120: Orientation Explained: Randolph Rochell and Dustin Eagle

During this week’s episode of the Oakley Podcast, host Jeremy Kellett is joined by Randolph Rochell and Dustin Eagle to talk about some details of what’s going on with orientation. From what to expect in orientation and how to get the most benefit from orientation, here’s what you need to know to be a successful owner-operator.

Key topics in today’s conversation include:

  • Oakley Update: JJ truckstop breakfast, swapping divisions (3:26)
  • How to prepare for orientation (7:15)
  • Big obstacles overcome during orientation (12:13)
  • What to expect each day (18:33)
  • How Oakley invests in you (23:31)
  • Preparing your trailer (25:12)
  • Becoming a part of the Oakley family (32:12)

Oakley Trucking is a family-owned and operated trucking company headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. For more information, check out our show website: podcast.bruceoakley.com.

Transcription

Randolph Rochell  0:12  

It’s my job to make sure you leave here comfortable, knowing that you able to operate whatever type of equipment you’re here to pull, make sure your truck is ready to operate. That is my job. That is my goal every week, guys: to make sure you are comfortable that your tractor that your Trello and you are ready to pull whatever thrill you’ve been assigned to. I don’t do that. I’m in trouble. I lose myself because I want you to be successful.

Jeremy Kellett  0:44  

Welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business, and family. This show is brought to you by Oakley Trucking, headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. The purpose of this podcast is to communicate with Oakley owner-operators and their families by giving them up-to-date information concerning Oakley Trucking and the trucking industry. From business advice to safety updates to success stories. Also to give an inside to outside truck drivers that might be interested in joining the Oakley family.

There’s Jeremy Kellett, Director of Recruiting here at Oakley Trucking. I’m your host for this podcast. This is the Oakley Podcast: trucking, business and family. And this is episode 120 that we’re doing today. And on today’s episode, I’ve got Mr. Randolph Rochell, the orientation coordinator in here with me. We’re going to talk about some details of what’s going on with orientation. One, what to expect in orientation. Two, how to get the most benefit from orientation to be a successful owner-operator. And three, we’re gonna have good time while you’re here. That’s part of it. And also got the Dustin Eagle is joining me today to help us, to kind of give a little insight of what when it comes to preparing for orientation. That means a whole lot of how your experience goes in orientation. So we’re going to touch on those things here in just a minute. But first, let’s do an Oakley update sponsored by Arrow Truck Sales.

Let’s listen to one of Oakleys owner operator’s experience with Arrow Truck Sales.

Unknown Speaker  2:08  

Called Kenworth offer 440. Called Peterbilt call Freightliner. None of them wanted to work with me. So, Jeremy Kellett got me and got me over to Trey Viser. Me and him had a conversation. He’d sent me to Keith Wilson and never looked back from that point. I was upside down 29,000 and change. They paid off all but $5,000 of my loans on a blown truck. That right there said a lot to me. They were willing to step outside of their comfort zone to get my deal done. I’ve never felt like a customer. Yeah, it was more like a family feeling. He took care of every aspect of the deal. He was completely transparent. There was no hidden, no hidden nothing.

Jeremy Kellett  3:16  

So if you’re in the market for a used truck, you owe it to yourself to call Keith Wilson at Arrow Truck Sales in Springfield, Missouri. Tell him you heard it on the Oakley podcast.

So on today’s update two quick things. One is, I don’t know if y’all remember but two, three months ago we did a deal down at JJ truckstop where we went down there and bought breakfast for everybody like we did it two days in a row. We did everybody that comes through the door and wants to talk to Oakley we bought him breakfast we’re gonna be doing that again. Matter of fact probably when this episode comes out, we may be doing it today or tomorrow it’s the 27th and the 28th of July we’re going to be down at JJs and spending some time down there and talking to truck drivers. It just it’s something where we want to get in front of them and a face-to-face conversation with truck drivers and talk to him about Oakley trucking and or do some Dhokli trucking if they’ve never heard of it. Tell them anything that they have questions about. James down at JJ he’s truckstop at Malvern. It’s what? Exit 106, leaves 106 I just want to fix he’s just great at letting us do this. I can’t thank him enough for letting us come down there and spend time with the drivers is not every truck stop I’ll let you do this. So a big shout out to Mr. James at Owens place down or JJ is letting us do that.

