So me and my wife are just getting started in the OTR team driving industry. We chose werner since they took her with no experience, and credited my experience of 6 years local in Florida, not sure why, FL didn't teach me anything for what i'm experiencing out here in the snow and mountains, either way I appreciate the increased salary, it definitly helps. Plus they have a terminal in lakeland where we live, and they allow our puppy in the truck!
I am going to post updates on here as often as I can, so anyone who might be considering Werner as a team driver can get an idea of how they work. And if anyone has any comments or suggestions I can always come on here and read what people have to say. I credit Evertrucker from Crete carrier with the idea of doing this, he inspired me. I won't have nearly the detail that he does, since I'm lazy, but maybe one day when I get more settled in this job, I can post better updates.
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day one 3-8-11
Picking a load up in jacksonville, fl at noon. Its going to
carrollton which is a town next to dallas, tx. 1100 miles. It
delivers between 6am and 8am but it should already be loaded when we
get there so we might be able to make it on time. 20 hrs to cover
1100 miles. No shower for any of us today.
day two
Today we delivered our load in carrollton, tx which is near dallas.
We were able to drop our loaded trl and grab an empty which was nice,
its always great when you don't have to worry about being live
unloaded. Only problem was, our next load picked up right down the
street and we got there three hours early. They told us to come back
later to pick it up.
It had been almost three days without a shower, so we figured that
would be the perfect opportunity to go and get clean. I checked my
trucker GPS and located a truck stop about 20 miles away. We went
ahead and took care of business and came back to the shipper still
half an hour early. Luckily they let us back into a dock and loaded
us up within a few mins.
This next load is going from coppell, tx to columbus, ohio. 1075
miles. Have to be there by 2 pm but I think we will be there by 10
am. Hope they don't mind us being there early. Lindsey is driving up
until she runs out of hours at around 8pm and then ill take over. I
will probably cover the remaining 700 miles to the receiving customer
tonight while she sleeps. Only have 11 hrs of drive time to
accomplish this. Might be close.
day three
So we delivered our load in colmbus ohio and at the receiving
customer they actually loaded us back up with some more freight and
sent us back to coppel (dallas) , tx. 1050 miles. Its nice to keep
moving, I feel so productive! We arrived in texas the next morning
and made our delivery.
Next load picks up at some general mills warehouse in roanoke, tx.
Only 19 miles down the road. Looks like its going to laredo, tx
which is where the werner terminal is. Its a load going to mexico
but we won't take it across the border, one of them spanish speakers
will be doing that part.
The load doesn't deliver until 1030 am tomorrow morning and its 6pm
right now, and its a 8 hr drive. Looks like we have some free time.
Because its going to our terminal we always have the option of
dropping the trailer early and getting another load to keep moving,
but I also haven't been sleeping too good lately trying to get used
to sleeping in a moving truck. Basically its like trying to convince
your body to feel comfortable enough to sleep during an earthquake
that will last all night long, and you might be on the floor when you
wake up. So I took the advantage of the situation and drove to a
nearby truck stop for some rest.
Me and lindsey had a nice meal at ihop, took a shower and then a 4
hour nap. Its 1 am and time to continue on with my next load
day four
So as soon as I start headed south for laredo, my computer goes off
with a msg from dispatch. Apparantly they want me to drop my load
and switch it with another driver near austin, tx. Apparantly he's
having truck issues and needs to get back to a terminal and have his
truck serviced. So he is gonna take my load down to laredo and ill
grab whatever he had.
We meet up a few hrs later and exchange trailers. 250 miles of paid
driving and more to come, this ones going to detroit, mi. It has a
final destination of canada but they aren't making us go that far, so
we will just drop it somewhere in detroit. From austin, tx its 1350
miles. Should be up there within 22 to 24 hours. Isn't team driving
cool?
I ended up taking the load as far north as I can and stopped at
little rock, AR. Lindsey will be taking over and driving until
around midnight then ill take over and be at the place in detroit
around 6 am.
Off to sleep, or at least I'm gonna try my best with all this shaking
around!
day five
I arrived at the drop yard in detroit this morning at 730 am and
tried to drop this trl here but dispatch needed me to get it
inspected because its going to canada. As its Sunday I was unsure if
the shop would be open or not. After some asking around it seemed
they open at 9am. I waited untill 9am and got my trailer inspected.
Luckily it passed. I have yet to have any real issues with Werners
equipment, most of the issues so far are minor and they stem from the
drivers before me not having a brain. Like misplacing trailer
registration and leaving it for me to deal with.
So I went ahead and sent my message on the computer informing
dispatch that I had dropped my trailer here and was rdy to pick ip my
next load. This was at 10 am. A couple hrs later I still had not
received any information about what I was doing next. I figured
maybe dispatch was letting us have our reset so I asked them if we
were having our 34 hr break or not. No reply. So me and lindsey
went to bed.
