Do all flatbed companies have a tough guy chip on their shoulders?

LOL. Steering wheel holder.

 

Shoot, tarping and untarping is my workout routine. I'm like a crossfit champ.

 

I used to worry a great deal on really bad days, that winter storm in reading PA while trying to unload was epic. Drained me and I was like really fit, strong and well fed, hydrated etc. 2 hours after that episdoe Im sitting back in that cab contemplating a mountain run to reload at like 10 am having been going since 2 and doing battle while shaking from exhausting and cold waiting on the warm up.

I shook it off got that second load on the deck, tarped and back to the yard by the end of day like 6 in the evening. It was with a daycab so no sleeper berth like my prior truck where you could pop in somewhere secret and sleep a quick hour. (They sold that truck out from under me ha... it was a REAL good COE 87, Real reliable one of the best for a cummins lol)

But as far as bad days go, that was almost the hour I quit. I would have gone back at the yard in about a hour and half empty give or take and went home and figure out what to do with canceling the lease and moving etc. Which was a whole another problem once you became unemployed.

However they had a sleeper regional van division and that solved many problems going out generally sunday night until friday after noon with weekends home.

That load paid 48 dollars. The next one about 50 so 98 dollars gross pay for 16 hours work. That was eventually the motivation to make changes into a better life money wise.

 

Never done -50 but -25 was bad enough. Just powered by pure anger frustration and rage as you beat everything that is stuck or frozen apart.

Step out of the cab and feel the surface of your outher layers immediately go cold. Get moving to keep heat flowing. Crack door open, crap forgot scarf to cover that 1cm of exposed skin on the neck. Great, wind. Now its worse.

Keep the stuff in the cab so it dont harden till you throw it.

 

It takes a special breed to flatbed.Ive been flatbedding 32 of my 37 years their a different breed.

 

A little anger is good.

Is when you get MAD and explode all over the dispatcher or anyone nearby thats a problem. and they usually laugh you off as a whiny kid demanding a cookie. Or a cupcake...

 

Well, to be fair.... Out of 50, you got 10 that will not show up, and 40 will not go up to the North East.

So that 1 A-gamer is going to be on-point, and require no hand holding, just not up in the Northeast.

lol

 

Wow! I appreciate that. Took a lot of history in school, and enjoy books and films. Something about the passing of time and looking back, it's interesting.

From tenfourmagazine.com

Featured snippet from the web
"Born in 1915, Joe “Mustang” Glasco got his start in Pennsylvania, driving an early 1930s Diamond T with an integral sleeper. Making $10 a week, he hauled roofing material, canned goods, potatoes, and anything else he could find into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and New York."

So basically like my great grandmother. She was just a bit older than him, and they passed at about the same time. Joe was old enough he would have known some American Civil War veterans.

My grandma on my father's side only very recently passed. She remembered passing some memorials and seeing people standing outside in their Union uniforms. She was over 100, had a farm in Idaho. Cooked everything herself, even bread. I only very vaguely remember her chicken farm. When I got older, she got older and they had to get rid of them. To me that era feels like a long time ago. But it's not so long ago when you think about it that way. I was connected with a person who saw them in person still dressed as they did.

 

I agree


I also still believe if you can stick it out doing open deck for a few years OTR — you can do anything this industry has to offer.

 

Of all the past generations, that generation is the one I respect the most. America wasn’t really going anywhere it was just kinda stuck in time and then that generation came along and turned it into the powerhouse of the world.