The other thing on the Oakley update: I get some questions about is swapping divisions. That’s something that maybe a lot of you don’t realize it’s that’s an option here at Oakley Trucking is you can swap divisions. If something is challenging to you you don’t feel right in it or you want to do something different man swapping division is definitely an option here at Oakley plus you change get to change jobs but never leave the company. He keep everything keep it tenure you keep, I mean, everything just keeps rolling around along. And we’ve had several lately go from well actually from Hopper handoffs to pneumatic tanks. So if you’re thinking about the option of swapping divisions height, ask your dispatcher, call us in the recruiting department, we’ll be glad to talk to you. If you’re, if you’re in one division want to know about another division, call the dispatcher in that other division if you don’t know who it is, call us. So when recruiting will tell you, they’ll tell you right up front (where you live, what kind of work to be expected, and all that). So something that can happen, we can help accommodate dad here to hit Oakley swapped in division. So enough said about that.

Let’s get started on this orientation talk and what’s going on at Oakley Trucking when you when you sign up to come over? And you get through talking to a recruiter and it’s time to come to orientation, you need know some details. That’s what we’re here to talk to the legend Mr. Randolph Rochelle, I’m sure everybody’s heard about at Oakley Trucking because if you’ve gone through orientation, more than likely you’ve come through Randolph’s hand of approval, coming through orientation. And we all know Randolph. So right now he’s been with us. 30 years been there a long time. He’s actually done an episode with me before, a long time ago, and we talked a little bit about I think Randolph story. So if they want to know more about right now, if you go back to some of the early episodes, we got a little history with Randolph. But at this time, I want to talk about orientation with him and Dustin Eagle. Dustin has bet he’s a co-worker, too. They’re in the recruiting department. And he’s got a lot of experience in dispatch and recruiting and what’s going on are here everyday. So all good.

So, Randolph, orientation. I’m coming orientation Monday morning. I’ve been talking to a recruiter and he tells me to be at the company yard at what time in the morning? On Monday morning? And where am I staying? And that kind of deal. What does the driver need to expect on Monday morning?

Randolph Rochell  7:14  

Well, the greatest time by law, good drivers should respect spending the night in the hotel. And that’s really wonderful. If we put you into hotels, and we don’t really want you to drive down here, overnight. And then morning, when you get to orientation, you want to be all drowsy asleep is a good point oh, to put you in a motel, which I think is really great, where you can get a good night’s sleep. And then Monday morning, when you wake up, we got good direction where to bring you right to the front door. Well today, on the front door buyers shop. I personally would come down and meet you at the shop. And from that point on, I will introduce you to some of the shop guys, the supervisors of the shop, and we will get you pretty much waiting. We’d like for everybody to come in and wait out trucks, then we’re going to do a DLT inspection. Now the DLT inspection, we’re going to pretty much kind of just sit around and talk and get to know each other. So that’s pretty much what we expect when you first get here. Now after that, we got other things that we would like for you to do. And we’ll get more into detail on that as we go through this discussion.

So what about—Dustin—when they come in on Monday morning, what do you tell them on Friday that they need to be paying attention to?

Dustin Eagle  8:37  

Well, Friday, I like to we all like to just cross all the t’s and DOT all of our eyes on Friday and make sure Monday goes as smooth as possible. We’re modeling to bring paperwork, truck paperwork, make sure they bring their driver’s license, social security card, that’s very make sure they have all that. And then we go over the hotel with them, make sure they have the address where to go, make sure they know the rooms in their name. And then we tell them, like what Randolph just said, when you come into Oakley, let’s meet out to shop, make sure we’re all on the same page air. So one eight here, one eight there, we want them all in the same area is there and what I tell them to is, most of the guys that are coming are nervous. Understandable. They’re switching jobs, they’ve bought a truck. A big thing we all tell ’em is, ‘This is Oakley.  It’s gonna be okay.’ We’re a bunch of guys just like you so you don’t need to be nervous. We’re here to take care of you, just trying to ease their minds a little bit.