We wake up at around 6pm with the computer beeping at us with a load
to pick up. So much for our day off, guess we won't be able to get
laundry taken care of yet, but at least we got a shower. We looked
at the load information and it is picking up here at the drop yard
and going to lenoir, NC. Its 600 miles away but doesn't deliver til
10am tomorrow. So we took the opportunity to walk to a nearby ihop
for dinner.
Hitting the road now with lindsey behind the wheel. We might be
going thru some mountains once we hit virginia so I asked her to wake
me up then. She needs me to be awake for her first time, I won't
argue with that. Ill probably end up taking over anyway since she
hates driving late into the night as she gets tired when its dark. I
get tired too but I guess I'm used to forcing myself to stay up, been
driving for almost 7 yrs now.
day six
I took over driving at around 4 am after lindsey had stopped at 1 for
a couple hr nap. I really don't sleep much at all while she's
driving so whenever we get some spare time I try and use it to sleep.
Good thing I only napped 3 hrs because I barely made it to our
customer with 1 minute to spare.
We are in north carolina getting unloaded, somewhere near hickory. I
guess that's the western side of the state. We have another load
that picks up 130 miles away in Eden, NC. Its in the middle of
nowhere real close to virginia state line. Looks like a load of beer
from the miller brewery.
I get to the brewery and am excited to find a trailer already loaded
and rdy to go, but as usual there's no valid trailer registration.
This is getting to be a real pain in the ###. I had to go get the
fax number of the brewerys shipping office so my company could send a
registration. Took about an hour of my time, all due to another
drivers incompetence. I really don't understand how its so hard for
other people to put things back where it came from.
Anyways, I finally leave out of the brewery, this load is going to
north east, md. Yes that's the actual name of a city in maryland.
Up near baltimore. Its only a 360 mile trip but that's ok, we are
both tired and running low on hours, its been a long week.
I drove for two hrs since leaving the brewery and lindsey is taking
over for the rest of the way. Dispatch just sent us a preassigned
load that is picking up tomorrow in delaware after we get done
delivering this MD load. Its going to laredo, TX, and 1700 miles.
Normally id be thrilled to do that run, but we have almost no hours
left to work so we had to turn it down. Probably gonna take our 34
hr reset after this load is delivered. Anyhow off to bed I go...
day seven
We arrived at a truck stop just outside of baltimore, MD at around 12
am. The load didn't deliver until the next morning at 9 am so I
figure we could use some rest and find somewhere to take a nap. I
really hate the north east part of the country, too many ppl, not
enough parking for semis, and u have to pay to park at a truck stop
if u can actually find a spot open. Most of the roads are piss poor
quality and confusing to navigate. I see why some companies pay
extra to drive up here.
Anyhow, I get up at like 6am and drive to the customer, get there at
8am. We figure we are getting the 34 hr reset so the preassigned
load went away. We are both looking forward to a day off when
dispatch calls us, saying we don't need time off as we have plenty of
hrs left to work. Not really sure how we have "plenty", cuz we both
have been running hard for the past week and if we ran on hours
gained, we would have to worry about only driving 8 hrs here and 7
hrs there, which is awful for a team. This is why I enjoy having a
reset, to wipe our slate clean and we can come back on duty and
continue to run hard, and not worry about only being able to drive
half a day.
So I guess we won't be getting any days off at all according to our
dispatch, that's just how they want to run us. Oh well, we will just
be out for 8 weeks without a single day off. Not many jobs out there
that are like ours. I can't even think of a single job that requires
u to work 7 days a week. I don't know how we will get laundry done.
Well I just left the customer in MD and we need to pick up a load
over in newark, delaware. Only problem is that the trailer we have
is not air ride equipped and this is one of those picky ###
customers. So now I have to message dispatch and ask where I'm
supposed to get a better trailer from. Like an hour later they
respond and tell me to pick up an air ride trailer from the werner
drop yard in fairless hills, pa. That's over near philly, about 70
miles from where I am.
Not too fond of the idea of having to drive 140 miles out of our way
just to get another empty trailer for this customer who doesn't like
the old fashion trailers... oh well, at least we get paid to drive
those extra miles, I think.
We arrive at the drop yard in PA and luckily find a good air ride
trailer, only problem is, once again, no registration. So I just grab
the #### trailer and head to a nearby truck stop and have the company
fax a copy over. Took an hour of my time, by the way. Really
getting tired of having to deal with other drivers laziness. Oh
well, gotta keep my CSA score clean somehow.
We arrive at the shipper in newark, de. At 430 pm for a 5pm pickup,
would of got there earlier but we had a hell of a time finding the
place. Gps was wrong and they hadn't been answering their phone all
day when we tried asking for directions. We ended up taking a chance
and driving further down the road than we thought we had to, and sure
enough there it was. At least they bothered to put up a sign, which
is more than what most places do. Sometimes ya just gotta guess if
its the right place, and if its not, it can be a real pain in the ###
to turn a big truck around.
