Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Let's see if my old brain is working. Right now, there's Chris, if he doesn't kill himself because of my beautiful hypnotizing personality, he will make it, and I might add, become a great addition to our group of drivers. We just need to make it to next Tuesday.

There's Carl, my last trainee that I had through all his stages to becoming a driver here. He's another one just like Chris who started with a goal, achieved it and is now doing what we do.

There Lee, I had him for a short while, he was a chain smoker that had nicotine permiating through every pore of his body, I figured I would contract stage 4 lung cancer if he and I shared this sardine can, so we put him with another smoker. That was over a year ago, he's still here doing what we do, he and I still talk and he calls me for some information when he's got questions.

The rest of them? I can write a book about each and every one. I started training in August of '13, I had one that worked in overseas oil drilling that was accustomed to making $150-200k per year, his wife wanted him home more so he decided to get his CDL, and wound up as a trainee in my truck. He made it, went solo, then realized in one month he couldn't feed his wife and six kids on the salary he was making and went back to oil drilling.

Another one was a veteran, GI bill and all, trained him through two stages, then quit because he couldn't trust his wife, apparently while he was in Afghanistan she was bedding down with the 82nd Airborne, so he decided to leave the military and drive a truck, well he quit because he thought she was still doing the 82nd airborne.

Then there was the young kid, 22, that lived in his mothers basement and was a gamer, he got on my truck and from day one was gaming and up for hours and hours. When it was his turn to drive he couldn't, I got him back to Richmond and it was decided he needed to go back to his mothers basement and game.

Another one did ok while in training, but the moment he got cut loose, he turned out to be a breathing accident, he couldn't leave the Richmond yard without hitting something or someone. Fired.

That was just a few, every other one made it, hung around a month or two then wrote their own walking papers.

My job is to teach, and share my knowledge, my job is not a shrink, I'm not a marriage counselor, or a financial planner. Those like yourself that have come into the trucking field as a second career and make it, have my utmost respect. Drivers like you, Redtwin, Chralb, Carl and the others that get trained, ask questions, bounce scenarios around and keep a lively discussion going is all I ask for, the ones that show up and waste everyone's time, like mine, do nothing but take a trainer, like myself and waste time that can be used for people that want it.

We are about 5.5 hours out of Colton for our produce load going back to London KY. When next Wednesday gets here, we will have driven a shade over 20k mikes in 3 weeks. And the reason we did? Because of Chris, he showed what he's made of, proved to me and the folks back in Richmond that he can do this job, and do it right. He's being sent out solo when we get back, and I can say without hesitation, he's going to be a great addition at Abilene.

This thousand mile deadhead to Colton will end my pay period, I ended it with 14,095 miles. The most 2 week amount I've ever done.

 

That was him.

 

It was nice seeing you, although it was for just a wave. We had to roll otherwise I would have walked over to you. Enjoy your hometime when you get there.