Jeremy Kellett  9:47  

We’re always fighting the past orientation experiences they’ve had Oh, yeah, and past companies that they work for. So we got to fight some of that a little bit. So it’s a little bit different when you get here on things. because I feel like we separate ourselves our orientation from other companies. Don’t you, Randolpht? How do you think we do that as a company? How are we different?

Randolph Rochell  10:08  

I try to make a difference. I just want the guy to feel comfortable. Once they get to orientation, we try to make it phone, the biggest thing we bring you in here, and Donald just bringing you to hear and thought showing you a bunch of videos and other things, we kind of talk to you and let you introduce yourself to one another, just let you feel comfortable right off. And then after that, we got things that we want to just share with you that we just expressed to each other, we talk about all different type things, once you get to no intention, we’re going to expect for you to fill out a whole bunch of paperwork. But even within filling out the paperwork, we want you to be comfortable. So the biggest thing and getting the person comfortable when they come to orientation, just tell a little bit about themselves. So we give you that opportunity to come in, sit down, talk to us open-handed. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Tell me your harvest, I tell you what I like to enjoy. Today, we don’t talk about anyone tension that I tell everybody. We don’t want to come in here thought talking about politics, talking about COVID. Because this kind of so very negative touches up. But when you come down when teaching, you can come in and enjoy yourself. We want you to start off by feeling real comfortable. Because everybody to come to orientation lonely nervous German. Yeah, I guarantee you. And we try to make a difference by just letting you express yourself to one another.

Jeremy Kellett  11:40  

So how long is this orientation?

Randolph Rochell  11:41  

Orientation here, we use the trailer at least it’s four days, the makeup video quick hands is four days. We usually spend three days and inside. That fourth day, I want to have you on outside, looking up to your trail. So three days and inside, fourth day on outside. Hopefully we can get your load on that fourth day. If not, normally we have them out there on the fifth day.

Dustin, what are some of the biggest obstacles to overcome during orientation or prior to race?

Dustin Eagle  12:11  

The first big one these days is health. We do a do T physical on Mondays. And we know we have to go over that with a guy or the girl that’s coming up, just because there’s so many things that that goes into that these days, releases, medications, we got to know all that. So that goes back to making it smooth, or on Monday for the orientation, if you don’t go over that they get here and then they get thrown a curveball. We all and then we’re all running around trying to figure out what to do.

Jeremy Kellett  12:46  

Yeah, because we had one this week. We had to have a doctor’s release. And I know you had worked hard on it started last week working on it because you knew what to expect. And it was tough getting the two doctors to communicate.

Dustin Eagle  13:00  

Yeah, and it’s kind of out of our hands. But we try to get that done before you get here. Because it’s distracting. It’s distracting. We don’t like to start on the truck if it’s taken a piece of equipment, and then it gets all of us behind. That’s a big obstacle. And another one is when you get here, we’re gonna do a DLT inspection, like Randolph said, and your trucks gonna have to pass a DLT inspection.

Jeremy Kellett  13:29  

Give me some examples.

Dustin Eagle  13:31  

We’ve had oil leaks, wheel seals, brakes. That’s some of the main ones right?

Jeremy Kellett  13:35  

What do we do, Randolph, if somebody comes in, we pull them in the shop Monday, and the shop tells us and tells the Hi, you’ve got all a you got some thin breaks need a tire? So whatever. What do you do with them then?

Randolph Rochell  13:51  

Right, then we just we talked to him about it. We tell him that we got places here, local, that can fish their trips, and write down we try to find out the best option for them. What do you want to do to get this fixed? Because as Dustin speaks? Well, I mean, all this is one of the biggest problem we have. When we do a deal and to inspection. Really, be honest, I would like for a guy to kind of look over his truck and make sure it would pass a DLT inspection before we get here. So once we do get it here, we won’t have that problem. But I know they tried to but once they get here we find that leak. And to answer your question, we just tried to figure out a way where we can get his truck in the shop as he finished his orientation class because we want him to be ready on that fourth day as I stated, so I tried to figure out a way to get into one of the most reasonable local shops that are going to be able to get his truck fix by Thursday when we get ready to hook up.