Loading begins around 530 pm and at 630 we are out of there, lindsey
begins driving up until around 1030 when she runs out of hours, so
then it'll be my turn to drive. I'm really not looking forward to
driving all night considering I had been awake all day long. See the
way teams are supposed to work is one person drives half a day while
the other sleeps, then you swap around and the other one takes over.
Only problem is, lindsey is still new to all this and isn't quite
capable of doing everything on her own. She's a good driver but
there's a lot of stuff for her to learn. I hope it'll get easier for
us soon when we are more used to it.
Anyway, ill update when we get closer to TX. 1800 miles woohoo!
day eight
So I drove all night down to georgia, stopped around 630 am. Lindsey
is still asleep and her hours don't come back til 815. So I laid in
bed with her and took a two hr nap. She got up and hit the road with
me passed the hell out in the bunk. I think I slept pretty good, or
as good as I can while the truck is moving. She only got to drive
for 9 hours today instead of the usual 11 thanks to dispatch not
letting us get a reset, but she still got some decent miles today.
I'm fixing to take over, we are in western louisiana and I'm going to
run us the rest of the way down to laredo, tx tonight. Should be
there at 5am tomorrow morning.
day nine
so I didn't end up getting to laredo, tx at 6am like I had originally
planned, because dispatch won't allow us to have us take a 34 hr
reset, so it screws with our schedules. Really starting to dislike
the way the company is running us. I was forced to sit in a truck
stop all evening until midnight. Got to laredo around 11 am, and I
went to bed because I was exhausted, I actually slept because I woke
up in arkansas. I guess we got a load from the werner terminal in tx
and lindsey got going without needing my help.
This next load is going up to manchester, tn. Near nashville. 1150
miles. Should be there around 1 pm. My turn to drive.
day ten
So I get to the customer at 2 pm and get unloaded in no time. We wait
a couple hrs for another load and see that its picking up 100 miles
away in clarksville, tn. Just north of nashville. Its going to
tyrone, pa but we are only taking it to the werner terminal in
indianapolis, IN. Approx 300 miles.
Lindsey is taking over driving and should make it up to indianapolis
at around 4 in the morning and we don't gotta be there till 8am.
Should give us both time for a nice little snooze. You never really
sleep too good in the back of a moving truck, especially with the
conditions of some of these roads. We take all the naps we can get.
If we ever have to wait a couple hrs for anything, we use that spare
time for sleeping.
day eleven
So I wake up around 8 am and still see there's no load for us on the
computer system. Go back to bed until 10 am, and finally get woken
up with a load offer. I was surprised to see that we aren't getting
a load from the indianapolis terminal cuz there's tons of loaded
trailers here, and usually we pick one up and keep rolling,but nope,
that's not what dispatch has planned for us today.
We have to take an empty trailer 20 miles down the road to get loaded
up with water bottles, going to delaware, ohio. Near columbus. A
whole 200 mile trip. So yesterday we had a crappy 300 mile load, and
today a 200 mile one. This is what solo drivers do, not teams.
Well, maybe they're being nice and letting us rest. We have been
running our ### off lately.
I'm at the bottle factory now as I type this, its one of those places
that takes forever to load you, so I'm probably gonna take a 2 hr nap
again. Then my load delivers at 6pm in ohio.
.....
Well I got to my delivery in columbus a little early, got unloaded
real quick and didn't have any load preassigned to us, so while we
waited we headed on over to a nearby truck stop for a quick shower.
By the time we got back there was 2 loads. One picking up at a sears
distribution center here in columbus, going to indianapolis, IN. 180
miles. Then after that we will deadhead 100 miles to louisville, KY
and get a load going to dallas, tx. 860 miles. Lindsey is taking
over tonight and I'm going to bed.
day twelve
So I wake up this morning in louisville, KY around 8 am at the
customer. Lindsey heads off to sleep and I'm left to deal with
checking in to this customer. I ask the guard what to do, and he
tells me precisely where to go. I drive on thru the gate and locate
the warehouse building where I'm supposed to be.
I bang on the door, hit the buzzer, no response. Try again, nothing.
I'm standing outside of this building right where the security guard
tells me to go, and I've hit the buzzer 50 times in the past half an
hour and nothing. I call my dispatch and the only thing they tell me
is "they're probably busy, hang tight". Gotta love Sunday
dispatchers. After close to an hour someone finally answers and
tells me I'm at the wrong side of the building. Gee, that would of
been nice to know an hour ago. Once again I suffer due to someone
elses incompetence.
So I go around to the other side of this massive warehouse, back into
a dock, and get loaded almost instantly. Maybe they felt bad for me
waiting so long. Anyhow, I'm off on my 860 mile journey down to the
north dallas area. Oh yeah, it should take a long time. Its one of
these high value loads that I had to get briefed on, basically use a
padlock on the trailer, don't stop at all until you're 200 miles
away, don't park for a long time unless its a secure well lit area,
don't tell anyone what your hauling. All this stuff I'm used to,
what I didn't expect was them telling me that I'm only allowed to
haul this load at 50 mph. Really? So I get paid the same per mile,
but it takes me much longer to complete this journey.
