. I had one interview and they passed on me cause they don't feel I can make the commitment for the two years they want.
This close to Christmas and I'm depressed. I can't afford Christmas presents for my kid, I can't afford my horse and am seriously considering selling him since I can't ask Leo to pay for him for me. I'm supposed to be moving him the end of the month and I don't know how I'm going to afford that either. Leo suggested going back to driving bus, but there's only a week left before the kids are out for school break for Christmas. I have no idea what I'm going to do cause I can't even seem to get a job working at McDonald's.
Needless to say feeling like shit right now, and needing a way to escape reality if even for a few hours. And seeing the Hobbit last night didn't help even if my best friend thought it would.
I think the only thing that would help right now would be a job, but I'm beginning to wonder if that will ever happen.