And I think that that goes a little bit underrated with you because I think a guy comes in with, he wants his truck fixed to a certain place certain place. And I know, we’ve talked a time or two, if they’ll just trust you, Hey, man, we can get them done. And because we’re working for them, we’re working for the guys in orientation. Our plan is they’re out of here buy this by the end of the week, and they are on the road making money. And sometimes if they’ll just trust you to help them manage get through that it usually works out. Is that what you tell them first thing in orientation?

Oh, yeah. Just to listen to me, guys. They focus. Listen to me, because I’m gonna be with you all week. I’m here to make things as easy as possible for you. I stole our what your money. And I’m gonna I’m gonna be which until you leave on Thursday, Friday, it’s my job to make sure you leave here. Comfortable. Knowing that you able to operate, whatever type of equipment you’re here to pull, make sure your truck is ready to operate. That is my job. That is my goal every week guys to get you make sure you are comfortable that your tractor that you’re trolled, and you are ready to pour whatever throw it you’ve been assigned to that don’t do that. I’m in trouble. I lose myself because I want you to be successful.

Jeremy Kellett  16:25  

What’s some of the examples of some of the problems? We talked, this morning when I got in, we were talking about some of the problems we had this week. But by the end of the week, we figure it out and we get them solved they do. And you said one of the guys asked, “How you so calm about this? Because we’ve got this problem.”

Dustin Eagle  16:47  

Yeah, it’s something every week, and—more than likely—we’ve had this problem in the past and we know how to deal with it.

Jeremy Kellett  16:57  

Yeah, trust us and we’ll help you figure it out. And I think it’s a difference. I asked earlier what the difference is, with a lot of companies and ours and orientation is we hit me we’re going to bat for you. We got your back. We’re here to help you get through this the best way possible, because we feel partly responsible. A lot of times and we want to make sure we make it right to before you so you’re prepared when you get out of here and get out of orientation.

Randolph Rochell  17:24  

Exactly, Jeremy. And like you just said, we bet in Witcher because lots of guys come no infection already. Thank you against him. But we want you to be successful here at Oakley. We’re not having you in an organization pulling against you. And I want to thank you pulling against right off and on and on pulling what you want to say. I want to see you successful. You just stay focused in orientation, man, it’s the best orientation you can ever do.

Jeremy Kellett  17:52  

I get a lot of people ’cause you typically have me come in there the last day and talk to me and they all say how good orientation was. “I learned something,” “I learned something in safety,” or “it was great working with Randolph.” Most places it’s like, “Get me out of here. I’m tired of this orientation,” but all of them—I mean, we kidded around before—some of them we can get gone.

Randolph Rochell  17:57  

Amen.

Jeremy Kellett  17:59  

They want to stick around.

Randolph Rochell  18:16  

Oh, man. Monday they’re ready to go, Thursday they want to stay.

Jeremy Kellett  18:28  

That says something about you, Randolph, right there.

Randolph Rochell  18:31  

Oh, man. Thank you, Jeremy. I try, as you know.

Jeremy Kellett  18:33  

Give me a day-by-day, quick, you don’t have to get details, of what to expect, some of the important things. I know Monday, we’re doing Trump work order for saying then they’re coming over drug test and getting ready for a physical. Very important.

Dustin Eagle  18:48  

Scanning in paperwork filled out paperwork. Monday mornings. Pretty busy in orientation. Yeah, that’s probably one of the busier days speech you’ll have. Don’t you think, Randolph?

Randolph Rochell  18:58  

Oh, yeah. And half the paperwork. We take them over? Well, you have a drug test. So let’s not forget about the drug test. Yes, we have to give you a drug test on Monday. After drug tests and finish up all together. Now we get paperwork. We take you over to do a deal to visit DLT physical is done. Hey, we’re gonna take you to lunch. We always take you to a great place for lunches real good. Everybody to brag on it. I’m gonna go ahead and advertise and film we have the best on purpose in the state of Arkansas. David burgers, we take you there, out to lunch, we bring it back and bring it back in the orientation installed the handbook. We finished that I have about three hours of the handbook that I do. And after that, we pretty much done for that Monday. Tuesday, Tuesday, pretty much safety would bring safety and pretty much most of all of Tuesday. Ones great safety director, great safety guy to get a chance to come in and speak to you guys Wednesday. We pretty much do our E logs permits. So things for us tars Some of the discounts that we have some of the things are going to benefit you out there on the highway. I bring some different instructors to talk about tars shops Thursdays to hook up date Thursday morning earlier. We use a hooked you up.

