Bulkmatic, as it happens...

@Steelersjunkie I caught your post in the other thread and as soon as I get my #### together I will be in touch and we'll try and figure something out. Right now during the training part half the time I'm passing myself at the front door.

 

Getting kicked out of the nest tomorrow afternoon. Saturday morning I do a couple loads on my own, but today I got a pressed into service on my own for a few hours just as a preview.

Got a message on the Qualcomm this morning that when we got back to the yard I was suppose to find another driver that was there waiting and load a flour trailer for him since he didn't know how to transload.

Broke out my notebook and pressed my last 3 working brain cells into service. My trainer swung by our spot when he was on his way out with the next load we were suppose to do to make sure I wasn't totally screwing anything up. Got the thumbs up and went to it. Other then cutting it off really early then having to go back and load more into the trailer it went okay. I got lucky, didn't have to stop 1 time to clean out the screen, the only other flour trailer I loaded we had to stop every 3-4 minutes to clean the screen.

 

If for no other reason then to decrease demand and not have to deal with it.

 

The guy's truck I had to load for had a suspension gauge that did not work. Since he did not have to transload ever he didn't care about it.

I went just by how full the hoppers on the trailer sounded, my ear isn't to accurate yet.

 

Yup, that's me all right.... I'm sure this #### thing is empty. Wrap it all up, roll over the scale and find there's still 1000 pounds hiding in there someplace.

 

Day one on my own has come and gone. It's was a decent day, and a total cluster too, if that makes any sense.

Mostly a confluence of small things. Regular dispatcher was off last week on vacation so in turn not all my information was in the system, in turn I couldn't use the scanner to verify railcar seals I was taking off/replacing and there wasn't another driver around after mid morning to sign the BOLs to verify so couldn't load, compounded by 2 invisible trailers. One I had to 40 minutes this morning to bring back and one that was listed as in use and at the yard at the same time. Weekend dispatch that was trying to sprout more arms to figure out what the #### was going on and get me different crap to do and so on....

The couple things I did do went fairly well considering. Loaded a flour load for an outside driver, caught it #### near on the head on the first try. I won't get use to it but it sure was a nice feeling not having to go back and rehook everything to add to or blow back. Also drug a starch trailer about an hour and a half away and unloaded it. Man, that stuff moved like water, good thing too since my clock was running down.

Monday I head downstate with a dextrose load (Oh, the joy... not really). Already let dispatch know I will be an hour or so late since today ran way past what we had planned on and I need a reset to get any hours back for Monday.

@Steelersjunkie This week I will you my OTR theme song. It's the only song by them I like, but it always seemed to sum it up.