Mike's Book Club: JB Hunt The Long Haul to Success

What were the dark undertones I want to know. I'm sure they did exist. Nothings perfect that's for sure.

 

Silverstone's great I have fun putting her into these posts she's almost like a meme that I pop in for fun. Keep's everyone interested! She's a good sport about it, not that she's bothered to actually tell me one way or the other. I don't know how busy she is researching trucking history in North America.

Although I bet I bet any money that movies she was in when they were made on VHS tape (remember those? I actually have a hooked up and working VCR it was made in 1998! All part of the fun now!) were probably shipped in a J.B. Hunt truck from the VHS tape plant to Suncoast Motion Picture Company Distribution Center's across the country. Then distributed via LTL truck or UPS, FedEx whoever to the local shopping malls. So you see Silverstone was an indirect consumer of Mr. Hunts service.

 

Mr.Stier got lost on the shippers directions. He even said in the book to his dispatcher. The directions say 7th well I'm no where near the warehouse and I'm on 7th.

You know a lot of people have these mentalities where they figure if the company doesn't give me it then I'll just get my self into a jam and won't ever invest anything into making things easier for them selves.

I have a lot of my own gear and equipment more then any other driver I have (3) Fold Downs and not junk either (2) Magliner Gemini's both with solid decks, stair climbers and extended nose options so there not base models they have every ad on you can get and (1) Magliner Gemini XL which comes with decking standard, that one I did not ad anything to. And then I have 2 regular wheelers the one the company gave me and a Wyse 1000 model with drum break and run flat rubber cell tires.

I can't work with inferior things and our communal knock downs at work are awful although. Well one guy ran one over last year cracked the frame on it and then lied and said it over loaded it. Which was a lie those things have a 1200lbs load capacity doing what we do your not going to over load it.

Some of the people at my work drive me crazy and there's a reason we can't have nice things. A lot of people and this isn't me, but a lot of the guys basically come in get in there truck throw trash and garbage all over it and figure it's not mine I'm not going to clean it or do anything to it. One of our transit guys told the city guy he shares with he said to him "Hey uh when your sitting at Great Lakes Cheese for 3 hours don't be afraid you know to like pick up a rag and wipe down the dash board now and then."

"My" old truck was great I had that truck looking like brand new and always got the best service at the shop because when it would go down to the warehouse for work it was always clean and looked like new and so the shop usually made sure it got better quality repairs then our trucks with cigarette ash and tobacco spit all over the inside of the cab:

This was right before they took it away from me. I had just gotten it back from the shop and they had put on all new drive tires and rims!

Then they had an equipment shuffle and they gave my old truck pictured above to another driver who will just say isn't as clean of course this was right after they put new tires on it and new rims.

They gave me a newer truck, but the newer truck I got was taken care of by nobody. It was a shared unit and when I got it, it was out of oil. However other then that it's alright it was a transit unit domiciled at one of our far off sub lots west of me. It spent a good time getting covered in caustic dust and it's alright, but it's not as clean as my other truck. However what ever it's how it goes. But a lot of our trucks some guys take care of and other guys just trash. Everyone is just in a big hurry to go home or where ever they go I don't really know.

We got a lot of guys who don't care they just sit there and struggle. They get a trailer that has no cargo lights they won't even spend money on a flash light or head lamp they just sit there and struggle and cry. But they will waste that same money on lottery tickets. See I was never one to wait for somebody else. Waiting for the company on some stuff is the same thing as waiting for the government. Not everyday, but usually ever so often I get guys at my work "Hey Mike I got such and such a stop can I barrow one of your knock downs?"

One of our senior guys asked me if he could barrow one of mine and I said sure. I asked him later how he liked it. It was this one right here:


It was one of those one of them I bought new the other one I refurbished. He had the refurbished one and he said "Yeah it's good, I like it, because it works."
I had about $300.00 worth of new parts put on it, new air tires and new casters plus decking and stair climbers.

I mean all I can say is sometimes you have to help your self.

 

I have a nice Rand McNally Map of Cleveland, Ohio area it's colored and has fairly small grids nice map bought it at a Gas Station 10 years ago I needed it for Pizza Deliveries because I didn't have a GPS system and it was a good map really well done. Better then our stupid red books that were the standard local maps with there stupid big grids.