Jeremy Kellett  20:15  

So they need to be prepared to be hot or cold and be outside on Thursday. Thursday’s work day.

Randolph Rochell  20:21  

Oh, it’s work day. It’s the day we use to go out and demo.

Dustin Eagle  20:25  

And I thought that was that makes us different, too: we get out there with you had we get your hands on Randolph gets dirty, sweaty? Well, you’ve all done it. But we get out there and show you how it’s supposed to be done. And Randolph does a great job of that explaining it.

Jeremy Kellett  20:42  

Okay. That’s a good point. So that brings me to Randolph showing me how to do it. Okay. And less specifically, either trailer, any of them. But typically the end dumps, Randolph shows me how to do them out here on the yard. And then we get out and get to run in with other owner-operators. And they show him different than what Randolph show.

Randolph Rochell  21:07  

Oh, he went there.

Jeremy Kellett  21:12  

Opened a can of worms. You don’t show him this just for your health out here. All right. You’ve done it before. You know the best way to do it. We’ve talked with safety. We’ve went over everything on the Beth what best way to dump a dump trailer. And yet we have guys that to get out there and want to do it a lot different than the way you do it. And they create problems that we see. So it goes back to the know, what we said earlier, is trusting Randolph and showing you how to operate it now. I know everybody’s out there right now listening going? Well, Randolph shown us out here on level ground ain’t nothing in the way and all this kind of stuff. But I mean, in steel, the basically the same way?

Randolph Rochell  22:03  

No doubt. It is basically the same way. You pick in dumps and that’s the one we definitely need to stay focus on. Because that’s the one you can pretty much lose the escrow real quick. And we show you the right way out here. We showed you the weight safety, even I say to permanent wounds to be done. We all of those ones that wants to be done, but yet still, a German just spoke. You still don’t trust me, I want you to trust me in orientation. Because I don’t want you to lose your escrow. To know what tomorrow, we want you to do exactly what we tell you, we give you a dumping procedure. As well as after you finish with Randolph. We even going to send you out there with an instructor which he needs to be on the same page that I am, tucked away, we tell you in orientation, we don’t want you to change it up once you get out there. So please, guys trust Randolph. Trust your trainer that we assign you with.

Jeremy Kellett  23:05  

Because how many times have we had bent door hinges? Because dumping wrong and not the way you showed him? How on there are different things in and other situations that call for different ways to dump and trailers, I guess. But boy, that’s a big deal. Because things can change in a hurry on that.

Well, good stuff on this man. I think by explaining orientation to people, not only the ones coming in, Dustin, they can get an idea of what to expect. But even our owner operators that are out there now that hadn’t been through it in a long time probably did the some of them didn’t need go through orientation. But a lot of them can have some input to will help us a lot because those guys out there doing it, Ken, sure enough, we get a little complacent coming in doing it every week and stuff. And I think a lot of times our owner-operators out there can give us feedback on what can help a new guy. Because the majority of people coming through here has never pulled an end dump before, or a hopper, or a pneumatic.

And explaining it and doing it is two different things. But like said, we’ve been saying it all thing all show here. But here at Oakley, I mean from day one from the time we start talking to the time you leave orientation, or in and beyond. We were here for you. We’ve got your back. Oakley is going to take care of you. We’ve got a great reputation out there. And you hear that all the time. I just I’ve never heard a bad thing about Oakley. And a lot of guys don’t believe. “I just can’t believe I’ve never heard a bad thing about Oakley.” And once they get over here, I think these guys understand why because they’ve never had a company invest in them like we do.

Randolph Rochell  25:01  

Well, you got a good reputation, you want to keep it up.

Dustin Eagle  25:03  

It’s important to us. I hear it every day on the phone.

