life at Roehl ...grc

Strange. The recruiter that came to my school today said hazmat was a small percentage of their work, not required.

He said if hired we would do orientation in Atlanta.

I asked one of the teachers for feed back and he said two guys have been hired. One said plenty of miles. Mostly loads West of Mississippi.

I am faxing my application tomorrow.

 

Wow, HAZMAT is back already (5 days). I let you know on the twic and passport. Hey grc, Rockford is my hometown, and though I've lived in WI for 20 years, I remember that all the 4 wheelers there DO think they own the road.

 

Hey grc, was that u i ran with from tn. to fl. on tues.?

I'm the guy with the flat bed truck pulling the box.

 

Looks like I have a lot of catching up to do. I have been having a hard time finding wifi when I have time to post and when I am busy, well... I have no time to post. I finally broke down and bought a year subscription at Pilot and Loves. Maybe I'll get 3G in the spring.

I am on my third time out in Evo III. The first two days were a wreck. I had to relay my 660 mile load to a driver that had a family emergency. I don't mind helping out a fellow driver, but the next load put me behind by 300 miles by the same time the next day, not to mention all the unpaid wasted time that was involved. After dutifully picking up the next load I called my FM just to remind him about what happened, not to complain, but just to remember me with something that has more than 250 miles. So he rewarded me with a 1000 mile load to Dallas and now a 1400 mile load to York, PA.

I'll just pass on a few observations and then go read some of what I missed. There seems to be quite a tattle tale syndrome at Roehl, as I have been reported twice for not having a lock on an empty trailer, while I was still in the yard. I had to write an explanation on the truck PC with the stupid touch screen keypad about how the trailer was tagged at the fuel island and I took my lock off right then, before backing it into the shop so as not to forget it if I was not going to be leaving with that trailer. I only drove around the yard for a bit to park and send in my trip reports before backing into the shop. I know there is a company policy and all that, but I felt like a fish in a fishbowl.

I discussed this with some other drivers that offered to give me some pointers & help me change my fuel filter and they agreed that you should be especially careful anytime you are driving near another Roehl truck. I even had another driver come up to me at a fuel island at a truck stop to apologize for passing me. I couldn't figure out why he felt it was necessary to do this, but someone probably tattled on him for passing them and they felt it was important to report it. While I find it annoying, I also have the attitude that I am doing a good job and if there is a petty issue that needs to be addressed, I will take care of it to the best of my ability and if that's not good enough, that's just too bad.

I did my first Canada trip to Montreal. That was interesting. The border crossing was a breeze both ways, but the construction in Montreal made my directions useless. It took me nearly two hours to finally get to the shipper, once I reached the city. All the street names are three feet long but the signs are only a foot and a half. :smt082

I was told by a friend, who works for another company, about how difficult the New Jersey turnpike is. Well, after Montreal the Jersey turnpike seemed like a walk in the park. I found it to be pretty well planned and the directions I had made it even easier.

A mechanic in Gary finally found the problem with my cruise control. There was a loose wire on the clutch pedal switch. It works great now. He even replaced my bent & sticky visor and fixed my mirror mounts.

So far things are going well and I am staying busy. This weekend will be a little leisurely, as my load is scheduled to be delivered on Monday and I already called the consignee about moving me up, but no dice. So I am taking advantage of the time to catch up on this forum and another forum that I participate in.

Happy driving everyone.

 

This is something that I may look into as well. Either that or 7/7.

So you may be leaving. Keep us posted if you do. I'm planning to stick with Roehl, as I don't want to become a job hopper right out of the gate. Besides, with less than 100,000 miles I don't have many options.

 

That's true. As my friend likes to tell me, frustrations are just a part of trucking. Your job is to solve problems and figure things out without calling for help, only to get put on hold and not get any help anyway. I try not to vent too much on here, especially since there is so much to vent about. It could be very easy to complain in every post, but if I did that I would get out of trucking, rather than spend the rest of my working life trying to fight it.