Running with JCT, Part Deux

That part I knew. It was supposed to change to 3x the points with the increased rebate that started March 1.

Not that I'm complaining.

 

Well I finally got to pick out my truck this afternoon I'll be in L3073D but had to get it's apu worked on so it would start

 

D ain't bad. I started in an F and spent MANY breaks fixing something myself just to keep outta my escrow. I have seen some G's and H out here. Don't hold me to it but I THINK I saw an I in Sapulpa late last year. You should be able to keep a D rolling w/o much at ALL outta escrow no problem.

[Hushed radio super fast legal disclaimer voice] "Aminal is an uncompensated rouge commenter. TTR, RWJCTPD, JCT, Freightliner, Detroit Diesel, The City of Detroit, Three Diamond Leasing, The Nations of Mexico, Canada and Thailand; The Uncle Clyde and Junior Orange Show and all of each entities' and their Successors, Agents, Heirs and Assigns in perpetuity (including but not limited to All Officers, Employees and all their second cousins on their third brothers side both human, quasi-human and alternative human regardless of beliefs, color or hairstyle) in no way, shape, fashion or form endorse, condone (or actually have a clue about) Aminal's commentary which should be strictly construed as anecdotal commentary and not actual Advise!!"

My take is a D is a great start; should be. Set your sights on a New Truck. Take the time to network and see what's coming in and what you want and try to get as much info on that. I'm talking people skills and networking and relationship building. Shop, the folks that OFFER the new trucks up and in doing so also run. Run. Take any gruffness or brushness from Keith w/ a grain of salt. You won't be w/ him long. Then build relationship with your full time DM. Do as much as you can as often as you can and take advantage of the fact you're rolling out the yard w/ a full tank of fuel and no truck payment that week and hit the first week as hard as you can keeping in mind that you can TransFlow, scan - whatever you have to do to get the signed BOLS to JCT by mid-night Wed. If you come up a tad short: ASK "Have you got ANYTHING I can get done in time for this first settlement. Make that first outbound count, cause you're a week in the hole. You gonna skip the first pay day so you need the second (which is your first weeks runs) to be as big as it can be with that settlement having one less tank of fuel and no truck payment coming out.

Next, stay outta your Maintenance and Tire escrow. You gotta build that up as much as you can as fast as you can. Think of this first one as a 90 day truck. Might turn out to be a little more but you get my drift. This isn't the payoff truck so don't put a penny into it you don't absolutely have to. Your APU concerns me but not much. Should be good enough to get you through the rest of the tough weather. If it's not you got a choice; Remember all the time you drove w/o one and keep your idle time as low as you can stand and just stay in touch w/ the shop about getting it fixed BUT do it on YOUR terms and TIME - when you need a log reset anyway. (OMG - Sirius just started playing the Song: "Every Which Way But Loose" THAT brings back memories). What I'm saying is PLAN your downtime for a repair you CAN let slide and keep rolling on. To ME, I like to plan a reset (downtime for home or repair) to start by delivering my downtime load on Tuesday (bank that Trip pack as the end of the week) and make sure work gets started on the truck Tuesday or Wednesday. I wanna be Available late Wednesday or early Thursday. Friday at the latest.

You want a good work week RIGHT behind you when you start the downtime and RIGHT in front of you to start with after a reset, shop or hometime. Sat and Sun weekends are all well and good and fine - BUT they fall slap in the middle of the work/ PAYROLL week so they short you on the one behind AND in front of you. Our Saturday and Sunday are ACTUALLY Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday is Monday. Timing is everything when it comes to cash flow and for GOODNESS Sake, save up some money to go home on. DOWN TIME STILL HAS TRUCK BILLS BUT NO INCOME TO PAY THEM WITH.

OK. All the weekdays cross dressing w/ mid week payroll days being all non-traditional as they do prolly don't make no sense. Forgive the cross dressing reference; I switched to Sirius Comedy and some Dude was just cracking me UP acting all (what's the PC way to say it?) Alternative Lifestyle.

For keeping cash flow going; think PAYROLL week - not CALENDAR week. That's better. Yeah. Sure it is. Anyway . . . .

Hope this helps.

 

Got me a run I really like. MY Style! Coast to coast. Lemoore, CA to Perth Amboy, NJ! Works on my E-Log 70 running recap on days til the last day and I MAY have to start at midnight then, but right now looks like starting at 04:00 will finish it OTD! With D/H it's a 3,200 paid mile run that works out to 3,250 actual, according to . . . . . .

RAND McNALLY's TND TABLET!!! Y'all can't tell Mrs. Aminal, though. It took an act of GOD to get me to try this new technology. Her? She really wouldn't understand. There'd be some fryin' pan bashin' there if she knew.

But I did it (my first real trucking GPS - and THEN some and triple half doubled over and then twice again!!) and . ...

WOW!!!!!!!!! This thing is the Fn !@#$%^&*()_+ Bomb - !@#$%^&*()_ DIGITTY!!!

RMN just fired a full on Battleship whole freakin Fleet 16" gun broadside barrage into their competition and it has all landed DEAD CENTER BULLSEYE!!!!

But don't tell Mama. OK? She don't get the whole changing times thing and the fact I been savin' up w/ MY allowance for a GPS for the whole time and happened to hit the timing right. Don't get me wrong; I still back it up w/ my RMN MC Road Atlas but WOW oh Freakin WOW on what all this thing does!!

The list would be too long for even ME!!

Night all. I got a LOT of new learnin to do.

WOW.

 

Well, after being near death for the past week, I'm finally back at work. One problem though....no empties at the OKC yard. Now sit and wait. Fun times.

 

Welcome back to the land of the living.