I still don't understand the point in going so slow, on the
interstate with 70mph traffic, I'm just asking to get rear ended. As
ridiculous as this request is, I comply, and hit the road, putt
putting along like a grandma, with everyone flying past me looking at
me like I'm an #######. Well, I got a whole 300 miles in the past 7
hrs. Lindseys turn to drive, she should be getting there at around 6
am tomorrow.
day thirteen
So we get to sanger, tx on time. What an exhausting load. I
actually had to finish the last little part of the trip cuz lindsey
ran out of hrs. I think I'm going to refuse the load if dispatch
tries to give us another 50 mph one. I got flipped off by some
enraged motorist, I can understand why. I would have flipped myself
off, 50 mph for 1100 miles is just absurd.
We drop our trailer at walmart and there's no empty trailers to pick
up... well, there's one but its a stone age piece of sh.t. the back
end of the trailer was all rusted up and the license plate was
flaking and falling apart, it was illegible. Dispatch told me to
head to home depot to get an empty trailer. Ok no problem, I ask
where this home depot is. Apparantly its on the other side of
dallas, 90 miles away. Great, all this work to pick up an empty
trailer so I can pick up my next load.
Well I get my empty trailer and drive back up to mcckinney, tx.
North side of dallas. This load is going up to maumee, oh. Not sure
how to pronounce it but I think its mommy. Small town up near
toledo, ohio which is on the michigan state line. A 1300 mile trip.
At least we can run 65 mph for this one
day fourteen
So we get up to maumee, ohio on time, which turned out to be a UPS
hub. Drop and hook, was out of there in no time. The next load
didn't pick up until midnight and it was currently the afternoon,
well guess we get a shower and there's a nice big petro here with 400
parking spots and a diner.
Well, back to the truck and ready to go. I love those little diners,
should stop at petro more often.
The next load picks up at an airport in swanton, ohio. Its going to
miami, fl. 1350 miles.
day fifteen
So we get to the airport at midnight for a 1am pickup. We back into
a dock and take the opportunity for a nice little nap while they load
our truck. At 430 am they start knocking on our door. Wow. 4 hours
to load us, well at least I got some sleep. Anyways, gotta be in
miami by 7am tomorrow. Off we go.
day sixteen
So we make it to miami at 7am, and get unloaded. We ask dispatch for
some time off cuz we are exhausted, so they let us have 12 hrs.
Unfortunately we are in northern cuba, so finding any place to park
will be difficult.
I find a pilot truck stop a few miles away, its on US 27 near the
826. Its real cramped and u gotta pay to park there. Oh well, I just
want some real sleep. We park the truck and take a shower, then it
was nap time again. I slept a solid 6 hrs, more than I've had in the
past two weeks.
We let dispatch know we are ready for a load around 8 pm, and by 9
they have us on a load picking up in orlando, fl at 7am tomorrow.
Well I decide to go ahead and make a move now because I don't speak
enough spanish to be welcome in this town for too long. I decide to
take 27 all the way up cuz it leads right up to where I live in
winter haven. We take the oppportunity to shop at the local walmart
for supplies and sleep in their parking lot. I would have liked to
go home since its less than a mile away, but I don't think my
driveway is quite big enough for a semi. Oh well, only four more
weeks to go.
day seventeen - day twenty
So lindsey takes over driving from the walmart we slept at and heads
down the road to orlando, we make it there around 7 am. Kinda had a
hard time finding the place cuz it was down a side street that had no
name on it, and the business had no signs visible from the road.
Thank god for my android phone and google maps satellite view. Its a
real nice tool to have on the road.
We get loaded pretty fast, but right as we were leaving the customer,
we lose all our air pressure in the truck and couldn't really go
anywhere. I thought it was a bad air compressor. We pull over and
call a mechanic out. He was pretty fast, only took 30 min to come
help us. Usually you wait hours for a mechanic to show up. I guess
we had a bad leak on the truck, so he fixed it and we was on our way
again.
The load had a final destination of michigan, up near detroit. But
dispatch wanted us to drive to the atlanta terminal to get our
service done, it was a bit overdue. Great, there's some other things
id like to have done also besides that, this truck is a piece of s.
Lindsey drives up to atlanta, about a 7 hr drive while I lay in the
back tossing and turning, I felt every single mile of the journey. I
don't know what it is, I am perfectly comfortable in this bed. I
must worry too much about her, like a subconcious thing that I can't
help. I wish I could just close my eyes and fall asleep, then wake
up 8 hrs later and be my turn to drive, but it doesn't happen that
way, its miserable. So after being awake for all her driving shift,
I drive on no sleep.
What makes things worse is that I have a cold that just came on, and
I doubt dispatch will be too happy to let us park for a few days
while I recover. So now I'm going to be tired and miserable from a
cold, and have to drive us out of atlanta once we are done.
