Training #14: Graduation Day

The final was about as easy as I expected. I missed one question, due to not reading everything carefully, but 98% is still passing, and passing was all I cared about. We had a few other presentations, most of which simply reinforced information we already had. The only really new information is that, with the raise everyone's getting effective September 30, our six-month raise, and our one-year raise, we'll be gaining eleven cents a mile over the next year. So I'll start at 27¢, then 31¢ after the first raise, then 35¢ at six months, and apparently to 38¢ after that. Those raises, on their own, work out to an extra $13,750 a year. Or, working a year at 38 cents a mile, I'll be looking to make $47,500 in the year starting early September 2008. Those are some very, very nice numbers.

After that, we were asked about teams again. I kept saying that I might have a team partner, somewhere down the line, since I know of you have expressed interest in driving with me for a while. There are some perks to it, the biggest of which is a 5¢/mi "team premium". In other words, the new starting rate of 31¢/mi would become 36¢. After a year, 38¢ would become 43¢. Nice numbers, huh? Teams also get sent on much longer trips, since teams can make those deliveries faster, so each driver averages 3,000 miles a week instead of 2,500.Combined, that's an additional $17,000 a year per driver, once you factor in the bonus and extra miles. Or, to put it another way, a driver with a year of experience can expect $64,500.

Also, once I've been with the company six months, I'm allowed to bring someone into the truck under the company's ride-along program. I can have up to six different people per year, but I can have those six along for as long as I want, as many different times as I want. That is, I could have someone for a week in April, then another week in July, and it still counts as one person out of my six. Just something to keep in mind for later.

We have the weekend free. CDL week starts Monday at 7AM and will focus on the various things I need to know to earn my Florida CDL. Having gotten over a few big hurdles already, I'm confident that I can make the next step just as successfully as I've made this one.