Jeremy Kellett  25:08  

One thing, Randolph, else I was gonna ask you was on the trailer situation. I think it’s important to know for the people coming in to know how hard you work, shop works, dispatch works to get a trailer ready for a new guy. Tell us about that.

Randolph Rochell  25:25  

Well, we goals are here. And try to find the best trailer for you guys. And what I’d normally do is talk to your dispatcher, Paola Trello, is give me a Trello to put in the shop. And we put it in the shop for the guys. And they don’t have to do a level one on your Trello. Before we even hooked you up to date, they does the same thing they do, you take your truck there, he does a level one in his shop, and make sure everything is DLT. Ready. Now after we finish the shop, the shop would park at our hero, we put a king pin lock on it. So you’ll Trello would not be touched by anyone else. And then when you get ready to hook up to that drill, we will give you opportunity, meaning you will walk around that trailer, if we find any defects. Anything wrong with that trailer, we’re gonna put you back in the front line back into sharp and make sure that is taken care of course, again, we want you to be read it row by row read it. And we want you to be successful, we don’t want you leaving her. And the first thing you got to do is get your truck trailer put back in the shop. So we automatic level one, then lead you get opportunity to look over it, inspect it, if you find anything wrong with that trailer, be sure to give with me in our take care, we’ll put you back in the shop.

Dustin Eagle  27:02  

And we also run through the wash bay. Clean them up. Make sure the inside is clean, make sure you’re ready. Looking good.

Randolph Rochell  27:11  

Looking good. And we take Brian in the thriller, we want you to keep them clean. I tell everyone taking the virus you can not wash it too much. I mean, if you got to wash it every other day of washing. If you’re dispatcher has a problem with that, call my director, Mr. Jeremy Kellett, and I promise we’ll make sure that trailer is clean.

Jeremy Kellett  27:33  

I’ve never ever had to tell one of our owner-operators to please stop Washington, Detroit. News Washington too much. I’ve never had to do that. They’re always the opposite key yet down to run it through the wash will pay for run it through there.

Randolph Rochell  27:50  

We get lots of owner-operators over here because of the way we keep our equipment.

Jeremy Kellett  27:58  

That’s a great point. What do we expect out of the truck?

Randolph Rochell  28:03  

Same thing.

Jeremy Kellett  28:06  

They get here. We try to get pictures ahead of time.

Dustin Eagle  28:09  

We try to get pictures. We talk about it with them. How’s his truck being when do you buy? How many miles What’s it weigh? When we go over all that for you get her spot mirror, Spot mirror and all that good? That’s an issue sometimes. But yeah, but that’s a requirement here at Oakley.

Jeremy Kellett  28:10  

Main thing is it’s a good-looking truck that passes DLT inspection we see a bunch of them and we know when somebody takes care of it. If you got the dash full of papers up you caning that hate some sums up there, we really didn’t care that truck so it makes us look a little harder at something but just even down to the frame not being all rusty and peeling and cracking up and making sure we have aluminum wheels. Yeah, having a look on wheels on the truck. I mean, that’s something we require to look nice a paint job look nice. It ain’t got to be brand new, but we don’t need paint peeling. Well, I mean, because we’ve had some crazy things come to orientation. And this is how we’ve learned to ask all these questions.

Dustin Eagle  29:16  

We’ve learned over the years.

Jeremy Kellett  29:19  

Don’t forget to ask because you never know what’s gonna show when the drop visors can be too low. Exactly. I mean, it’s all kinds of stuff that we try to head off at the pass we don’t want anything to be a shocker to you when you get here. We don’t want anything to be a surprise to you when you get here. We because it’s a problem for us too. We’ve worked hard for you to get here and come to orientation probably not as hard as you’ve worked but to not made his drastic changes in our life as you have in years to come to orientation but when we feel responsible, and we want to make sure it’s everything goes pretty smooth so requires a good truck. Good clean, good-looking truck. And we’re gonna put you a good clean, good-looking trailer with a chart. No doubt. Anything else you guys think y’all to add? This is your stage Randolph, I’ll get you up here very often turn loose.

