J&R Schugel Trucking

Well Florida is home. I grew up just West of Lakeland in Plant City ( that is where my truck sleeps when I am home ). I live just South of Dunedin in a little town called Seminole ... no room to park a 70 foot tractor trailer around there .. your neighbors are on top of you .. LITERALLY!

 

Haven't been there .... yet. I'm at the Love's just South of the terminal. I will be sure to check it out next time I'm up this way.

By the way I saw where you were thinking of coming back ... you going to do it or you happy where you are now?

 

As you may recall I started at J&R Schugel as a student driver and went through their 4 weeks of training and am now getting paid on a graduated scale up to my first year of employment with them.

My cents per mile increase every 3 months, I just received my first raise with my last pay check. I was a bit confused about how it worked so I asked some questions to get clarification.

The pay scale works like this:

0-3 Months: .34
3-6 Months: .35
6-9 Months: .36
9-12 Months: .37
12th Month: .38

Then a review + raise every 6 months.

When they say months I was not sure if it was full calendar months or if it started counting from the day you start, in my case August 28th I went solo. It turns out it is full months, so for me it was September, October & November. My first pay raise went into effect with my first pay check in December.

This is the case with the tuition reimbursement as well, it kicks in after your first full month solo, so I got my first payout at the end of October. They pay that out at the end of each month, currently it is $300 per month for 12 months no matter how much you paid for your school.

Enough about that boring stuff let's talk about something a bit more fun ..... MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH SNOW!

I picked up a load in Winchester, Virginia on 12/3 bound for Mankato, Minnesota for deliver on 12/6 .... OK no problem I can make it in plenty of time. As I start heading North the temperature begins to drop dramatically ... I start thinking in the back of my head that I am going to get caught in a snow storm and be stuck. I check the weather and it was clear for the time being but they were predicting some snow after I am going to be out of the area ... OK cool. Fast forward to 12/5 ... I am in Tomah, Wisconsin at the Love's and it is COLD ... if I recall correctly it was 19 degrees that day with a wind chill of 3 degrees. This Florida boy was out of his element for sure ... I was freezing!

I woke up on 12/6 and started heading toward Walmart in Mankato, Minnesota. On the way there I begin seeing dark clouds forming and it looked a little like precipitation was in the very near future ... I was right. Just outside of Mankato it started snowing and just kept getting worse and worse. I got into Walmart with no problem ... while there the wind picked up and it started blowing the snow and it piled up in their lot.

This was my very first time seeing snow, being from Florida we only see it on TV ... LOL. I did pretty good driving in it too ... at least I think I did. I did not slide or skid so that is a good sign I did OK.

It came time for me to leave so I go inside to get my paperwork walking over the snow was a bit challenging, I slid a couple of times but did not fall. I spent the night at the terminal in New Ulm and headed out early to pick up my load to Florida.

That load picked up in Marshall, Minnesota from Schwan's. There in Marshall it was 1 degree with a wind chill of -15 .... that is REALLY COLD! I get loaded there and start heading South, the temperature begins to rise a little. It was 20 degrees when I stopped in Illinois. From there the temperature kept improving and I was getting into temps that I was a little more comfortable and the snow had long since ended. On 12/8 my planned stopped was in Northern Georgia, for those keeping score 12/8 was Friday and if you watched the news you know Georgia got some snow Friday. So here I am back in the #### snow. It snowed pretty hard there in Georgia, the DOT was out all night plowing and brining the roads.

Now here I sit at home with the temperature 60 degrees and my dad looking at me like I am crazy because I am wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I told him this is not cold .... up North is cold. LOL.

My first experience with snow went well, I stayed upright and did not skid or slide. I know not to get ####y though, it's dangerous to drive in such conditions but we have to do it sometimes.