Swift - Starting the New Year training with Swift 1/7/13 - A long read...

Sounds like you've been having a string of bad luck lately with the trucks. It will get better. It sucks to have a new truck with problems.

Make sure you talk to your DM about breakdown pay. It helps the pain a little. Once you get this fixed they should have you rolling pretty much non-stop. Hang in there...

 

I'm on hometime now and decompressing some...

Yesterday was a long and busy day. The night before I made it about 50 miles west of Richmond to a rest area on I-64. That day I ran across Indiana, Ohio, W. Virginia and into Virginia (I think...no calendar in front of me) to that rest area. The whole trip I averaged about 550+ miles a day to make it home. The load was dropping down near Norfolk and I had to double back up to Richmond to drop my truck off. I was running hard as my hometime was set for Wednesday and I wasn't going to be dropping off my truck at the Richmond terminal until nearly noon on Thursday. I set my PTA for 0700 on Tuesday so I have a lot of time off. I'm thankful for that as I need it to spend time with my family at this wedding, to get some stuff done and just get myself an emotional reset.

I break down my time as those periods I run between hometimes. Some are easy and go smoothly where 8 weeks out is like a piece of cake. And sometimes my time out is not so easy. This last time was one of the worst runs I've had between hometimes. I had weeks where my mileage was as low as just over 1000 miles. That's not counting the week I sat in Ocala, FL at the terminal, unpaid, while my truck was repaired. This last time was a tough time out on the road and I'm hoping that I can get this emotional reset in and come back to work fresh. As it is, my experience lately with Swift has left a bitter taste in my mouth and some deeper rooted feeling of resentment. I hope I can change this because I don't like working for anyone when that resentment sets in at this level. It's been a rough time recently.

I'm debating switching terminals when I get back on the road. The internal debate I've been having though is the possibility of not knowing how good I have it and trading over to something worse - taking my old Dodge Dart and trading her in only to end up with a Ford Pinto - the one with the exploding gas tank. Not sure what I should do yet. I'm going to have to think about it over this break...

Today we are running over to the hotel with a car full of liquor to set up on our hotel floor. The wedding is tomorrow. Family is all coming into town tonight so once the alcohol and my full blood Irish family comes it's going to get interesting. I'm picking up that girl in a little while and she will be with me for the duration until Sunday. Sunday is recovery day.

 

Thanks! I'm getting time off but not much rest lol.

Exactly! Did not get much rest last night.

lol...

 

Did not get much rest last night, the first night at the hotel. My family from Jersey started trickling in to the hotel as the evening wore on. The festivity's epicenter was in my little brothers hotel room in the Presidential Suite up on the top floor. From what I heard my guest and I didn't get back to our room until 0530 this morning. I don't remember it being that late but I don't really remember that much after a certain time of night. Sometime after about the 6th Long Island Iced Tea and the second or third shot of Fireball I started losing most of my understanding of simple things. Earlier I was reviewing the pictures from last night and it was like a rolling credits scene out of The Hangover where they are discovering pictures from that previous night. At some point last night my sister got hold of my camera and in reviewing the pictures today I started to see the progression of debauchery as the night rolled on and the BAC's increased. It was pretty humorous. And last night was only the practice night. Tonight is the wedding and the after party.

As a side note I've noticed that my body is taking a lot longer to get over a hangover then when I was much younger.

 

I'm going to have to try that one. Never heard that before.

I'm ok today. Yesterday I didn't drink at all so it was recovery day. Saturday night wasn't as bad, drunk wise, as Friday night. Apparently there is a lot of stuff that went on on Friday night including some stuff regarding elevators that I don't recall. Think I'm good with drinking for a while, at least for a couple of months. It was a great time though.