We get to the atlanta terminal and I tell them what we need. I had a
long laundry list of stuff including a new windshield cuz ours had a
crack in it. We ended up getting a motel room down the street cuz I
knew it'd be a while. Good thing motel 6 allows puppys!
We end up staying in the motel for two days waiting on the truck. We
finally got our 34 hr break that we wanted, and because I was sick,
it was wonderful that this happened at a motel where I could relax
and sleep. We weren't making any money, but I don't think I could of
made it to michigan with how I was feeling, guess it worked out for
the best.
When we came back to the terminal Monday morning to pick up our
truck, I noticed the same trailer we dropped off here was still
here. It had a load on it that was supposed to be delivered in
michigan by today, and we told dispatch that we probably wouldn't be
able to finish taking that load up cuz our truck was in the shop.
You'd figure they'd have gotten someone to cover it. Now that
customer will be getting their load a couple days late. Oh well, not
our problem. I passed the message on, its up to dispatch at that
point.
We tell dispatch we r available for a load, and shortly they reply
back. I would have expected them to give us the same one,
considering it was still here, and kinda needed to be delivered,
since it was late. Guess not. We are given a load that picks up 30
miles away in the south atlanta area and is going to indianapolos,
indiana. 550 miles. Not great for a team, but whatever, at least we
got something.
First task is finding an empty trailer. Should be fun. I known from
my experience, even at my last job, finding an empty trailer that u
can use at a terminal is like finding a needle in a haystack. Never
really understood why its like this. You have a terminal with 100
trailers, 90 will be loaded, and 9 will be red tagged, meaning
they're empty but u can't use them for some reason, usually they are
in need of work. And there's that one trailer that u just gotta hope
u can find before someone else does.
Locating an empty trailer out of all the loaded ones is easy, all u
have to do is find one that doesn't have a seal on the back. I found
a couple that I liked. They were new and in good condition, and I
have no way of knowing if they're tagged or not cuz nobody puts
anything telling me otherwise. You just have to call dispatch and
ask.
After calling dispatch over and over with multiple trailer numbers
asking if I can take this one, and being told no, probably 5 times,
they finally ask me if I can find a certain trailer number. Great,
they are actually giving me a solution. Well I drive around the lot,
I see the trailer, it looks good, I hook my truck up to it, and of
course, no registration. Not even an expired one, nothing. Its
amazing what morons I work with, do they remove this official looking
paperwork on purpose and think its useful to wipe their ### with it?
So of course I call up my friends at the permit department and ask
them to fax me a trailer registration.
They only ever give me temp. Permits if the original is lost. Maybe
cuz its cheaper? Only problem is, it lasts a month, and u can be sure
the next trailer u hook up to will have an expired one. So its just
a never ending cycle. 10% of the time a trailer will have its
original registration left on it, 40% of the time it has a temp
registration which means some bumbeling fool who fails at life lost
the original and another driver went thru the trouble to get a temp
one, which is ALWAYS expired when I see it. Which figures, this
company has 10,000 trailers and they're using registration that last
a whole 30 days, and most drivers won't even check them anyways. So
u can be #### sure if its a temp one, its done expired. And the
other 50% of the trailers have nothing at all. More toilet paper I
guess, or a hankey, who knows what these losers do with it.
Ok I'm done venting, its just amazing how such a trivial thing is
lost upon so many people. When ya see something important, like
documemts, leave them alone and take care of them. Not rocket
surgury! Anyhow....
So I get the registration faxed over, I stick it on the trailer, and
we head down the road to pick up our load, 30 min late, mind you.
Can ya see why I get frustrated now?
luckily our load is loaded on a trailer already so we drop and hook
and scoot. Out of there in no time. Lindsey is driving and she gets
to kentucky before shutting down for the night. I start driving, get
to the customer and make my delivery. No problems getting unloaded,
and I'm sent another load.
Wowee, it picks up 5 miles away and is going to the chicago illinois
area. A whole 180 miles. I can have all this done before lindsey
wakes up so I don't have to hear her moaning about this terrible load
we got, maybe by the time she wakes up we will have something better.
I go ahead and complete the bullsh.. crappy load, and I am
immediately rewarded with a 2100 mile load. It picks up 30 miles
away on the other side of chicago and is going to sacramento, ca.
Woot. Cali baby. Always wanted to go there. I show up at 6 am to
pick up my load, and they tell me its not gonna be rdy till 11 am.
Oh well, maybe I can nap. Actually I know I'm gonna nap. If the
truck isn't moving I can sleep, and I won't miss my chance.
Its 11 and the load is rdy, lindsey is awake and bouncing with joy
after I tell her where we are going. She's going to start driving
and I'm gonna try and sleep, ill probably take over around nebraska.
