Hi Everyone,

I wish I could get on here more offten but I don't have a laptop yet so I can only come visit on the weekends when I am home.

Anyway as I have said in my other posts I just graduated from Monson Trucking's school a week ago Thursday and I put in my first full week of work this week.

It was'nt to bad I started out on Sunday with a delivery down in IA on Monday morning. I reloaded and came back up to WI, than over to MN. Than I went up to Winipeg, MB. That was interesting it was the first time I have ever been to Canada, and the whole border crossing thing took over an hour because I got picked to pull in and do the whole search thing. I had to back up to a door, the searched my trailor, and my cab, and I had to go over to imigration and do the background check and all that crap. After I delivered up there I came back down to MN, reloaded, and returned to my home terminal, in Duluth for the weekend. When it was all said and done I had just over 2500 miles, witch I don't think was to bad for my first week.

It did'nt take me very long to figure out that the 14 hour day runs out of time realy fast. Especialy being a new driver because everthing takes me longer to do.

The thing that takes me the longest is scaleing my load and geting my tandems balanced out, but I always want to know I have got it rite before I hit a DOT scale, or if I drop the trailor at one of our terminals and another diver takes it the rest of the way I am still responsible for haveing the load scaled and balanced. but I will get better with time.

The other thing I am haveing trouble with is backing into a loading dock, and haveing my trailor square with the dock. It looks good when I hit the dock but when I get out and check my work, my right (pasenger) side of my trailor is always out a couple of feet from the dock and my left (Drivers) side is the one that hit the stop. I am geting better at it but again it will take more practice.

I have also noticed that there are alot of nice drivers out on the road who are always willing to give a green horn like myself, help and advice. I realy appeciate all the help I got from other drivers, and the people at the places I delivered to and picked up from this week.

Well guys thats all I have for now, I called into dispatch today and my first load delivers at 8:30 Monday morning, only 90 miles from my home terminal witch is nice because that gives me another whole day at home with the family. We are going to take the kids up to the water park tomarrow for the day.

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"Don't look at the whole staircase, just take the first step"

Sounds like things are going good for ya, keep the posts coming. Always enjoy hearing about everybodys experiences. Good luck.

Sjtrucker,

Thanks for the updates. I'm new here and plan on trying to get on with Monson when I'm done with training the end of June, and it's nice to be able to follow your progress with them. Please keep the updates coming!

Haven't seen you on here in awhile now...hope everything's going alright? I've pretty much decided on Monson if they'll have me, and would sure like to pick your brain sometime soon.

Congratulations for surviving your worst week, the first.

You should learn why experienced drivers routinely cheat (or try to) on their logs. Regardless how many hours we are allowed to (legally) work, there are never enough of them.

Those little insignificant things eat up lots of major time that we don't normally get paid for.

I've been driving nearly my entire adult life and I still can't back into a dock straight unless it's so crowded you can't do otherwise.

Docks have those great big dock plates for people like me. And, I'm glad they do.

Don't worry about how it looks as long as it's more or less where it's supposed to be.

Congratulations and happy trucking. . .

I don't know if they told you in truck driving school, or if it occurred to you, but if you back into a dock that is not marked with lines, you can use a rock, soda can, shop rag, whatever to mark where you think the left side of your tractor should be when it is straight.

Docks without lines can be nearly impossible to get straight with without using guides of some sort.

Mirrors are not reliable for measuring depth (distance of trailer from dock).

Depending on the dock, you can also use your brake lights to do the same thing if you practice it a litte bit. The closer the light to the dock, the more intense and narrow the reflection becomes.

They should appear to be more or less equal.

Happy trucking!!!

The reason your driver's side is always closer to the dock is because you are favoring that left mirror. Try using only the right mirror to back in and you'll see the opposite happens... Your tractor will be turned slightly toward the right and you left side will be away from the dock.

Back slowly, use both mirrors and look for, or create, something on the ground that is perpendicular to the dock that you can line the side of your trailer up with.

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This is NOT the Daytona 500... you don't win a prize for being first.

Just reading the threads on this post, I'm printing them, sucking them up, and I hope they'll help me! I wake up with bad dreams of not being able to back up to a dock! My biggest fear, but with this help, I can do it! I watched many times the contract driver back up to the post office dock, how I wish I paid much more attention.

Well I just completed orientation with Roehl on Wed. Got set up with a trainer 1st thing Thurs. I even attended my 1st safety meeting, you need 1 every quarter. Packed up the truck and made my bunk and ready to go. But then found out my whizz quiz has not came back yet. So they said to go home and we will call ya when safety clears me. I was in Gary,In and live in Dayton,Oh had to take car home anyway. I took the whizz quiz 1st thing Mon morning don't know what the hold up is. I do know that I'm not hot cause I have never done drugs in my life. Maybe a little beer every blue moon but that is it. Anyway up to this point Roehl has been just great to work with. I decided to go on the Honor program and think I will come out ahead. Looking forward to getting with a trainer and start learning the do's and don'ts.

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WE ARE IN CONTROL OF OUR DESTINY!!!