Originally Posted by MO family man

Driver appreciation has visited our little end of the world. Not Ottumwa mind you, we are too small to rate any special attention. The doin's all happen up the road in Eddyville. It hurts to say it but the corporate brass knows how to grill. Had a nice selection of fall off the bone ribs and surprisingly nice burgers and brats. Ate with the boss man Tim and met the head honcho Greg.

Originally Posted by im6under

our driver appreciation is donuts and juice while being reamed for crashing trucks and crappy fuel mileage...

never met greg??? what's his function?

Originally Posted by im6under

Training June 4th, 5th, and 6th.

Met with my trainer, nice guy, started out at 6A.M., hooked a load of antifreeze that delivered about 15 miles away.

Did the pretrip on his 08 freightliner w/ 35k on the odometer.

Yeah I enjoyed it while I could, knowing I'll be driving a much older rig "Mack" atleast for the forseeable future.

I've been pulling petroleum for about a year now, so the slosh didn't bother me to much. A couple of hard hits, not used to the gear pattern, ect. Then I pretty much settled in.

Did three rounds first day to the same place, two air unloads and one pumping off so I knew how the equipment works which I'm honestly already familiar with but do need practice before I run out with a load of acid or base and do something stupid.

Ron explained their friend's net system, I think he called it. Similar to Qualcom. Day ended around 5 ish.

The 5th started at 8a.m. with what I thought was three more loads of antifreeze. hooked the first for a 10a.m. delivery and when we got there... some other guy was in our spot but not unloading because the customer tanks were full.

Hey great planning??? right??? Anyways after an hour, Gless decides we will drop our trailer and come back deadhead, they are cooking up a scheme.

New plan: you get the rest of the day off, head home about 2 1/2 hours drive, and we'll meet up at the Hydrite facility in Waterloo tomorrow at 3a.m. and you guys can boogie a load to minnesota and then a quick turn to Cedar Rapids.

Kinda a long jaunt but doable in 14 hours if nothing goes fubar.

Yeah right...

Trainer mentions he is on vacation come friday night and is supposed to be back at the yard. "oh you'll make it, we have a plan!!!" Weren't those somebody's famous last words???

Your new truck (talking to me) will be all cleaned out, full of fuel and ready to roll to help save time. On the second trip, the trainer will only follow you to Cedar Rapids so he can head out on vacation after you drop the load. You drive ok and we trust you to get the rig back without him.

2:30 A.M. friday morning, show up early and hey??? my truck is filthy, hooked to wrong trailer which is being loaded in a bay. They are using it as a yard mule.

No problem, we jump in the trainers truck to roll to Minnesota. Call and let the "powers that be" know that the plan is not going to well, but they have til mid-day to get it back on track. They will, they will, we are calling right now.

Finished Minnesota and headed back to Waterloo, truck is still a mess, floor covered in dirt, a couple of baldies riding the left hand drive position. =AND= Nobody had time to fuel it up but they did syphon about 10 gallons into it, enough to get us to the fuel stop. Well now, thank you very much and this, quite frankly, is too funny and I am going along with the joke, for now.

Fueling cost us another half hour on the way down and the trainer isn't real happy since he doesn't do hazmat chemicals, and should be 200 miles south getting ready for vacation by now. Did I mention he had to call a buddy to verify the hookup at our first drop??? Anyways, we get to a large fortune 500 company with armed guards...

Go in with all our paper work and are told, "hey trainer, your not on our approved list, we can't let you in." "you cannnn't cooome innn" (very polite and smiling when he said it. and you can't wait here either... go get rid of the spare trainer truck and come back.

yadda yadda... so much for off at two since it is 4p.m. before we start dropping.

5p.m. trainer is in his truck and outta there for vacation. Me I been on the clock for 14 hours and live just up the road. Guess where I go???

Hope the safety guy can take a joke, cuz he's gonna hear a doozey at 8a.m. Monday morning.

In all fairness this little comedy of errors is partially my fault and the trainers. Traditionally I am told you ride with the trainer for a few weeks learning everything on a schedule.

The first day I drove fearless and made no errors, knew how to hook hoses, pump, and even rebuilt the pump in front of the trainer before he could say to much. The slosh didn't bother me and there really wasn't that much. (figured I could skip playing dumb and lets just get this thing rolling)

This, I think, thru a wrench in the plans and the boys decided they should work me like a rented mule from the git-go. Trying to do that on the spur of the moment snowballed into one uh-ohhh after another.

I was on 17 hours friday for a training wage of 90 bucks or???
$5.29 per hour labor. lol **it happens...

Truck needs some attention and had they had an extra week I'm sure it would have been ready and "the plan" would have been slightly more successful.

I'll give it a week and see what happens, maybe a couple of months in the yard mule til we really have to have that serious discussion about what's going on.

Oh yeah, lastly, I haven't a clue how to work the all important Qualcomm clone, everytime the trainer tried to show me, it broke.

I think its fixed now though because it was beeping "read message" all the way home. Had I had some training on the thing I probably would have pushed a key on the thing to see what they wanted.

I got about three reasons they should fire me right now and ten reasons I should quit and run to the nearest exit... lmao

but I'm here and staying for now. everybody stumbles once in a while and companies are no different.

They have a nice line of trucks, and everything about them is 100% professional with no complaints from the several dozen drivers I spoke with. So I'm chalking it up to, the experience of a lifetime. You couldn't pay money to see anything like this in the theater.

More tomorrow on what cometh... be well...

Originally Posted by truckinusa

Greg Mccoy? He's the owner. The Chattanooga terminal acts as though they would lick his feet for toe jam if they were asked to. He sounds like a stingy a**hole to me. Every time they mention his name it is all about pinching pennies.

Originally Posted by im6under

*cough* *cough*

5.2???? not me dude... I was lumpin da hills at 70 and still got a 6.

yeah... I saw the picks on the guys truck... ROTFLMAO!!!! I wonder how that conversation went???

you know the only reason they didn't can the guy was they couldn't find anybody to clean it up... they had to keep him and make him do it himself...