This should be a fun night of driving for me.
day twenty two
So our great load to cali ended up being taken away from us. Which
would figure. Anytime I'm excited for something, I get screwed. We
were around salt lake city, utah. About 2/3 the way to cali and we
get told to drop the load off at the yard in salt lake city. Great,
so we only get 1400 miles instead of 2100. Apparantly another truck
driver needed a load to get him home. That's fine I guess, people
need to get home sometimes, just wish we weren't getting screwed.
The part that really pissed me off is that we were preassigned a load
going from cali to new jersey. 3k miles. But since we weren't going
to cali now, we of course lost that big money load. So now we get a
load that picks up 30 miles away and is going to seattle, washington.
800 miles.
We get loaded 2 hrs later and start our drive. After about 2 hrs we
get a message asking us to swap our load with another guy at a nearby
truckstop. I guess he wasn't going to be able to deliver his load on
time but the load we had, there was lots of downtime on ours. Makes
sense I guess. But once again more delays for us and less pay
ultimately. The load we had now is going to portland, oregon.
day twenty three
I arrive in portland, OR at 8 in the morning after a wonderful drive.
It was one of the most scenic routes I've ever been down, the
interstate ran parrallel with the columbia river for like 100 miles,
and on the other side of the river I could see washington state.
Lots of mountains and cliffs with waterfalls. A nearby train going
thru a little tunnel on the side of the mountain, it was a sight to
behold. You don't see this stuff in florida.
I deliver my load and I am quickly sent another load that picks up
down the street, its going to mexico but of course we always drop it
on the border in laredo, tx. 2150 miles. Should take about 2 days.
day twenty five
So we arrive in laredo, tx at 7pm. Woulda been here around noon but
we took an hour at a truck stop in alberqerque, new mexico to have
some food at dennys, there must be a lot of crime there cuz the truck
stop had an armed security guard just standing around. Then we saw a
lot lizard walking around propositioning drivers, now that was funny.
Then we took a 4 hr nap before I made a move and got on the road. I
still have trouble sleeping in a moving truck so I took the
opportunity while we were parked to get some rest. I really wish I
didn't have to keep stopping for sleep, but I need to sleep somehow
and its not working for me whenever lindsey is driving.
Oh well, we are at the terminal in tx now and gonna shower and do
laundry, 3 weeks worth. I almost was at the point where I was gonna
throw these clothes away and just buy new ones.
day twenty six
Nothing for us today, guess we are just enjoying the day off. Still
have my cold a week later so maybe this extra rest will help me get
over it.
day twenty seven
So we had a load going from the laredo terminal over to houston. 300
miles. Arrived at 10 am, didn't get unloaded until 1 pm, then went
over to a nearby walmart to wait for the next load and grab some
supplies. I purchased a queen sized memory foam matress and folded
it in half so it would be double as thick on my single bed in the
truck. Man its comfortable. I doubt ill still be able to sleep
though, I'm very weird about how I sleep and having a 65 mph bed is
very uneasy for me.
We get a load picking up at a werner drop yard down the road and its
going to san antonio. Only 180 miles. Lindsey takes over driving
and I attempt to nap for 3 hrs.... not so much.
we get to the customer at 730 and are unloaded in san antonio by 10.
The next load we have is down the road from here, but doesn't pick up
until 10 the next morning. That's 12 hrs of downtime. Well there's
a petro truck stop 5 miles away so we decide to shower and sit down
at their nice little diner for some food, and get some sleep.
day twenty eight
So we get to the customer at 9 am and are loaded by 10. This one is
going to greeley, colorado. 1000 miles away, its over by denver.
Have to be there by 8 am tomorrow morning. Lindsey will drive as far
as she can tonight and then ill take over and finish the drive until
we get there in the morning. Gonna try and nap until its my turn
tonight.
day twenty nine
So of course dispatch wouldn't let us do the whole load from san
antonio to greeley, colorado. They asked us to swap it with someone
who needed to get gome. We get to the split location at 8 am in
pueblo, colorado. Just south of denver. Only 900 miles for this load
instead of 1k like I wanted.
The people who I'm swapping loads with is trying to get home cuz they
have been out for 10 weeks. I can't imagine being gone that long. I
have been out for a month and I'm already dying to go home. Maybe
if I could sleep I wouldn't be so miserable. We stopped at walmart a
few min ago and picked up some melatonin, maybe that will help me
sleep today.
This load is going to sacramento, cali. 1300 miles. Our preassigned
load going to springfield missouri. 1900 miles, good load, but I
won't hold my breath. They usually take good stuff away from us.
Well I'm going to bed, ill probably finish the rest of the drive to
cali tonight,
day thirty
So we were pretty close to our customer when I encountered donners
pass for the first time. And of course it was snowing, in april.
Where's all this global warming people keep talking about? They had
the chain law in effect so we pulled over and wondered what to do. I
saw people all around me putting chains on their trucks and I had no
idea what to do. I've never had to put chains on, since I've only
ever been in florida, and my trainer never showed me how. So I guess
I'm screwed.
