I'm a stone cold rookie, gonna work the texas oil fields

comin down the home stretch, i was hoping to come in at 4 today but someone has my truck, so'll come in at 5 and find something to do. i got to get 14 hours, yet finish by 7 am so i can come in saturday at 3 with 8 hours off duty and maximize my hours for the week which would be 86.25 i think, i really feel like i'm gonna hit the 3k, all i can do is do the best i can with the parameters i have to work with, some things are out of my control, if someone has my truck on saturday, then i'm sort of screwed unless i can find another truck to drive.

 

i think after i break the 3k goal, i'm gonna not put so much pressure on myself about strategizing my hours every week, its a ton of work tryin to figure and coordinate all this stuff.

..........but then again, naw. feelin the slightest bit of slacking feels like death to me, i cant do it because i dont have a legit reason yet, but one day i will definately slow down but i dont see that day coming any time soon, so until then its all about goin full throttle.

 

right on man, i brought the heat with me and i'm not coolin off any time soon.

no sir, not a clue.

naw i seriously doubt it, these bigger companies make you "start over" no matter what experience you have. A smaller company would be different though. To be honest, i cant possibly see how otr is going to mean much out here, i mean theres rigs and flow backs and disposals and all sorts of other stuff to learn, plus driving on these lease roads in texas is totally different too. You'd be ahead of the stone cold rookie fresh out of cdl school for sure but it isnt going to add up to much. There really is alot to learn, its not rocket science, but still alot to learn......so with that being said, no oil experience means basically no experience.

 

well i did it, got all the hours i could for 2 weeks, i think its about 177 hours give or take an hour, i cant see how i couldnt hit a 3k check. Ive hit alot of goals all starting from the beginning of cdl school until now. I'd say i came a long way in a short time and i'm looking to take things to another level. Things have been sort of slow lately and we are getting more drivers but not more trucks, this means possibly less hours for me and i hope it doesnt come to that because to be honest, i'm lookin to run harder. I like it when things are super busy and i'm fighting for 15-16 hours.

For instance, last week, my truck came into the yard but it was left loaded and a rig needed water asap, so me and the dispatch agreed i should take another truck, load up, go to the rig, come back and grab my truck.

well, this truck was typically driven by an old timer who's been doing this for 30 years, total old school, everything nice and neat, neat appearance and ALL buisness. Me and another driver followed him one day to a location and by the time we got out of the covenience store with snacks and got into our trucks, the old man was blazing down the road lol.

so, i found out the truck was his and when i got in, it was like a coffin, you could eat off the dash, hell even the gas guage worked. So with all due respect to the old timer, i left my jacket, which smelled like cigarrettes, behind and all my gear too because i figured i was coming back......right?

well, i unloaded at the rig and got the call from dispatch to get some more water and go to another rig that just got to location. I asked dispatch if i was keepin the truck all night and he said yep...........lol. Here i was with no jacket, no smokes, no food, no money, zip zero nada, low on fuel and this is the basically the beginng of a shift where i had to put in at least 15 hours.

I started thinking hard about how to fix this situation because i could do without everything except food, i need food because of my blood sugar. I sort of got pissed and thought this situation was unreasonable but how the hell was dispatch supposed to know i left everything behind? I was pissed for about 5 minutes and i just know that there would be alot of people, espeacially in my shoes with all the hours i put in and stuff, they would have quit or #####ed something hard.

So i just fell back on my motto of "not coming back with excuses" and all of a sudden i became excited with the challenge of this situation. Accept, adapt, overcome and move on. Hell its only 15 hours or whatever it takes......oh and you know the new rig location was going to need setting up with hoses running up to the steel pits etc. etc. and i did most of this myself because i was the first one out there. By the time some other drivers showed up and helped, i had now gone 9 hours with no food and feelin really hazy but the job got set up with no short cuts either, i never take short cuts. One of the hoses running up to the pit was too light and really shook when the load reached the end.............so, changed that hose out for a heavier one and the two drivers that showed up really busted ### too but since i got a little more experience, i took the lead and made sure everything was set up solid so we could all relax and haul some water all night.......bust ### to relax.

