I took an assessment drive for C+E at a well-known Teesside training firm on 1/9/18, and I was extremely pleased with the instructor who I took it with, as I had successfully completed my ADR course with him back in April. So, I decided to book the course with them and have the same bloke with me throughout that time, and they promised that I would be having my actual test at their yard. I thought this ought to be a breeze.
However, last Tuesday, I had a phone call from their gaffer stating that the instructor that I was originally promised was now carrying out a CPC course this week, and another instructor would be covering my course. So, I had two options: do this week with the replacement instructor, or do a later week with the original one. I chose the former and find out what this one is like.
I think that I made a BIG mistake by choosing the first option, because on the Monday, me and several other people going on other courses (Cat C and B+E) were gathered in a classroom for about an hour and half, going over the basics of driving a lorry. In one way or another, I could only describe his method of teaching as quite patronising and I thought that he was a bit of a self-important d**khead.
But once we were out of the classroom and in the motor, his attitude actually changed for the better, and me (plus another lad) had quite a relaxing remainder of the day, getting used to the artic and just generally bumbling about Teesside.
However, today, it all changed again. We started off well with the uncoupling and recoupling exercise (which went very well), and then the reverse. It was during this time that he started to revert back to his former behaviour and show his true colours. During my first couple of reverses, which I was struggling to get a line with, his tone of giving instructions was quite aggressive, and since I’m autistic, my way of processing instructions takes a bit longer than a “normal” person.
After spending some time in the yard practising the exercises, we hit the road and drove to Darlington to have a run over some of the test routes with the other lad driving first. When I took over the wheel, still feeling tense after the reversing practice, I put it into gear (semi-auto Scania) and about to move off when he said, in an arsey tone “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you do first before setting off?” Also, he let the other lad spend more time in the driving seat than me.
So, from that point onwards, I’m thinking either about ditching that course and firm (missing the test on Friday) and have a couple of more assessments at other training firms (thinking about Tockwith as one of them) or biting the bullet and carrying on suffering the warth of that particular instructor and not really ready for test day.
(Also, the test venue was changed at the very last minute to Darlington, and they charged me £200 for the assessment drive).