Rusty

I've been driving for a bit over 6 years. Went through the Schneider Training Academy and became a Pumpkin in April 04. Hit 47 states in 8 months. Spent about 5 months in a cabover and 4 in Condo Conventional Well a nifty Dedicated account opened up delivering auto parts to car dealerships using a daycab and a pup. Did that with Schneider for a year and a half. New company took over the account and I kept doing the same thing only with but with a 24' boxtruck with a Synchro 6. Did that for 4 years. The client redesigned the routes and I was one 19 drivers without a chair when the music stopped.

Well after a bit of flailing I've landed a job. Dedicated run, home every night, decent money. That's the good news. The thing I'm stressed about is I'm going to be running a Columbia Condo with a 53' box. I've done what I can to look over the route and it doesn't look ridiculously hard (from what I can see using Google street view it looks like one buttonhook turn and one place that will be a PITA to back into). I'm just a bit stressed since it's been 5 1/2 years since I pulled a long box.

Words of advice? Anyone done something similar and lived to tell the tale?

 

Well survived the road test (about 2 hrs) without too much drama. Was a PITA getting the trailer backed into its spot again (bad setup maybe 40% due to service truck in the aisle and 60% my rusty self).

 

Been running for a week and a half now. Seems longer. Haven't run anything down.

The tractor I'm supposed to be assigned has a 13 speed and I'm still getting used to that. I can run it like a nine speed and then split the top gear to cruise down the highway but I have a devil of time trying to make a splitter and lever shift (ie 7 HI to 8 LO). I've been in a 10 speed loaner truck all this week and that's pretty comfortable.

Sometimes I nail backing into a hole and other times I have a devil of a time. Perversely it seems like the "tight" dock is the easiest one to hit consistently.

I hope I get polished pretty quick because the staffing company I'm working for has apparently lost the contract and will be done in a couple weeks. I put an app and a call in to the new staffing company about a week ago but the phone ain't been ringing. I hope I don't have to start from scratch in the job hunt just yet (I've got my haz mat background check running and my intermediate term plan is to add doubles and haz mat and apply at Fed-EX and Con-Way).