My new, final resting place

Sitting at the Pilot waiting for my break to end. This has been one horrid holiday weekend. Busted pickups (not the POV kind, the trucking kind), unhappy delivery personnel, probable fatal accidents with young bodies on the ground, yet another change of DM...and more.

It's weeks like this that remind me how pleasant sitting at home doing nothing but being retired really is...then I get the monthly reminder of my grad school loan payment.

Crap.

 

What a week.

I'm stuck for a bit here at Hillshire waiting for road repair to come fix an inoperative landing gear. The previous driver, probably young, strong, and inexperienced, cranked his empty way up, about 6" higher than the trailers next to it. Now that there's a 41,000 pound load on it, getting it down enough to hook up then down enough to pull away probably damaged the internal workings.

I have one leg up and one leg down and a lopsided trailer. So I wait.

I wish trainers would teach these new drivers right. Or at least have them nearby to fix the problems they create. Experience is a wonderful teacher.

 

Another Sunday morning. Another Love's. Another day without a preplan. All thanks to my new DM, the fourth in six months. And none of the changes initiated by me.

 

The first was a 'trainer' DM, whose job is to indoctrinate all new, experience drivers to the "how-to" of the company and PeopleNet, since not many are that familiar with it. I knew I'd be assigned to him for only a couple of weeks, as every new driver is.

The second was a great experienced DM. It didn't take long to train him to what I liked and wants. Then, I got everything I wanted and needed without hesitation, delay, or whining. He was fired for some reason.

I was just getting used to my third DM, also an experienced guy, when he left. He was getting the flick, so to speak, on what I wanted and always had me making some longer trip over the weekend so I could drive 8-9 hours every day, as I like to do. He accepted a promotion to full-time 24/7 which I guess gives him more flexibility for school since he will work only nights and weekends.

And that brings me to Number Four. I haven't had him long enough to figure him out but there are already some indications he wants to "drive my truck" more than I want him to. But I'll see...

 

And now I have Number 5.

According to an insider I have, Number 4 quit so as not to be fired; he just wasn't taking to the job and wasn't working out for many of his drivers.

My insider, a long-time trainer, made sure I got an experienced, stable, knowledgable DM...his. According to him, she'll keep me "preplanned and running as hard as I want."

Good. Maybe I'm done with DM Changes for a while...

 

Waiting at the Hook just short of the Louisiana/Texas line. I ran out of energy and the desire to continue being beat up by that miserable road called I-20 at the same time.

So, 250 Texas miles tomorrow.