There's people in neon clothes going around offering to do it for
you... for 80 bucks... no thanks. That's a ripoff for 20 min of
work. Besides, its 34 degrees and the roads are wet but not frozen,
I'm sure they will lift the chain law soon.
2 hrs later the word went out over CB radio that the chain law was
lifted and we spared no time hitting the road. California is real
pretty coming down the mountain pass, I was impressed. Snow all over
the mountains, little log cabins near the lake, a river that went
down the side of the highway. I love it.
We get to the customer and they have a trailer waiting for us, but
its not empty like I thought it would be. Turns out its going to
springfield missouri. The forklift driver gave me the paperwork and
said I could take it. Well I got excited for no reason. Dispatch
had other plans for us. The customer wasn't too happy that I
wouldn't take the load and nobody else would be coming to pick it up
for 3 hrs. Makes sense, you have a truck right there but for some
reason dispatch has a brilliant plan of having someone else come get
it.
Well what load did we end up getting? A wonderful 9 mile trip down
the street. Funny, I could of sworn we was a team, not local yard
jockeys. This is a solo drivers job. Oh well, we deliver that load
and now we have one picking up 60 miles away near san francisco
tonight at 11 pm and going to los angeles by 8 in the morning. The
second biggest city in america, should be fun.
day thirty one
So I get to the customer at 8 in the morning barely on time, got
stuck in traffic. LA is a real beautiful place, except for the
ghetto which is where we had to deliver. The roads were real tight
and I could barely make my turn in the intersection down the street
from the customer, cars were parked all down the street. You
couldn't pay me enough to drive locally in this crap all day. I just
wanted to get in and get the F out.
Our next load picks up right down the street, its going to the werner
terminal in phoenix, arizona. Well actually its going to west
virginia but we are splitting it at the terminal. A whole 380 miles.
Lindsey is gonna do this one and I'm gonna nap.
day thirty two
So we get to phoenix around 7 pm last night and unfortuntely our next
load doesn't pick up today until 2 pm. So we took the opportunity to
have a nice long sleep in a non moving truck. You really sleep a lot
better when ur parked. We woke up around 8 am and got a message that
lindsey had to go and see safety about something. We were kinda
nervous thinking maybe she might be in trouble for doing something
wrong.
Turns out she has a random drug test, she should pass, I hope. Of
course she couldn't go because we always go as soon as we wake up, so
after hanging out in the office for 2 hrs and drinking multiple cups
of water she finally went. I took the opportunity to study the eye
chart and make sure my vision is still up to par. 20/10 vision
without glasses or contacts. Yep still perfect!
Our next load is picking up right down the street at 2 pm, gonna get
there an hour early cuz we hate sitting around doing nothing, all
this down time is killing our miles. Its going to louisville,
kentucky. 1750 miles. Finally a good team load, with all the 10 and
50 and 300 mile loads I was starting to think this company had only
solo freight for us to do. Well, better get started.
day thirty three
Nothing to report today other than a whole lot of driving and we
might not be able to deliver on time due to the shipper taking an
hour longer to load us than expected and a nice little snow storm we
had to drive thru in northen arizona. Never would of figured arizona
would be 25 degrees and snowing in mid april. That cost us half an
hour from driving slow. I guess that's the only window dispatch
gives us. So we will see if we can make it on time tonight at 1230
day thirty four
So I get to the customer at 1215 this morning, barely on time. The
customer is a UPS hub at the louisville international airport, so I
had to have some guy in a car escort me over to the trailer lot,
since apparantly all truck drivers are terrorists and can't be
trusted.
The escort guy takes me over to the trailer parking lot and tells me
to drop my loaded trailer and grab any one of the 6 empties they
have. Typically I go for the newest one since there's less
headaches, but that wasn't happening cuz it was parked so #### close
to the other trailer that it would be impossible to raise the landing
gear, all the trailers were parked this way. I hate places that do
this. So I am forced to grab the outside trailer, its an ancient
piece of crap that has a duct tape repair job on the front of the
trailer.
I check in the back to be sure its empty and it has 8 pallets and
probably 100 lbs of giant sheets of cardboard all over it. Lovely.
I ask the escort guy why this is in the trailer and he doesn't know.
I ask if I can dump it on the ground and he said no. So I had to
transfer all the crap from one trailer to another. Of course they're
wooden pallets so I get more splinters than I can count. Gotta love
lazy ### ups dock workers who can't do their job and empty a trailer
properly.
Next load picks up at 8 am so I'm going to goto a truck stop and take
a snooze. Its going to indianapolis, indiana. A whole 110 miles.
More solo loads for team drivers and plenty of down time to ensure we
won't be making money.
Well I woke up from my nap and drove a couple miles to another UPS
location where I'm picking up a load. Apparantly this huge warehouse
has 20 different shippers, all at the same address, lovelty. And
dispatch only told me the address, where the load is going, and a
pickup number. Which apparantly isn't good enough. I spent the
better part of an hour checking different sides of the warehouse to
see if anyone knew anything, asking dispatch multiple times what to
do, only to have them respond with "are you at the right place" and
proceeds to give me the address. No, I'm retarded and I don't know
how to check the number on the side of a building.