Sure enough, the positive attitude and hanging in there paid off when another driver met me down the road with all my gear, smokes, food, EVERYTHING.....yee haw!!!!

ohhhhhhh and you #### well know i smoked in the old man's truck lol......but at the end of my shift, i washed his truck, pulled out every single one of his hoses and washed those, cleaned his cab, topped the fuel off, brought that truck back better than it was before. I only did it because i respect the guy because he's all buisness and not just a truck polisher, if he was, i wouldnt have cleaned dick.

This is just one story of adversity, this was actually a pretty easy night in comparison to others. Ive had nights where i'm behind on the log, been running and moving hard since the start of the shift, stuck with a transport truck i never used and EVERYTHING going wrong the whole shift and i just fight and fight and fight and win, ive never lost out here or had to pull out the ol' non revenue sheet which i think is for #######.

......lol, way behind, loading up brine, in the office getting directions to god knows where, running frantic physically and mentally, come back out to the truck and not one drop of brine loaded in the tank LOL......go to a frac tank in the yard with brine and i need at least 2 hoses to reach and they are on the wrong side of the truck........ugh, drag them over the other side, lol as my supervisor passes by, done with his shift, its new years, i'm sure he's gonna go sip a few cold ones and i'm fighting the devil and hell at the same time, lol as his truck just slowly pulls off into the night LOL!!!!!!!......and i just said to myself, paul, slow down dude, you lost this battle but not the war, everything is going wrong and we still got a long way to go, i was running so ragged since 2:30 pm and it was only 9:00 still.....so i just sort of relaxed and took my time, got the brine loaded, got in the truck and let things slowly come to me and got ready for the next push.

I scratched and clawed that night and eventually caught up, that clock is so unmerciful but i won with about 15 minutes to spare. Went back to the motel, ate, showered and slept and woke up with 4 hours sleep ready to fight again, i'm ready to fight every day, thats why i dont like it when its slow, i like the tough shifts and i'm ready to take it on day in and day out.

This oil field aint gonna beat me, it aint gonna happen. I got many stories like this. It doesnt have to be this hard, a driver can take it easier if he wants but i'm not taking that route, to me this job is easy, i used to shovel asphault from sun up to sun down and break concrete with sledge hammers or pick trenches all day, anybody who knows, they can tell you first hand what a nightmare breaking concrete is that has rebarr or wire in it........and ive dealt with that many times with no machinery to help, just heart and will and a sledge hammer and pik and bolt cutters...........i'm telling ya, you get delusional, you start imagining a flying suacer flying over and making that slab disapear for you or you start wondering how to turn the bobtail truck into a back hoe lol.....i'm dead serious.

hell, ive eaten oatmeal, rice and protein powder for 2 years straight when i tried to keep my machine shop afloat after 9/11 and the economy took a dump......hell, i still eat like that mostly.

see, this is why i wont be a nice guy when i got wussies coming into this thread talking about "burnout" and planting seeds of failure or a desire to see me fail, they might not admit wanting to see me fail, they might not even admit it to themselves, but deep down, people want to see you fail because it makes them feel good for their own failures and other wuss reasons.

who wants to bet against me?......oh and you know how i paid back the guy who brought me my gear? when we left location to go back to the yard, there was two gates that had to be manually opened WHICH REALLY BLOWS, stop, get out, open, get back in, drive through, stop, get out, walkkkkkkkkkk, close the gate........well, the last gate, i let him go through and told him i'd close the gate and boy was he happy as i would be too lol, it doesnt sound like much but any driver can tell you getting out to open and close gates sucks lol, i think i'd rather dig ditches lol........and then of course i caught up to him on the county road and blew past him on the shoulder of the road and left a big ol' trail of dust and debris behind lol......how else would i do it? lol.

 

hmmmm, i think green bay is in trouble, manning is off to a good start and new york has really woken up in the last few weeks. After the game, i'm gonna go to sonic and grab a chicken sandwich and grab a 24oz and sip myself into a coma........and start a new week tomorrow, really looking forward to it. This is going to be my short week because i have today off and friday too, i think its possible to get 80 hours in but it will be tough, i'm going to calculate it all later on and see if i can pull it off, i may need a few 16+ hour days..........another challenge but i'll pull it off if the work is there.