02/25/12

02/25/12 - Well, not much to say except this company stays busy! The shortest day that I have worked was 12.5 hours and most are right at 14. This past week I worked about 67 hours.

My trainer rode with me for the first day explaining the ropes. He saw that I had a grasp of what was going on so from the second day forward he was in his truck and I would follow him. He would help me load, strap the cars down and unload on Tuesday and Wednesday. The next 4 days he was still with me but I did all of the work myself with him watching from a distance. After a week and a day I was signed off.

To give you an idea of a day, yesterday I went to Lawton, OK unloading 4 used cars from the auction, back to Ft. Worth to load 4 new Hondas, delivered those to Ardmore, OK then back to Ft. Worth. Im still slow at loading/unloading but that will come with time and Im not in a rush as I dont want to damage and cars.

Before I came to work here I talked to several employees and drivers for other companies. Nobody had anything negative to say about this company. Even talking with fellow employees since I started, nothing has changed. The owners and management is laid back and so far everyone seems to be really nice. I think Im going to like this place once I get used to the hours.

February 07

February 07 - My how quickly things change. I wont be working for Schneider after all.

Yesterday as I was just about to leave the house to take my DOT physical and drug screen for Schneider I got a phone call from a place that I have been trying to go to work for for a long time. They were offering me a job so I took it.

I called the recruiter at Schneider and told her what was going on. She was very nice and told me that I was welcome at Schneider at any time. To be honest I am pretty impressed with Schneider and the way that they operate.

Anyway, I will be working at C.A.R. Transport. They deliver new cars to the dealerships and also deliver cars to/from the auctions. This is more like what Im used to and I think that I will really enjoy this job.

I have talked to people that drive for C.A.R. as well as other car transporters and 100% tell me that this is a very well respected company and a great place to work! This is very encouraging!

He said that I could start as early as tomorrow and as late as Monday. We are just waiting on the trainer to come back into town.

This is the truck (White) that I will be driving and hopefully move up to one of the larger trucks (red) in the future.

January 31

January 31 - Well, due to recent paychecks being horrible among a few other dislikes with Stevens I have been searching for another job. I accepted a position today with Schnieder as a local intermodal driver.

In other words I will pick up shipping containers at the rail yard in Ft Worth and deliever them. This is a local position so I will be home every night with my family. I will be working Monday though Friday with the option of working extra days.

I fly out to Chicago February 12 for training.

January 23

And... soon after I made that post my computer caught a virus and I wasnt able to make any updates.

January 23 - Delivered this morning at 0515 in Clarksville, Arkansas. Got a new load assignment right away that is in Ft. Smith, Arkansas going to Kent, Washington.

I get to the shipper around 0800 and they want to see a receipt for a trailer washout and they also inform me that my company didnt make a loading appointment so they charged me a $100 "fit in fee".

So now I go get the trailer washed out and back into a door at 1000. It is now almost 1400 and they have not touched my trailer.

Life of a truck driver...

January 02

January 02 - Well, it has been quite awhile since my last update. I have to access the internet via my cell phone and the program that I am using wont let me access a secured site unless I register the program. Well, sure enough this blog is a secure site. I finally got the program registered so hopefully I will be able to update more often.

Since I started driving solo in August I have run 45,174 miles for an average of 2259 per week. I guess that not too bad but I would love to see more. I just need to make more money per mile. I have bills to pay and cant do it on this salary.

Right now I am sitting in Liberal, Kansas waiting on a load to get ready. It has 4 drops. First at a Marine base in Twentynine Palms, CA then to Van Nuys, CA then my last two stops are in San Diego at Miramar Naval Air Station.

They sent this load to me yesterday afternoon. According to my load assignment it was supposed to be ready on New Years Eve but like I said, today is the 2^nd and I’m still waiting. The guard told me that the plant is shut down until tomorrow for the holiday so here I sit at a gas station that has truck parking. This isn’t even a truck stop so no shower!

July 18

Well, after a couple of weeks at home and in Dallas I am finally back on the road again.

This time I am out for 3 weeks with a finshing trainer. He will basically have me do almost all of the work and make sure that I do it correctly. After this phase is over with I will go back to Dallas and take about 2 days of classes. After that they will assign my truck to me and I become a solo driver.

For this phase of my training I am on a truck that runs a dedicated route from California to Atlanta. We are in a brand new Freighter with less than 18,000 miles on it. Man, this thing is really quite and rides like a Cadillac!

June 24

June 24 – Been at the truckstop all day long. We don’t load until 4pm tomorrow in Oregon.

June 23

June 23 – My how plans change. We were going to repower in Oklahoma City then getting to Dallas Friday night or Saturday. Now it seems that someone needed to be repowered in Gallup, NM with the load going to Salt Lake City by 4AM. We swapped trailers and hit the road. This runis my plans for getting home for the weekend! ERRRRR!!!

While we were on northern Colorado on 191 I just happen to look up and see at least 3 and maybe 4 deer leisurely walking across the road in our lane. Yep, we hit them at 65mph. Got the truck pulled over and checked under the truck and looked for damage on the truck. The only thing that we saw was the license plate was missing. While my trainer makes the required phone calls, I go back and look for the license plate. I found it along with one deer that was on the side of the road. I am pretty sure that we hit a second deer so I am thinking that it was able to run into the field to die.

We finally made it to the receiver and only 30 minutes late. Got unloaded and to a truckstop this morning.

June 21

June 21 - Now we are at our first of three pickups for this load going to CT. We are only going to take this load to around Oklahoma City then have someone repower it from us so we can get to Dallas by Friday or Saturday.

June 20

June 20 – Spent almost all day sitting in a truckstop waiting. Saw some interesting sights such as my first real life lot lizard and then there was the guy that was dressed like a woman… We finally left around 5:30pm local time for our delivery. Got unloaded then went to a dump of a truckstop for the night.

June 19

June 19 – Went into the truckstop this morning to brush my teeth and do my morning thing and the power had just gone out. They said a town about 80 miles out had a big fire and it burnt some powerlines so the power company was alternating power between communities. Right now I am sitting in the truck waiting until 2pm so we can leave. The wind is very strong. Its blowing the truck/trailer really hard. I sure hope that it dies down before we leave! Before the day was done we ran into a lot of high winds and heavy rains.