Yesterday was a day off for me. Got caught up in the winter storm that went through Wyoming a couple of days ago. JCT reschudled the load for the next evening. Made it to Corinne just fine and on time. My next load I got the next morning (Thursday) didn't have me pick up tul Friday (today) at 11am at Smith's in Layton going to Houston. But I was good with that as it gets me home. So, I spent yesterday watching Netflix and eating Chinese food at the Flying Hook in Salt Lake (exit 27 I-215) after I got the reefer topped off and washed out at the Streakin Beacon.

 

Happy Daze! PFJ finally got to the bottom of my not my getting my JCT multiple reward points. My hat's off to and a big thank you to Macho for the tip on where to get PFJ to look w/ the registering my card tip. I had called them about it before and they said I was set up, called JCT - not something they can do but it was when my man Macho mention the registering that I got to thinking about my card being many years old. I had called PFJ when I came to JCT and updated my profile; BUT that didn't automatically trigger their computer system to change my card over to receive what they term "Special Points" since my card was ORIGINALLY registered w/ me working for a company that doesn't get Special Points. Best fix was getting a new card, registering THAT one w/ me as JCT (went inside, got a new one while she was on the phone) and then transferring what I had from the old card to the new one as if it was lost or damage. Then she transferred me to a lady in "Special Points" division who made sure THAT card was active as a JCT Special Points Card w/ my previous balance on it and (I about "fell out" as we say in the South) she asked my "hire" date w/ JCT and they are going back to ALL my purchases since I came to JCT and (8 1/2 months) and giving me all THOSE points at the level they were at the time of purchase. It will be a total of everything I SHOULD have received minus what I used. Wow. Didn't expect that. They apologized for that process going to take about a full week. Still, I wasn't expecting that. I'll believe it when I see it, but given the scalding water Jimmy Haslam is in over scamming rebates and rewards - I'd say it will prolly happen. Yeah. Ain't NOBODY at PFJ getting anywhere NEAR any controversy over any missing rewards or rebates right now.

The Feds actually raided (SWAT Team "Bad Boys, Bad Boys; What'cha Gonna Do?" "Go, go, go! FEDERAL AGENTS! HANDS IN THE AIR! DROP THE PHONE AND STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER! NOW, NOW, MOVE OVER THERE! GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES AND LOCK YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!! DO IT NOW!" type raided PFJ's headquarters over the scamming. The ONLY reason we didn't hear about it all over the news when it happened was because the raid went down on the same day as the Boston Marathon Bombing. Press assets are a no-brainer on that call. "Hmm, do we cover a big business corruption Federal raid or a huge act of domestic terrorism with bombs and blood? I wonder? What should we focus our media's resources on?" It's almost comical when you read up on how Haslam handled it.

[Joe Pesci voice] "Okay, okay, okay. It's like dis . . . I didn't know. I had a football team I was runnin'. I appointed a President for the truck stops. Dat voice in the recording . . . it ain't me. Sounds like me but it wasn't me. It was HIM (points finger at appointed President)!! HE done it. You're FIRED!! You ain't da President NO more! I'm makin' yous a consultant! I'm commin' back to PFJ and runnin' it. I'll get someone else to run the ball team (at which point there was a collective YESSS!! from the entire city of Cleveland). There! Ya happy? No? What? Pay 'em back?! Who? Who got took to the cleaners? How do I know they did? WHAT? Prison?! ME PERSONALLY? Can I pay someone to go for me? No? Okay, okay, okay. Here's what we'll do. We'll pay everybody back - even if their claim is a little iffy. Okay? What are yous talkin' about pay EVERYBODY?!! How many years in the Pen? THAT many?! Okay, okay, okay. So what if we pay back claims made in the Court AND up the rebates and rewards to anyone that MIGHT have gotten hooked by HIM (points again), and any questions about rewards or rebates we fall on the side of the customer. Dat work for ya? Okay, okay, okay. We'll go with that for now and you can hold off on any more prison stuff. Deal? YOU, Consultant Boy - you go straight down to Customer Service right now and tell 'em all to bend over backwards and give all them drivers lotsa points when they call. WHY are you still standin' there? You wanna get fired from consultin' too? Happy? Okay, okay, okay. I'll take a "for now.""

 

Those are everybody's style; runs like that are the reason everybody does OTR.

 

No lie Brother!! Especially when you got an E-Log and run is easy legs, legal, hits low fuel spots just right, skirts the back side of the winter storm locking everything up AND . . . runs all daytime!! I need to figure out who I pissed off so I can do it again! LOL.

"I'll show THAT so-and-so. I'll send him to NEW JERSEY! Yeah. See how he likes THAT! Truck drivers HATE NJ! Hmmph!"

"OH NO Brer Fox; PLEEEAASSEEE don't trow me in dat briar patch!!"

That's prolly more than I shoulda said, other than . . .

Thanks for reading me them bed time stories, then making me read them again myself in Grade School Mom. Joel Chandler Harris was a pretty smart man. Kinda like that Aesop fellow you read to me about too. Different color maybe, but same smarts. Plus one wore a dress and bushes in his hair and the other wore regular clothes and a straw hat. Still. Both pretty darned smart. Helped me a lot. Thanks Ma. Two Texas Shiner Rams hoisted high for you Mom for that and there ain't enough in the whole Spoetzl plant in that dusty Shiner town for all the other things you gave me!! Mom's da Bomb!!

Edit: I'm sure it was nothing like that in planning. I just got lucky on location, hours available, loads available and the computer modeling software. I just wanted to have some fun w/ it. It has been my experience JCT does NOT play those "you pissed off the wrong person" games.

 

Wow. It's been a long time since someone showed a knowledge of that childhood story. It's a phrase I repeat to myself often when I'm about get thrown into dat briar patch! It's so un-PC now that nobody would ever read it to their kids. In my view, that's a pity and they are worse off for it.