Randolph Rochell  30:14  

I love orientation, guys, so that’s my pet peeve I enjoy because I get a chance to meet different owner-operators, I’ve been there done that. I just enjoy meeting these new guys on Monday morning, sharing my experience with them and his make his work and make my job a lot easier. I know we’re gonna have problems, definitely we are here today talking about it, we want you to bring your truck and your inspectors, you don’t have to get an inspector come, we’re gonna inspect it here. But make sure you look over it to make sure it can pass the DLT inspection calls if you don’t, and we do find something that could delay the whole orientation. One person can delay the whole entail, especially when you dealing with hip problems, hip problems and other things cuz we weighed on this. And we weighed in on that.

Jeremy Kellett  31:09  

And we’re not going to start— and this is another thing we haven’t talked about: installing wet kits and blowers. If you’re going to a dump, a lot of times we’re putting a weight cable putting a blower on your truck, but one of the pneumatics and had to take some time for the shop to do. We’re not going to start on it until everything is clear. Physicals, truck, everything. Because we don’t want to start on it. And then something happened and then you got to put it back.

Dustin Eagle  31:34  

And they were just doubled back.

Randolph Rochell  31:36  

Exactly. That’s a delay there.

Jeremy Kellett  31:37  

And that makes the owner-operator and orientation distracted own that he can’t think about what’s going on. And the other side is we’re telling them so much information and orientation is so hard to remember everything. I mean, there’s no way they can, but we try to give them everything that they need to start out and not worry about the little things, just take care of what you can.

Dustin Eagle  32:07  

And that’s what I think’s cool about orientation, too, as a recruiter. Some of these guys talk to for five years coming in here. And I feel like I know him better than some of my friends. I’ve talked to him for so long. And it’s cool to finally get him in here and put a face to somebody you’ve been talking to for a long, long time. And by the end of the four days, you leave out here thanking you. You do have another friend. Like you always say, every morning, “Welcome to the family,” “Hey, man, welcome to the Oakley family.” And love them guys. Love hearing that because I watch him. And well Randolph says that that makes them feel good.

Randolph Rochell  32:48  

And we do become a family. When they go home that Friday, it’s touching sometimes.

Jeremy Kellett  32:53  

And they swap numbers? They make friends, typically.

Randolph Rochell  32:59  

They give me big hugs, we smile, we laugh, shake hands, and “Hey, let’s go make some money.”

Dustin Eagle  33:07  

Makes you feel good when you see your guys out here on the yard and they’re smiling, made friends. They love it here makes you feel good, makes us feel good, and we’re like, we did it right.

Jeremy Kellett  33:22  

Great way to end the conversation, I think, guys. That’s a good way to end it. Because we put a lot of into this orientation and recruiting and it’s there’s a lot to it. And it’s very important that orientation goes well for people. Thank goodness we got ol’ Randolph to keep it going. He does a great job.

Randolph Rochell  33:41  

Thank you.

Dustin Eagle  33:41  

He does a wonderful job. Just got to keep him for another 10 years.

Jeremy Kellett  33:41  

Think you can get that done?

Randolph Rochell  33:49  

I’m gonna try.

Jeremy Kellett  33:52  

I think we’re gonna have to ease up on a day or two here and there.

Dustin Eagle  33:55  

That’s it. He doesn’t work.

Jeremy Kellett  34:00  

All right. Well, thanks, everybody for listening to the Oakley podcast. We appreciate it every week is something different coming at you and we thought this week would be good just to get back to our roots and talk about orientation in the process and how we’re here to help you get through it. So appreciate everybody listening. Be sure to subscribe a comment lock on our YouTube page. Check us out spread the word about the Oakley podcast and what we’re doing here at Oakley trucking. Hey, if you’re thinking about leasing on you want to know more information. Give us a call up your office. We’ll be glad to visit with you if you got specific questions about orientation that we haven’t discussed. Feel free to call Randolph and ask him anytime he’s he’s usually pretty free on Tuesdays, while safety’s in there to answer any kind of questions and Fridays for sure. So be sure to check us out. Let us know if you get any questions any subjects you want to hear us talk about here on the Oakley podcast and once again, we appreciate y’all and we’ll talk to you next week.

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