My First Couple of months

Well, it's been a couple of months now. I finished my training and got my first truck assignment on May 15.

Training was not too bad. I started training just as miles started dropping off. It took me about 3 weeks to get my first 75 hours of drive time in. Emmanuel, my trainer, was awesome. He was patient and encouraging. I made a few mistakes and he just looked at me and said, "Now you won't wanna do that again."

My second tier of training was great. I was put with Dan on the Honda run from Tennessee to Oregon to California, through Oklahoma City to Ohio. We averaged about 6000 miles a week between the two of us. I knocked out the rest of my required hours of driving in two and a half weeks more. I went to Van Buren and tested out. I can't complain about the training program.

I had two great trainers in Emmanuel and Dan. They taught me ins and outs of the company and what to look out for. They also taught me how to communicate and work with the dispatchers and fleet managers. Picked up little things here and there.

Took a long bus ride to Vandalia, OH. My least favorite place in the world. Picked up my truck. It was so dirty, it took 5 hours and about 40.00 in cleaning supplies to clean it up. The previous driver put his cigarrettes out on the floor of the truck and there was a grease film covering everything including the walls.

My truck is a 9400i automatic. It has 420,000 miles on it. It shakes when going downhill. The icon is broken right now, but I'm avoiding getting into a shop to get it fixed. Don't wanna be stuck in a terminal forever.

The only problem with the truck so far was the Turbo breaking. I was routed to Vandalia and they took 4 days to even touch my truck and when they finally did, it took 15 minutes to fix the problem. Serves me right for saying, "Sure, I think I can make it 300 miles to Vandalia to get it in the shop." I should have said, "Nah, it won't move. Better get it fixed out here on the road."

My miles have been so so. I had one really good week with 3400 miles. The rest of the weeks have been between 1200 to 2000 miles. this week is shaping up to be about 2600 miles.

I'm wondering about the pay scale. When do I get my raises and how much will they be? I started at .26 a mile. I understand it should go to .34 by the end of year one. If anyone knows how much and when, I'd appreciate it.

I'm sitting at a TA on I84 in New York right now headed to MA. I'll probably get stuck in the Northeast for a few weeks.

Not on the CB cause I can't afford one yet. Saving up my Pilot points though.

Irish

 

Well since posting this, I've moved to a different truck. I'm in 1276. It's also a 9400 automatic. The ICON works great in this truck, but I've rarely used it. I got used to turning the truck on and off myself. I'm hitting the three month mark this week. I'll get my first raise. I've had pretty good milage and have kept relatively busy. It all averages out financially. It will be nice when I get to making decent money, but I gotta earn my stripes... And I got a radio. Eman was an awesome trainer. He helped me out a lot. I was impressed at his patience and his amazingly clean truck.