Breaking in a new driver or right place at the right time?

Any of you experienced Melton vets have any experience with this phenomenon?

Here's my story: Started Dec. 2nd and it was a slow start, indeed. First couple of weeks, I was lucky to break 1500 miles, then went home for Christmas. Came back and did a little better, but not by much. I was a little worried that some of the Melton detractors might be right, but I also kept in mind that it's a slow time of year for flatbedding (I experienced the same thing with my previous flatbed company). Kind of expected not to have too much going on until the country started to thaw out, especially with the rough winter we're having. Went home a bit for my birthday (which is actually the 21st of January, but I wanted to be home over the weekend) and came back on the 20th of January, and I've been out since then - planning on putting in for hometime this week for next weekend since I have a few days banked now. But the 20th is when it all turned around.

I have run, in just over 3 weeks, over 10,000 miles. I haven't seen a week under 3000 miles since getting back in the truck on the 20th. I thought it was just a fluke the first week, especially since I had a bad experience with an overweight load and lost a day + the change required to fuel far more frequently since I couldn't fill my tanks without being over gross. I keep getting lengthy hauls and substantial deadheads. I even got a load on Saturday when I wasn't even going to deliver the one I had on the trailer til Sunday morning! I was predicting that I would have trouble delivering that particular load because they're running me head-first in to my 70 hours every day and I haven't sat anywhere near long enough to get a reset in since my second week out. Long story short, they're working me to the bone... and I am not complaining in any way, especially on Fridays.

Did any of you other guys get pounded in to the ground with work in your first few weeks/months and then see it start to die down? I ask because this is what happened at my last company. Made a good first impression and then started to slack. Or am I just in the right spots to get the right loads at the right times? Or do they just recognize people who run hard and pile the miles on to the guys who drive 'em? I'd love to hear a few other peoples' experiences here.

 

Well, I won't pick up more than 2000 miles this week. I was sitting in MI on Tuesday after unloading waiting for a load and checking the weather. Hoping for anything but the southeast. Where do they send me? Virginia. Perfect. But I got it here. All I want to do is stay safe and get out of this area and what do they do? Send me to Little Falls, NJ. 15 miles west of NYC. They're expecting 11-17 inches there overnight. I'm on the verge of having a panic attack and I just might quit over thia. They absolutely will not listen to reason and are just telling me to go pick it up.

 

DM is Wanda. I called the receiver today when I woke up and they're not even working because of the weather. Not open on weekends. So I'm just sitting on this thing til Monday. 5 days for a 360 mile load. I don't know who is responsible for this stuff, but I think someone up there needs to pay more attention to the weather. This storm was well forecast days in advance. EVERYONE but the dispatch team seemed to know it was coming. It doesn't make any sense in terms of either safety or business. Absolutely terrible decision on someone's part. I think I'm going to have a word with that driver relations person on Monday about this whole ordeal because it's really made me sour about things here.