STARTING A NEW CAREER WITH JBH

I've been getting pretty lazy reporting in here. Been a few weeks but really not much different. This last week got a little crappy cuz my first run was changed a bit and was suppose to be a turnable run but becuz of detours and the routing it wasn't possible. That caused a chain reaction for the rest of the week. Basically I didnt want to risk changing the schedule I've had so I ended up staying in my truck from Sunday to Tuesday eve. I couldn't turn my first or second run of the week. First run I had to take a ten in the truck 70 miles from the shop and shotguned out for 2nd run then. On 2nd run I made it to 22 miles from shop with no chance of a rescue. So I slept for 6.5 hours and had wife pick me up for dinner and bring me home for a shower. Got back in truck at 10 pm slept another 3 hours then came back on duty drove to Mission, swapped trailers and shot gunned out to run 3 to Chicago real early Wednesday morn. I did finish my week by 10am Friday morn so long reset anyways.

 

Guess I've been sitting on this for a bit. Got $100 bucks also more importantly. Lost out on the regional driver award. Think I was in a pool of 7 others. That is either another 200 on top of or just 200 total. Good thing cuz 2 days after I was notified I won it I got a headway warning. Oops, those are tough to get. I ran into a truck going 60 mph and I had very little cushion time to get back so I had to get by. Lots of traffic so I was trying to time my run up with left lane traffic openings so as not to hold up the entire Midwest for the 4 minutes my pass was gonna take and guessed wrong. Not exactly sure why I covered my name cuz it's easy enough to figure out. O well.

 

I'm going on my 24 th paycheck next week so I'm getting close to 6 months and am thinking of my review with mileage and pay numbers. Could be a long one. Gonna try and list the good and the bad. Think I will wait for the 28th check though. That way the 2 weeks of training won't scew the numbers. I do a lot of rambling but I started this intending to help someone like me cuz when you look for anything on these jobs all you get is negative, run, hell no stuff. Hope it helps someone. Definitely say if you read this and live in or real near Mpls Mn. look up this job.

 

As I got up from my normal Sunday afternoon sleep I called into work like normal to make sure everything is on track and found out there is a giant delay on the production side of things cuz of computer issues. Normally my trailer is ready about 7-9 pm Sunday eve. but they are so far behind I'm being told it won't be ready till Monday morning to as late as lunch time. Guess I get another night off. Ive already requested this Friday off so it could cost me a bit of money this week. I'm not sweating this much because I really have been making good money and a light week isn't gonna kill me. Kinda killed a Sunday but I never thought to check in any sooner than normal. A 4-6 hour delay happens time to time but this s a first.

 

Ended up with a short week due to 2 things. 14 hour late start cuz of production issues and I took Friday off for a mini family vacation. Got 3 runs instead of 4 in so just under 1800 miles and 9 deliveries. Didn't get my Chicago run that makes 1/3 my usual miles. This week everything should return to normal.

 

Last week was nice in that almost every run departed about noon. Workin a third shift type schedule starting in the middle of the night and finishing in the afternoon gets a bit of a sub human feel after awhile. Nice to join the normals for even a little bit.

 

I've only been driving semis about 19 months now but I had a first this week. I had a tire blow out when I was driving. Tire location 15 so driver rear outside trailer tire. I was actually passing a dump truck on the freeway so I happened to be in the left lane when it went. Loud explosion and felt like the trailer jumped even with a full load. Never got squirrely or anything like that. I was within site of a exit ramp so I limped it off the freeway and luckily made it too a Walmart. It went so hard it took out the mudflap and bent the crap out of that mudflap mounting angle iron bar. Found 2 screws in my drive tires also when I was inspecting everything. Little suspicious. Road service had me going again in 2 hours. It did make my run un turnable. Ended up 90 miles short. Kinda scary to think of what could of happened if I was in the right lane like 99% of the time and a motorcycle would have been coming bye. Also of the 8 trailer tires I never would have suspected that one. On the opposit side of trailer one of the tires had some noticeable wear but still looked road worthy so I was figuring if any of them was gonna give me a problem it was gonna be that one. Imagine this bill if ur a O/O.

 

Just a couple changes since my last post. I had a trainee two weeks ago. It's kinda weird doing training. Once we go over basic things and people net and questions I just relax in the bunk till we get to stops becuz with no air the passenger seat sucks to sit in. 3of my 4 runs are turnable so it's not like I need to get a ton of sleep during the run.
Also production delays are more common lately. Not sure why. Wondering if overall production is increasing and they are having staffing problems? Suppose we are in peak vacation season also. It does seem busier with more outside carriers waiting in the lot whenever I'm coming and going.

 

My Friday run is gonna be changing cuz the distributor is selling his account so worried my turnable last run of the week is going away along with my 60 hour reset. O well, will see what happens. Good while it lasted anyways. I have another trainee this week. Bump in training pay also cuz new guy is military. Weird but I'll take it.