Finally dispatch gives me a contact name, so I ask someone and they
tell me its on the other side of the building, I get there and they
kinda didn't seem to know what was going on, but after some asking
around they finally let me back into a dock. Took 90 min to load me
so we will be late delivering in indy. Oh well, time to let lindsey
drive today, maybe we will get a real load later today.
We deliver in indianapolis on time, and we are immediately sent
another load, picks up right down the street and is going to chicago,
a whole 180 miles. Appointment time is 230 pm, we get there a little
after, and are told the load is gone, someone else must have picked
it up, great planning there dispatch! So we send a message to
dispatch that we are at the shipper and need a load. We get a reply
"working on it". Ok cool, wait an hour, nothing. We send a polite
inquirey as to what's going on since we hadn't showered in almost
three days. Their response, "checking".
We continue sitting for another hour, without hearing a #### thing we
just decide to drive to a truck stop 10 miles away and shower then
eat at dennys. We get back to the truck and have a message on the
computer asking if we are done getting loaded.... wtf? Did dispatch
already forget our situation? So I write back explaining the
situation , we went to the customer, there was no load for us, we
asked what to do, and waited around for 4 hrs. Dispatch replies
saying they had a shift change.... ok so our regular dispatch tells
us to hang tight, goes home and forgets about us? Nice!
We wait an hour and get a new load, its at the same customer down the
road but its going somewhere in iowa, 400 miles away. It picks up
at 930 pm, so we head back on over there right on time, and the guard
asks me for my cell number, tells me to park next to the fence, and
he will call me when its my time to back into the dock.
I'm looking around and I see probably 30 trucks waiting. I think
"great, this could take a while". So I put my phone next to my head
and drift off to sleep, expecting to be woken up in a couple hours.
Around 2 am, my computer beeps and dispatch is asking what the hold
up is.... gee I dunno, I haven't been told to back into a dock yet
since no ones called me like they said they would...
Fall back to sleep, I wake up and its light outside. I jump up
thinking I missed my load, I check my cell phone, no missed calls...
that's funny. Maybe I gave the guard my wrong cell number. I walk
back over to the guard and I see three of them talking, I wait
patiently for them to talk to me, but I'm basically told to get lost.
Obviously they were trying to figure out why nothing was being
loaded and didn't want me to overhear their buffoonery.
So I'm standing around waiting, and I see another truck driver
walking closer to me. I ask him how long he had been here, and he
said 15 hrs.... ok so I'm not the only one. I walk back to the truck
and explain to dispatch what's going on, and they tell me they will
get me a different load. Surprised it took this long.
day thirty five 4-12-11
So we get our new load, its picking up at the werner terminal in
indy, going to new york, near albany. 850 miles, not bad, still a
solo load, but at least we are moving. Lindsey will drive most of
today and ill finish up tonight, should arrive around 3 am, delivery
time is 6 am tomorrow. Well, time to nap, not that I really need
one, I slept like a baby all night at that crappy customer. Their
name is Niagra water by the way, incase anyone is reading this and is
planning on going there.
The adventures of Team Big Blue Screw
Discussion in 'Discuss Your Favorite Trucking Company Here' started by MustangMark83, Apr 12, 2011.
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panhandlepat, 123456, The Challenger and 1 other person Thank this.
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ha ha, are we hav'n fun yet?
this sounds really awful with all the short runs and switches half way through your trips, I'm rethinking team driving as an option.
gl to yas'and keep up the good work. If you worked for me you'd both be getting a raise and possibly a whole weekend off. -
50 m.p.h.?
WTF?
The Challenger and jlind Thank this. -
that was a very good post! I especially enjoyed how easy it was to read being that long
FDNY76 Thanks this. -
wow 8 & 10 weeks out even if its was my wife i sure would still get tired of being that long in a tiny space. congrats driver great post
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The ideal job for a homeless family? Desperation on the cusp of madness...
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I don't get the whole 6-10 weeks out deal myself, is this something you chose to do or is this normal for teams at Werner?? Personally speaking... I love my wife and when we ran team we stayed 2 weeks out and that was enough for us!! She's great but the lack of sleep got to us both! We had our own W900 w/86" studio too!! God bless you both, surely the have the patience of a saint!!
Good luck and safe travels!!! -
Glad to see you can grab some sleep here and there no matter what time of day. I cant sleep during the day no matter how tired I am.
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Sounds like you all have the patience of saints. Great post. Thanks for taking the time. Keep it coming. If you don't mind, post how the money has been so far. Thanks again....
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Great post! Welcome to the world of OTR trucking. Get your one year in, train the wife then move on to a company that is run more efficiently. Keep the post's coming, I'm quite sure there's a lot of us that will follow your travels.
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